INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA
COURSE OUTLINE
Kulliyyah Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences
Department English Language and Literature
Programme BENL
Course Title Literary Genres I: Poetry
Course Code ENGL 1515
Status Core
Level 1
Credit Hours 3
Contact Hours 3
Pre-requisites Nil
(if any)
Co-requisites Nil
(if any)
Teacher Centered Student Centered
Instructional Lectures Task and problem
Strategies based activities
Presentations
Instructor(s) Wan Nur Madiha binti Ramlan
Semester Every Semester
Offered
Course Synopsis This course aims to introduce students to the elements of poetry with
emphasis on discovery of meaning by reading analytically. Major forms
are examined, along with aspects of imagery, figurative language,
rhythm, and sound. Selected American and British poems are studied as
well as some poems, written or translated into English, from the corpus
of world literature. Critical reading and writing are stressed to explore
1
the relationships between poetry, art, culture and the human experience.
The course also aims to raise the students’ awareness of the need for
appreciation of poetry as an important part of the Islamic experience.
Course The objectives of this course are to:
Objectives 1. enable students to understand and enjoy poetry and to view poetry
from the Western and Islamic perspectives.
2. expose students to common literary terms and literary periods.
3. enable students to write critical essays on literature.
4. improve students’ writing and speaking skills.
Learning Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
Outcomes 1. explain interpret common literary terms, poetic forms and devices
(C3, CS3);
2. respond to the poems under discussion (P3, CTPS3); and
3. discuss and argue poems from the Western and Islamic perspectives
(A3, TS3).
Course
Assessment Method % Due Dates
State weightage Group Presentation 20 Weeks 13-14
of each type of Assignment 10 Week 5
assessment.
Class Test 10
Mid-term Examination 20 Week 7
Final Examination 40
Total 100
Content Outlines
Weeks Topics Task/Reading
1 1. Introduction Hasan (2014): “Good literature and
2. Islam and Poetry bad literature: Debate on Islam and
poetry”.
Examples of poetry from Muslim
poets.
2 3. Types of Poetry: Lyric, Kennedy & Gioia (2005): Chapter 1.
Narrative and Dramatic
4. Rhyme, Rhythm and Metre Wainwright (2004): Chapter 4
(“Measures”).
3 5. Closed Forms: The stanza Kennedy & Gioia (2005): Chapter 10.
(Couplet, tercet, quatrain); (“Formal Patterns”) & Chapter 7
The Ballad. (“Ballads”).
Strand & Boland (2001): (“The
Stanza”).
Wainwright (2004): Chapter 7.
2
4 6. Closed Forms continued: Kennedy & Gioia (2005): Chapter 10
Villanelle; Sonnet. (“Other Forms”, “Sonnet”).
Strand & Boland (2001): (“The
Villanelle” & “The Sonnet”).
5 [Link]
Kennedy & Gioia (2005): Chapter 5
(“About Haiku”)
7. Closed Forms continued: [Link]
Haiku, Ghazal, Pantoum oetic-form-ghazal
Strand & Boland (2001): Chapter I
(“The Pantoum”)
6-7 Kennedy & Gioia (2005): Chapter 11.
8. Visual Poetry
9. Open Form Poetry/Free Strand & Boland (2001): (Part IV:
Verse and Blank Verse “Open Forms”).
Wainwright, J. (2004): Chapter 5.
8 10. Themes: Culture and
Ethnicity, Gender, other Various notes and poems.
forms of identity.
9 11. Figures of Sound:
Alliteration, Assonance, Kennedy & Gioia (2005): Chapter 8
Consonance, (remaining sections).
Onomatopoeia.
10-11 12. Figures of Speech:
Simile, Metaphor,
Personification, Transferred
Epithet, Apostrophe,
Hyperbole,
Understatement. Kennedy & Gioia (2005): Chapter 6.
Synecdoche, Metonymy,
Paradox, Oxymoron, Pun,
Irony, Periphrasis,
Euphemism.
12 13. Allusion; Connotation and
Kennedy & Gioia (2005): Chapters 2.
Denotation; Imagery and
3, 4 & 14.
Symbol.
13 14. Presentation on Poets
3
14
15. Presentation on Poets
References Required
Texts will vary from semester to semester.
Hasan, Md. M. (2014). Good literature and bad literature: debate on Islam and
poetry. International journal of Islamic thoughts, 3, 43-54.
Kennedy, X. J. & Gioia, D. (2005). An introduction to poetry (11th ed.). New
York: Longman.
Strand, M. & Boland, E. (2001). The making of a poem: The Norton anthology
of poetic forms. New York: W.W. Norton.
Wainwright, J. (2004). Poetry: The basics. London: Routledge.
Recommended
Arp, T. R. & Jonson, G. (2005). Sound and sense: An introduction to poetry
(11th ed.). Boston: Thomson Wadsworth.
Fenton, J. (2003). An introduction to English poetry. London: Penguin.
Fussel, P. (1979). Poetic meter and poetic form. (Revised ed.). Boston:
McGraw Hill.
Parini, J. (2006). The Wadsworth anthology of poetry (Shorter Edition).
Boston: Thomson Wadsworth.
Timpane, J. & Watts, M. (2001). Poetry for Dummies. Indianapolis: Wiley.
Turco, L. (2000). The book of forms: A handbook of poetics (3rd ed.).
Hanover: University Press of New England.
Proposed
Semester 1, 2011/2012
Start Date
Batch of
Students Semester 1, 2011/2012 intake onwards
Affected
4
5
