Duration of the online course: 19 hours and 47 minutes
New
Sharpen close-reading skills in this free modern poetry course—learn how poets reinvent voice, form, and meaning, with quizzes and optional certificate.
In this free course, learn about
Core traits of modern poetry and how it breaks with earlier poetic conventions
Robert Frost: rural labor as a metaphor for poetic making; voice, irony, and craft
English meter basics: iambic pentameter as Frost’s and a dominant traditional pattern
Yeats’s stylistic shift: from dreamy early verse to harder, modern middle-period poetry
Yeats on modernity and historical change: cyclic history, crisis, and cultural upheaval
Yeats’s occultism and symbolism: esoteric systems shaping poetic meaning and imagery
WWI poetry: Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum est' exposing war’s brutality and the 'old lie'
Imagism: precision, clear images, economy of language, and free-verse musical phrasing
Ezra Pound’s central paradox: radical modernist innovation vs. reactionary politics/identity
T.S. Eliot: impersonality, allusion, and tradition; 'dissociation of sensibility' concept
The Waste Land: private ritual as neurotic pattern—fragments seeking meaning and order
Hart Crane: 'spindrift' imagery and the 'logic of metaphor' as meaning made by leaps
Langston Hughes: collective, ancestral identity in 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers'
Modern poetry can feel challenging at first, but it rewards attention like few other arts. This free online course helps you move from feeling unsure to reading with confidence, giving you tools to hear how poems think, how they argue, and how they make meaning through sound, rhythm, image, and voice. You will learn to approach modern poems as purposeful designs rather than puzzles, and to recognize the choices a poet makes in line, meter, metaphor, and perspective.
Across major poets and movements, you will see how modern writers respond to rapid cultural change, war, and new ideas about history, identity, and belief. The course guides you through different kinds of modern experiments, from plainspoken clarity and subtle formal patterning to fragmentation, dense symbolism, and the sharp precision of imagist style. Along the way, you will practice connecting a poem’s technique to its emotional and intellectual effect—how rhythm can shape emphasis, how a single image can carry an argument, and how a shift in style can signal a shift in worldview.
You will also explore how poetry interacts with public life and private experience: the pressure of modernity, the legacy of conflict, and the search for meaning in a secularizing culture. By studying distinctive poetic voices, you’ll gain a deeper sense of how modern poems can be both historical documents and intensely personal acts of language. The accompanying exercises reinforce what you learn, helping you test your understanding and develop a flexible method you can use in school, exam preparation, or independent reading.
By the end, you will be better equipped to read unfamiliar poems with patience and precision, identify what makes a style modern, and explain how form and feeling work together. Whether you are returning to literature, strengthening academic skills, or simply looking for a richer reading life, this course offers a structured path into modern poetry—accessible, rigorous, and designed for steady progress.
Course content
Video class: 1. Introduction47m
Exercise: How is modern poetry characterized according to the course lecture?
Video class: 2. Robert Frost46m
Exercise: In Frost's poem 'Mowing,' what is the implied relationship between the labor of mowing and the writing of poetry?
Video class: 3. Robert Frost (cont.)50m
Exercise: What is the primary metrical pattern found in the poetry of Robert Frost and in much of English poetry?
Video class: 4. William Butler Yeats45m
Exercise: What does the shift in W.B. Yeats's poetic style from his early work to his middle poetry signify?
Video class: 5. William Butler Yeats (cont.)48m
Exercise: Which of the following statements accurately captures the essence of W.B. Yeats' views on the subject of historical change and modernity, as discussed in the lecture?
Video class: 6. William Butler Yeats (cont.)44m
Exercise: Which of the following concepts can be derived from Yeats's poetry, particularly considering his reflections on occultism and the symbolism in his work?
Video class: 7. World War I Poetry in England53m
Exercise: What is the central theme of Wilfred Owen's poem 'Dulce et Decorum est'?
Video class: 8. Imagism46m
Exercise: What characterizes the poetry of the Imagist movement?
Video class: 9. Ezra Pound52m
Exercise: What is the central paradox of Ezra Pound's poetic identity, as presented in the 'Modern Poetry with Langdon Hammer by Yale Courses'?
Video class: 10. T.S. Eliot49m
Exercise: In 'Modern Poetry with Langdon Hammer by Yale Courses,' which practice does T.S. Eliot's poetry demonstrate more prominently than Ezra Pound's according to the provided text?
Video class: 11. T.S. Eliot (cont.)49m
Exercise: What does T.S. Eliot's term 'dissociation of sensibility' refer to in the context of his poetry and criticism?
Video class: 12. T.S. Eliot (cont.)49m
Exercise: What is the relationship between the concepts of a 'private ritual' and neurosis in T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'?
Video class: 13. Hart Crane39m
Exercise: What does the term 'spindrift' as used by Hart Crane in his poetry signify?
Video class: 14. Hart Crane (cont.)46m
Exercise: What does Hart Crane's concept of 'the logic of metaphor' in his poetry imply?
Video class: 15. Langston Hughes45m
Exercise: In Langston Hughes' poem 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers', how is the speaker's identity portrayed in relation to the rivers?
Video class: 16. William Carlos Williams48m
Exercise: Which of the following statements best captures the nature of William Carlos Williams' approach to modern poetry according to the lecture?
Video class: 17. Marianne Moore43m
Exercise: What is the significance of Marianne Moore's approach to form and quotation as demonstrated in her poem 'An Octopus'?
Video class: 18. Marianne Moore (cont.)42m
Exercise: What is the central theme explored in Marianne Moore's poem 'An Octopus'?
Video class: 19. Wallace Stevens51m
Exercise: In Wallace Stevens' view, how does poetic language contribute to our understanding of reality?
Video class: 20. Wallace Stevens (cont.)50m
Exercise: In 'Modern Poetry with Langdon Hammer by Yale Courses', which term was used in Stevens' poem to address innocence in contrast to its typical association with guilt or malice?
Video class: 21. Wallace Stevens (cont.)51m
Exercise: What role does modern poetry play in a secularizing culture according to the lecture?
Video class: 22. W. H. Auden44m
Exercise: In what ways does W.H. Auden's early poetry reflect a distinct literary movement?
Video class: 23. W. H. Auden (cont.)51m
Exercise: What is the thematic significance of the limestone landscape in Auden's poetry according to the discussed text?
Video class: 24. Elizabeth Bishop47m
Exercise: Which of the following years marks the birth of Elizabeth Bishop, a key modern poet according to the text?
Video class: 25. Elizabeth Bishop (cont.)41m
Exercise: What is the underlying central theme in Elizabeth Bishop's poetry, as discussed in the text?
This free course includes:
19 hours and 47 minutes of online video course
Digital certificate of course completion (Free)
Exercises to train your knowledge
100% free, from content to certificate
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