Modern Spanish Poetry: The Search for Meaning
| Module title | Modern Spanish Poetry: The Search for Meaning |
|---|---|
| Module code | MLS2064 |
| Academic year | 2020/1 |
| Credits | 15 |
| Module staff | (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 15 |
|---|
Module description
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) and Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958) produced, in different periods, poetry concerned with the status and mission of the poetic act. Bécquer’s verse is affective, lyrical and emotionally charged, while that of Jiménez, equally simple in form, has profound philosophical content. Both consciously communicate and reflect upon what poetry itself means to them and how they respectively pursue its elusive meanings in a striving towards beauty and truth. In the work of each the written word offers an opportunity to reach outside of their here and now and, with an acute sense of an intuitive truth informing their creative work, touch the infinite. The written poetic word, invested with transcendent meaning, attains the status of the ultimate signifier and is a means of making sense of human experience and aspiration.
In order to study this course, students will need to have completed successfully either MLS1001 or MLS1056 at Level 1.
Module aims - intentions of the module
The aim of the module is to encourage students to reflect upon how poetry is created and what words truly mean. This involves considering Bécquer’s ideas on inspiration and composition and how Jiménez develops an awareness of how words are subject to individual experience, enhanced and extended by the poetic sensibility. Bécquer, in sentimental terms, seems to view poetry as in the service of beauty and love, so that woman becomes ‘el verbo poético hecho carne’ and human love acquires a religious dimension that is consonant with Spanish post-Romanticism. Jiménez regards poetic enunciation as a means of creating a fully satisfactory philosophy of life and the world and a way of achieving an unorthodox but confident immortality. Both are indebted to Plato and Platonic idealism: Jiménez more explicitly so, his proclamation that ‘la belleza, junto con la verdad, son los dos grandes asuntos de este mundo’ exemplifying the connection and providing parallels, crucial to an understanding of both poets’ work, with the English Romantics Keats and Shelley. As we shall see, Bécquer’s work has many affinities with that of Shelley, while Jiménez was a successful translator of both Shelley and Keats. The module will thus be considering some of the largest philosophical issues contained in western culture via a close reading of poetry that is both easily accessible and intellectually rewarding, and will introduce (or develop) students’ familiarity with some of that historical culture’s most influential texts.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Demonstrate a sound understanding of the chosen texts, including reference to their place in the historical / literary / cultural context of their time
- 2. Recognize the place of these texts in Spanish and broader European cultural history and aesthetics.
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 3. With some guidance from the course tutor, evaluate and apply a range of critical approaches to the material covered.
- 4. Prepare a detailed argument in the appropriate register of English and select a range of textual or other evidence in its support
- 5. Demonstrate an understanding of a range of critical terms in written and oral contexts.
- 6. Analyse selected TL texts and relate them to significant elements in their cultural / historical / generic context
- 7. Explore recommended reference works to draw up a bibliography, within given parameters (chronological, thematic, etc) on a specified topic
- 8. Recognize the origins and nature of cultural differences.
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 9. Undertake defined learning activities with a measure of autonomy, asking for guidance where necessary.
- 10. Assimilate, select and organize material in order to produce, to a deadline, a written or oral argument.
- 11. Present a cogent and sustained argument on a topic chosen from a range of options provided, following broad guidelines but selecting and adapting them as required
- 12. Using course material provided, conduct your own research and prepare an essay on a chosen aspect of the subject to a specified length and deadline
Syllabus plan
The module will consider:
- Poetic inspiration and composition understood in metaphysical terms (Lecture)
- The theme of the idealist in search of beauty in Romanticism and modernismo (Lecture)
- Platonic motifs of beauty and love: Plato’s Symposium in Spanish poetry(Lecture)
- Links with Plato’s Phaedo and the immortality of the soul in Spanish verse (Lecture)
- A sympathetic natural landscape: Shelley’s ‘On Love’ (Lecture)
- The primacy of the other-worldly in Bécquer (Seminars)
- Bécquer’s impossible idealism (Seminars)
- Jiménez’s elusive ideal (Seminars)
- Jiménez’s apprehension of the immortal (Seminars)
- Truth and meaning in Bécquer and Jiménez (Seminars)
- Revision
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | 134 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 5 | Full contextual introduction |
| Guided independent study | 134 | Independent study including reading and preparation for classes and assessments |
| Scheduled learning and teaching | 11 | Interpretation and analysis of texts |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Textual commentary | 750 Words | 1, 3-7, 9,10, 12, | Written and face-to-face |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | 100 | 3000 Words | 1-12 | Feedback sheet |
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | Essay | 1-12 | Refer/Defer period |
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Rimas (any edition)
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, ‘cartas literarias a una mujer’
Juan Ramón Jiménez, Antolojía poética (e.g. Alianza Editorial, 2002)
Plato, The Symposium (Penguin Classics)
Plato, ‘Phaedo’, in The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics)
Percy B. Shelley, ‘A Defence of Poetry’ and ‘On Love’ in any edition of his prose works
Indicative learning resources - Other resources
An anthology of further material will be made available to students
| Credit value | 15 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 7.5 |
| Module pre-requisites | MLS1001 or MLS1056 |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 5 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 13/02/2013 |
| Last revision date | 13/02/2013 |