'A terrible beauty is born': poetry in revolutionary times

What is the course about?

Many people feel we are in a period of growing crisis with the Russia/Ukraine War, the climate crisis and the rise of populism and intolerance in many parts of the world. In the 1930s, in a similar period of crisis, Auden wrote “poetry makes nothing happen”, meaning it has no effect on how people and governments behave. Was he right? In this in-college literature course, we will be looking at how some poets have responded to living in revolutionary periods by writing poems that have illuminated what is happening and helped people to understand, cope with and sometimes resist change that can be violent and threatening.

The aim of the course is to show how some great poets faced frightening political times and wrote about them
brilliantly, showing how we too can find (and perhaps write) poetry that gives us strength and consolation in these
difficult times.

What will we cover?

We look at Wordsworth's, Blake's and Shelley's reactions to the French and American Revolutions, and the ways in which as radicals they coped with the most repressive British government there has ever been, building through Blake’s and Shelley’s increasingly angry critiques to Shelley’s The Masque of Anarchy, his furious response to the Peterloo Massacre.
We will then read some 20th century poets who responded to the political turmoil of their times: Mayakovsky, Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam, and Anna Akhmatova responding to the Russian revolution and its increasingly destructive aftermath; and several poets who held out against repression from the 1950s – Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert and (more subtly) Wislawa Szymborska in Poland, and Miroslav Holub in Czechoslovakia.

We will look at the personal cost to these poets – how some were imprisoned, sometimes repeatedly; others forced into exile, suffered career failures or hid what they were doing, masking their critiques as something else or refusing to publish. But they all wrote brilliantly and we will consider how far their courage under political pressure enabled them to write so well.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...

• Understand how a range of poets responded to periods of political revolution
• Appreciate these poets’ power and originality
• Enjoy reading and discussing many fine poems.

What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?

You should be interested in how and why poets have responded to political pressure. No particular knowledge or
skills are needed.

How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?

The sessions are run in a seminar style with all students invited to read poems if they wish and take part in discussions led by the tutor. You will receive the materials several days beforehand so you can read them and be ready to discuss them.

Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?

No, photocopies of the poems will be provided at the beginning of each session.

When I've finished, what course can I do next?

Laurie Smith will also be teaching HLT52 'Struggle to be heard: Rimbaud, Cavafy,Tsvetaeva, Binta Breeze' starting on 2 May for 4 weeks. Look for all poetry classes at www.citylit.ac.uk under History, Culture and Writing/literature/poetry.