Creative Writing: Reawakening Wonder with Wordsworth, Hopkins, and Bradbury (Summer)

“There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, / The earth, and every common sight, / To me did seem / Apparelled in celestial light, / The glory and the freshness of a dream.” Yet this wonder soon fades into the light of common day. Can wonder be captured again, perhaps even in a deepened sense? That is the question we seek to answer in the affirmative in Creative Writing: Reawakening Wonder with Wordsworth, Hopkins, and Bradbury. We will not be reading the canons of Wordsworth, Hopkins, and Bradbury, but rather only select texts. Nor will close-reading be our primary aim, though we will be closely reading, and engaging in various ways with, works from these authors.

I suspect the rekindling of wonder in sophomores, juniors, and seniors, or any of us after a certain age, is akin to the pursuit of happiness. One cannot expect to find happiness by single-mindedly pursuing happiness. It comes by way of pursuing other things. So it is with rekindling wonder. Content and context will prove necessary. The boundaries will not stop with the lines of the poems and pages of these works; they will encompass active reflection on the part of the students on their own lives, given their position standing on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood, and the world around them, particularly the natural world. The concerns of the texts, it is hoped, will become their concerns for the course.

Key works will include Wordsworth’s "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"; a selection of Hopkins's poems on the presence of God in the natural world and His transcendence; and Bradbury's lyrical, joy-filled, at times poignant novel of summer, Dandelion Wine.

This is a creative writing course. Students will write in a variety of modes: narrative, memoir, description, reflection based on the texts, vignette, explication, prose poem or poetry, and journaling. They will engage in analysis of the texts, and the texts, as well as the analysis, will provide jumping off points for reflection. Nature will also provide a text. Students will be required to spend time simply outside, sometimes with pen and paper, other times not. We shall seek to capture wonder, in these days of assumed materialism, cheap cynicism, and easy relativism. And we shall do so by sneaking up on it.

Grading:

Grading will be based on the following (with some individual assignments weighted more than others):

70 percent: Essays and written work in other modes 10 percent: Journal assignments 10 percent: Notes 10 percent: Live session participation

Course Objectives:

1. Understand the concept of poetic knowledge and be able to distinguish from other types of knowledge.
2. Reflect upon the concept of wonder as it relates to our experience of the world.
3. Enhance close-reading.
4. Write effectively in a variety of modes: narrative, description, memoir, vignette, reflection based on texts, vignette, explication, prose poem or poetry, and journaling.

Texts:

• Bradbury, Ray. Dandelion Wine. ISBN: 0553277537
• Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Selected Poems. Dover Thrift Edition. ISBN: 048647867X
• Wordsworth, William. Favorite Poems. Dover Thrift Edition. ISBN: 0486270734
• Additional essays and poems, provided by the instructor