EN4439 Poetry and Failure

Academic year

2025 to 2026 Semester 2

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Key module information

SCOTCAT credits

30

The Scottish Credit Accumulation and Transfer (SCOTCAT) system allows credits gained in Scotland to be transferred between institutions. The number of credits associated with a module gives an indication of the amount of learning effort required by the learner. European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits are half the value of SCOTCAT credits.

SCQF level

SCQF level 10

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) provides an indication of the complexity of award qualifications and associated learning and operates on an ascending numeric scale from Levels 1-12 with SCQF Level 10 equating to a Scottish undergraduate Honours degree.

Availability restrictions

Spaces are allocated by Honours advisors in the School of English, following choices entered by students at pre-advising.

Planned timetable

Thursday 1-3pm

This information is given as indicative. Timetable may change at short notice depending on room availability.

Module coordinator

Dr R Campbell

Dr R Campbell
This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module Staff

Dr Rosa Campbell

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module description

When Marianne Moore writes of poetry, ‘I, too, dislike it’; when Plato banishes poets from his utopian Republic; when Amiri Baraka declares that ‘poems are bullshit unless they are / teeth or trees or lemons’; or when W.H. Auden claims that ‘poetry makes nothing happen,’ they are all facing up to the problem of poetry and failure. This module explores this idea across time, covering texts from the Renaissance to the present day, and students will be encouraged to develop their own research interests to think trans-temporally about poetics. Working through poetry about failure, poetry that fails, the poetics of failure, and failures of reading, we will consider incompletion, uselessness, error, silliness, difficulty, limits, silence, embarrassment, refusal, and just plain badness. The module will provide intensive training in close reading, helping students develop a detailed understanding of the mechanics of form and technique, whilst thinking, ultimately, about the "point" of poetry.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisites

BEFORE TAKING THIS MODULE YOU MUST PASS EN2003 AND PASS EN2004

Assessment pattern

Coursework = 100%

Re-assessment

Coursework = 100%

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact

1 x 2-hour seminar per week, and 2 optional consultative hours per week, over 11 weeks.

Scheduled learning hours

44

The number of compulsory student:staff contact hours over the period of the module.

Guided independent study hours

256

The number of hours that students are expected to invest in independent study over the period of the module.

Intended learning outcomes

  • Develop a high-level understanding of poetic form and technique, and be able to deploy this in sophisticated analysis of poetry.
  • Demonstrate an ability and willingness to approach texts across periods, both within and abstracted from their historical contexts.
  • Interrogate the theoretical idea of ‘failure’ as it exists in critical theory and contemporary discourse.
  • Demonstrate originality, creativity and independent research in carrying out written and recorded assessments.