Of the three large literary genres (epic, drama, lyric), lyric poetry tends to be the least studied; it also often triggers anxiety. In this course, you will learn to identify a variety of lyric poetry's sub-genres and formal features. We will explore questions such as, what are some of the ways in which historical and political contexts matter? How do poetry's rhythmical and musical elements manifest themselves, if at all? What social positions or ideological formations are associated with specific sub-genres or forms? In what ways have poets from marginalized communities eschewed or appropriated conventional sub-genres or poetic forms? How have new forms of media contributed to debates about "formalist" and "anti-formalist" positions? To make this manageable, we will focus on 1) early modern and contemporary poetry; 2) the sonnet, elegy, and pastoral poetry; 3) Euro-colonial and post-colonial contexts. Students will be selecting many of the poems to be studied in class, which may be written in languages other than English (accompanied by translations).