HA977-30 Visual Art and Poetry

Department: SCAPVC - History of Art
Level: Taught Postgraduate Level
Module leader: Michael Hatt
Credit value: 30
Module duration: 10 weeks
Assessment: 90% coursework, 10% exam
Study location: University of Warwick main campus, Coventry

Introductory description

This module explores the relationships between poetry and visual art in the modern period.

Module aims

More than simply subject matter and stylistic movements, the module will examine fundamental and theoretical connections between poetry and visual art, exploring such matters as ways of making (e.g. collage), particular forms (e.g., the book, the mise-en-page), collaborative endeavours, and, in the post-war world, the use of poetry as a visual form and vice versa. The themes of ekphrasis and description will run through the module, asking students to consider and evaluate the ways in which poetic language describes objects and visual experience, and how these relate to other art-historical rhetorics.

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Ekphrasis, Description and Poetry
Victorian Art and Poetry Pre-Raphaelitism and Aestheticism
Modernism: Collage and Montage
Modernism: Pound, Stein and the Visual Arts
Post-War Poets Painters and Place: O'Hara and the New York School, W. S. Graham and St. Ives
Poetry Plastique: Vito Acconci and the New York Art/Poetry Scene
The Artist's Book and the Poet's Mise-en-page
Ian Hamilton Finlay and Concrete Poetry
Minimalism
Contemporary Poets and the Visual: Susan Howe and Cole Swensen

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

Demonstrate a detailed grasp of the history and theory of relations between visual art and poetry
Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the works studied and their contexts
Deploy these ideas critically in relation to other forms of art and culture
Show a critical awareness of current debates about 1930s art
Initiate and sustain group discussion through intelligent questioning and debate at an appropriate level
Ability to undertake research and to write up the results in the form using accurately specific techniques of analysis and enquiry at an appropriate level
Familiarity with essential ICT skills
Ability to collaborate effectively with others
Show understanding of diverse viewpoints
Ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
Ability to formulate a sustained argument
Think conceptually and independently at an appropriate level
Ability to evaluate one’s own needs and intellectual progress
Ability to conduct independent research and analysis
Sophisticated visual and textual analysis
Bibliographical skills at an appropriate level
Critical analysis of cultural artefacts in their context

Indicative reading list

Yves Abrioux, Ian Hamilton Finlay: A Visual Primer, London: Reaktion Books, 2006
Vito Acconci and Bernadette Mayer, 0 to 9: The Complete Magazine, NY: Ugly Duckling Press, 2006
Carl Andre, Poems, Distributed Art Publishing Inc., 2014
Louis Aragon, Les Collages, Paris: Hermann, 1980
Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987
Rebecca Beasley, Ezra Pound and the Visual Culture of Modernism, Cambridge: CUP, 2010
J. B. Bullen, Rossetti: Painter and Poet, London: Francis Lincoln, 2011
Johanna Drucker, The Visible Word, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994
Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artists' Books, NY: Granary Pres, 1995
W. S. Graham, New Collected Poems, Faber & Faber, 2005
James Heffernan, Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993
Susan Howe, This That, New Directions, 2010
Richard Humphreys, ed., Pound's Artists, London: Tate Gallery, 1985
Hans Robert Jauss, 'Poiesis,' Critical Inquiry, Spring 1982, pp. 591-608
Joan Lyons, ed., Artists' Books: a critical anthology and sourcebook, NY: Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1985
Robert Motherwell, ed., The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, 2nd edition, 1981
Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003
Marjorie Perloff, Poetry On and Off the Page, University of Alabama Press, 2004
Peter Reading, Marfan, Bloodaxe, 2000
Alistair Rider, Carl Andre, Phaidon, 2011
Jay Sanders and Charles Bernstein, Poetry Plastique, New York: Marianne Boelsky Gallery, 2001
Aram Saroyan, Complete Minimal Poems, 2nd edition, NY: Primary Information, 2014
Cole Swensen, The Glass Age. Alice James Books, 2007

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

Demonstrate a detailed grasp of the history and theory of relations between visual art and poetry
Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the works studied and their contexts
Deploy these ideas critically in relation to other forms of art and culture
show a critical awareness of current debates about 1930s art
sophisticated visual and textual analysis
critical analysis of cultural artefacts in their context

Transferable skills

initiate and sustain group discussion through intelligent questioning and debate at an appropriate level
ability to undertake research and to write up the results in the form using accurately specific techniques of analysis and enquiry at an appropriate level
familiarity with essential ICT skills
ability to collaborate effectively with others
show understanding of diverse viewpoints
ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
ability to formulate a sustained argument
think conceptually and independently at an appropriate level
ability to evaluate one’s own needs and intellectual progress
ability to conduct independent research and analysis
bibliographical skills at an appropriate level

Study time

Type	Required
Seminars	9 sessions of 4 hours (12%)
Tutorials	3 sessions of 1 hour (1%)
Project supervision	1 session of 2 hours (1%)
Practical classes	2 sessions of 2 hours (1%)
Private study	255 hours (85%)
Total	300 hours

Private study description

Required and recommended reading for seminars and tutorials and research for written assessment.

Costs

No further costs have been identified for this module.

You do not need to pass all assessment components to pass the module.

Assessment group D

	Weighting	Eligible for self-certification
Assessment component
Written Assignment	90%	Yes (extension)
Coursework totaling 5,000 words
Reassessment component is the same
Assessment component
Engagement	10%	No
Preparedness for and contribution to seminar discussion and seminar presentation and other tasks
Reassessment component
None		No
There can be no re-assessment for seminar participation

Feedback on assessment

Written feedback and dedicated feedback tutorials.

Past exam papers for HA977

Pre-requisites

Courses

This module is Option list A for:

Year 1 of THAA-V4PJ Postgraduate Taught History of Art and Visual Studies

This module is Option list C for:

Year 1 of TPHA-V7PN Postgraduate Taught Philosophy and the Arts