We will study the work of four American women poets, from four different centuries, who each had a remarkable impact on American literature. Anne Bradstreet, writing in the seventeenth century, was the first poet living in the American colonies to publish a book. Writing in the late eighteenth century, Phillis Wheatley published the first book ever by a black American. And in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries respectively, Emily Dickinson and Gertrude Stein each redefined both the creative possibilities of language and the lives possible for literary women.

We will read widely from the collected poems, and in some cases letters, of these four poets, considering their work both individually and in the contexts of the development of American poetry and the evolving positions of American writers and American women.

The course will be based substantially on discussion; attentive reading and creative thinking are essential. Course requirements will include participation in discussion, two papers, a presentation, and two exams.