English 483 (S2): Blues Lyrics as Lyric Poetry Bruce Stovel HC 4-5 (492-7809) Blues music appeared in the first years of the twentieth century, created by the black people living in the southern United States. Blues is defined as “A song of American Negro origin, that is marked by the frequent occurrence of blue notes, and that takes the basic form, customarily improvisedon in performance, of a 12-bar chorus consisting of a 3-line stanza with the second line repeating the first” (Random House Dictionary). Cleanth Brooks, R.W.B. Lewis, and Robert Penn Warren, in their anthology American Literature: The Makers and the Making, claim, “The blues was one of the few unique contributions—perhaps the only unique contribution—that America has made to the world of art.” They say of blues songs, “Waiving their value as musical art, they represent a body of poetic art unique and powerful.” This course will explore the poetic art in the lyrics of selected blues songs. These lyrics will be experienced and understood, not as poems in the usual sense (words on a page), but as performed poetry (in other words, as an element in the songs in which they appear). The songs studied are found in recordings made from the early 1920s onward; we will also be hearing blues performed live in concerts by blues musicians, and students will be encouraged to hear some of the many blues artists who will be appearing in Edmonton during the course. The CDs listed as texts below are virtually essential purchases: you will understand blues music much better, and be in a position to do much better in this course, if you own them. The university Music Library (second floor, Rutherford North) has a wealth of CDs and LPs, and the many branches of the Edmonton Public Library are also a valuable resource. As well, you can hear blues on several weekly radio shows. The blues performers who will visit the class are listed on the attached syllabus, and a separate sheet lists “Some Blues Performances in Edmonton This Year” and “Local Blues Radio Shows.” Our main activity will be exploring selected blues songs as lyric poems. A second goal will be trying to understand the social context in which the blues developed—namely, the life of the black population of the United States, a life that changed dramatically during the century as the majority of blacks moved from the country to the city and from the deep south to the north. Some aspects of black life did not change, however: poverty, destitution, exclusion from the mainstream. Two books, Giles Oakley’s The Devil’s Music: A History of the Blues and Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta, will provide some understanding of this social context. We will be surveying, week by week, the stages in the development of blues music, ending with one class devoted to each of two immensely influential blues artists, Muddy Waters and B.B. King, men whose lives epitomize the journey of blues music from the cotton fields of Mississippi to the world at large. Each week we will focus on four blues songs as a way of understanding what is distinctive about the kind of blues music under study that week. The week-by-week structure of the course is given on the attached sheet entitled “English 483: Syllabus.” For the first ten weeks of this course, each student is to submit every week his or her own transcription of the lyrics of a blues song, along with a brief commentary; these weekly contributions will form an anthology entitled Blues with a Feeling that will be our essential text. A description of these weekly assignments is on the attached sheet entitled “English 483: Writing Assignments.” These are the assigned texts for the course: CDs: Books: The books are paperbacks available at the university bookstore. The bookstore has not been able to provide the CDs; you will have to find them on your own. The Gramophone, located at 8724 109 Street, has ordered twelve copies of the Blues Classics box set, the most important CDs. Blues Classics and Legends of the Blues have been placed on reserve in both the Music Library and the Salter Reading Room (HC 3-95). In addition, some valuable books and one additional CD have been placed on reserve in three places: the Music Library, Rutherford North, and the Salter Reading Room. See “English 483: Material on Reserve.” Classes will be conducted mostly by means of question-and-answer discussion. The students will be divided into four groups of about seven students each, and these groups will provide one main forum for discussion. Each three-hour class will fall into three parts: one hour of lecture-cum-discussion presided over by the instructor; one hour of discussion by the groups, who will each consider one song and then report back to the class as a whole; and one hour of concert performance by blues musicians. The premise behind these performances is that blues music exists primarily in live performance; a sound or video recording is a thin suggestion, rather than a reproduction, of what happens in live performance. The concerts will all be held in HC L-3, and they are open to the public—bring your friends and relatives. A tentative schedule for the concerts can be found on the syllabus. The writing you will be asked to submit consists mainly of the weekly submissions of blues lyrics. Each student will also be asked to write a term paper, about 2,500 words long, on a topic of his or her own choice; the requirement is that the essay must address issues raised in this course and must discuss in detail at least one song in the anthology Blues with a Feeling.These term papers will be due at the end of the term. I will be holding a meeting with each student in week beginning March 14, and at that meeting we can consider what might be a useful subject for this essay. The second-last class of the term, on April 7, will be wholly devoted to allowing each student to give a brief oral presentation summarizing the argument of his or her term paper. Further details can be found on the sheet below entitled “English 483: Writing Assignments.” There will be no mid-term exam, but there will be a two-hour final exam, covering the whole course, and it will be given in the final class on April 14. This class will be taught partly by means of a course website and by e-mail. You are asked to hand in your weekly assignments both on paper and via e-mail to the course web page. You can find information on how to access and use WebCT in this course in the attached sheet entitled “English 483: Using WebCT.” You will also be completing two brief e-mail assignments during the course; the first is due February 10 and the second on March 17. For more on the e-mail assignments, see “English 483: Writing Assignments.” The web page also allows students to send in spontaneous thoughts on weekly assignments by other students, on the assigned texts (both the books and CDs), and on other course matters. The web page also contains a students-only conference entitled “The Checkerboard Lounge.” In determining the final grade, term work will count for 70% and the final exam for 30%. The term grade will be derived as follows: 40% for the weekly transcriptions (5% each for eight assignments—the best eight);
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