Twentieth-Century English Poetry: Between Lyric and Epic

By Prof. Aruni Mahapatra | IIT Roorkee

Learners enrolled: 448 | Exam registration: 10

ABOUT THE COURSE:

This course will offer a comprehensive and unique introduction to a canonical and indispensable literary field: Twentieth Century Poetry in English. The course will be a useful addition to the NPTEL course offerings because it covers poets and poems not covered in other courses. The selection is also based on new scholarship in the literary history of English poetry. Scholars have recently begun to study the multiple ways in which lyric poetry fills important links in the history of modernism. Hence the unconventional beginning with the lyric poems of Thomas Hardy, usually known as a writer of late Victorian realist prose. The lyric voice of Hardy overshadows a wide range of poetic work to follow in the 20th century. The course then reads the pathos of war, and the consolations of religious faith, in the lyrics of HD and T. S. Eliot. The mid-century focus falls on the work of Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop, and Sylvia Plath, a powerful trio of American women poets. The course then turns to two epics of the twentieth century: Walcott’s Omeros and Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover. Overall, these works provide a wide-ranging, exhaustive, and representative view of twentieth century poetry. Taken together, a study of these poets and poems allows this course to exemplify a study of diverse themes such as gender, race, empire, along with a sensitive and historically accurate attention to the intricacies of genre, tone, style, and form. Both close-reading, and historically-oriented contextual readings will situate these writers in a composite history of twentieth-century poetry.

INTENDED AUDIENCE:
This course will appeal to the following audiences:

1. Individuals engaged in the formal study of English literature at the UG, PG, and Ph.D level.

2. Individuals pursuing their study of English Literature from their own interest.

3. General readers who have read classic works of English literature on their own,and wish to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the history, context, and theory of the Victorianera.

4. Any young professional who would like to develop their profile, employability, and soft skills by learning the art of close reading, critical thinking, and empathetic imagination.

PREREQUISITES: None. Students should be comfortable reading and writing English prose and poetry.

INDUSTRY SUPPORT:
All industries value the following skills, that accrue from the study of literature, and writing about literature:

1. Effective verbal and written communication

2. Decision making

3. Leadership

4. Emotional intelligence

5. A wide range of soft skills

Summary

Course Status :	Upcoming
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences English Studies
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	21 Jul 2025
End Date :	10 Oct 2025
Enrollment Ends :	04 Aug 2025
Exam Registration Ends :	15 Aug 2025
Exam Date :	26 Oct 2025 IST
NCrF Level	4.5 — 8.0

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1 : Last Romantics: Yeats and Hardy

Module 1 : The Long Twentieth Century

Module 2 : “Lake Isle of Innisfree”: Art of Close Reading

Module 3 : Romanticism, Victorianism, and their Legacies

Module 4 : Grief, Writing, and Elegy

Module 5 : Thomas Hardy, Poems 1912-1913

Week 2 : Stevens, Frost, and Beyond

Module 1 : Frost and Victorian Poetics

Module 2 : American pastoral

Module 3 : Wallace Stevens and American modernism

Module 4 : “Anecdote of the Jar”

Module 5 : Intertextual Connections

Week 3: Marianne Moore

Module 1 : The American Century

Module 2 : “A Service to the English Language” Marianne Moore’s linguistic prowess

Module 3 : The Poetry of Objects

Module 4 : Marianne Moore, Complete Poems

Module 5 : Intertextual Connections

Week 4: Imagism and Beyond

Module 1 : The Great War and Poetry

Module 2 : “Eurydice” and Modern Hellenism

Module 3 : HD, Trilogy

Module 4 : William Carlos Williams: Physician, Scholar, Poet

Module 5 : The Red Wheel Barrow

Week 5: Eliot and Auden

Module 1 : The Great War and its Humanity

Module 2 : Illness, Care, and Poetry

Module 3 : T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets: 1

Module 4 : T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets: 2

Module 5 : Auden, Another Time (1940)

Week 6: Auden and Larkin

Module 1 : Post War Aesthetics

Module 2 : “the Auden group”: Classicism, Marxism, and Poetry

Module 3 : Auden, The Age of Anxiety (1948)

Module 4 : Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived (1955)

Module 5 : Philip Larkin, High Windows (1974)

Week 7: Elizabeth Bishop, Selected Poems

Module 1 : Poetry and Globalization

Module 2 : American Lyricism

Module 3 : Nationalism and Postcolonialism

Module 4 : Bishop and the Western Literary Canon

Module 5 : Intertextual Connections

Week 8: Sylvia Plath, Selected Poems

Module 1 : Poetry and Education

Module 2 : Domestic Lyricism

Module 3 : The Modern Elegy

Module 4 : Plath and Modernity

Module 5 : Intertextual Connections

Week 9: Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language

Module 1 : Poetry and Politics

Module 2 : Poems and Intellectual Labor

Module 3 : Feminism and Language

Module 4 : Race, Gender, and Form

Module 5 : Intertextual Connections

Week 10: Derek Walcott, Omeros

Module 1 : Postcolonial Homer

Module 2 : Poetry in the Caribbean

Module 3 : A Transnational Poetics

Module 4 : Writing Back

Module 5 : Race, Writing, and Difference

Week 11: James Merrill, The Changing Light at Sandover

Module 1 : Hellenism and Modernity

Module 2 : Literature and Queer Autobiography

Module 3 : Verse Novel: A History

Module 4 : The Modern Epic

Module 5 : Ghosts of Literary Pasts

Week 12: Arun Kolatkar’s Anglophone Worlds

Module 1 : Pilgrim Poetry: English in India and Beyond

Module 2 : Bilingual Modernism in English

Module 3 : Temple Country: Jejuri and English Realism

Module 4 : Modernism and Satirein 20th century India

Module 5 : Looking forward: the21st century and beyond

Books and references

Jahan Ramazani, A Transnational Poetics Douglas Mao, Solid Objects Chris Baldick, The Modern Era (Oxford History of EnglishLiterature) Helen Vendler, The Music of What Happens

Instructor bio

Prof. Aruni Mahapatra

IIT Roorkee

Prof. Aruni Mahapatra is currently Assistant Professor of English at IIT, Roorkee. Prior to joining IIT Roorkee, he was Assistant Professor of English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA. He has a Ph.D in English from Emory University, and Masters degrees in English from Emory University and the University of Delhi. His teaching and research has been recognized by multiple organizations, including Harvard University, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation, USA. His writing has appeared in multiple peer-reviewed volumes, including Cambridge University Press and the Taylor and Francis Group

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams : October 26, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Roorkee. It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team