ENCW 206 - Literature and Landscape: O Earth, What Changes Hast Thou Seen!

CR: 3
From Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura to Tennyson’s In Memoriam to contemporary post-apocalyptic poetry and fiction, writers have long reckoned with the history of the natural world and their place in it. This course will explore how artists’ knowledge of the natural world shapes how they respond to it. We will look at the influence of science writers and thinkers on canonical poets, essayists, and fiction writers; we will explore how contemporary writers respond to current conversations about climate change and environmental disaster; and we will engage our own local landscape and our relationship to it. Students will write analytical papers, putting unlikely writers in conversations. Offered alternate years. Students will complete both creative and analytical assignments. III.W, V.2, V.6b