ENGL 206 - Writing Dramatic Monologues

This class is a hybrid class, both creative writing and critical study, focusing on dramatic monologues and documentary poetry. The concept behind this course is twofold. First, we will explore the use of the documentary method of creation and to work in the mode of the dramatic monologue. We will be reading a wide variety of 20th and 21st century poets who use translation, transformation and adaptation techniques in poetry writing, working with found texts, manipulating other texts through experimental methods, and/or constructing poems based on historical research, working from oral histories, diaries, letters, interviews, trial transcripts, and so on. Second, we will explore the practice of the dramatic monologue by classic and contemporary poets, with hopes of putting these two techniques together. Since the purpose here is to learn how to be a creative writer, not how to be a literary critic, you should read these poems and texts on poetics primarily for what they can teach you about how a poem is constructed and for the inspiration they can provide in the writing of your own poetry. The primary work students will do for the course is the writing of original poetry. This class does fulfill one of the workshop requirements for the Creative Writing Track in the English major.

Pre-req: ENGL 110, ENGL 120, ENGL 220 or ENGL 221
3 credits