Classics & the Force of English Poetry

Course description: For many readers of English, the echoes of Classics are felt, but perhaps not identifiable. Equally, many readers of the Classics might be unaware of how millennia of reception have altered the classics themselves. Our aim is to chart the trajectory of Classical Latin poetry through English-language poetry, observing how English poets are shaped by (and indeed reshape) three crucially important Roman poets: Catullus, Horace, and Virgil. In conjunction, we will look at a series of English-language poets who have written their own versions of these poems—sometimes as translations, but especially by reassimilating the original poem into something new. We will read touchstone ancient poems (in Latin/Greek or plain translation) by Homer, Sappho, Virgil, Catullus, and Horace alongside selections from Pope, Milton, Campion, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Phillis Wheatley, Ernest Dowson, Frost, Christopher Logue, and Anne Carson. We will supplement poetry with linguistic/translation theory by Saussure, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and C.H. Sisson.