Sonnets!

Thanks for your sonnet suggestions! I've chosen:

#30 for the first day - Thanks to Dr. Virago!

Then we'll do a couple more the first week of class #73, #116 (Thanks, Dr. Crazy! Not only is "admit" a great one, but "let" has a nice double meaning, and "impediments" is sort of a metrical play!)

#42 - Thanks, Miranda!

#106 and #17 (I love the "stretch-ed meter of an antique mind!)

Then later in the term, we'll come back to #20, #29 (Thanks, Bolingbroke! Not often I have an earl visiting the ol' blogsted.)

and finally #129, 138, and 147.

Horace, I'm so with you! I love "Leda and the Swan" as a teaching poem; it's devastating, especially the implication that the violence of the rape prefigures and almost predestines the violence of the Trojan War. And Owen just gets deeply to me in "Dulce." I've never taught the Sassoon poem, but after your suggestions, I made a section on war poetry, and included a couple. So thanks! The ink's practically still wet on those (compared to my usual haunts), but I think they're going to work really well together.