Posted on 05/20/2022 7:29:28 AM PDT by grundle
The form has appealed to major poets for five centuries
The University of Salford, a public university in Greater Manchester, England, removed sonnets and other “pre-established literary forms” from a creative writing course assessment, The Telegraph reported.
Course leaders of a creative writing module titled “Writing Poetry in the Twenty-First Century,” removed an exam section that required students to write the traditional forms, including sestinas and sonnets, according to the newspaper.
The sonnet, a poetic form that likely originated in Italy in the 13th century, has been taken up by writers such as Petrarch, Shakespeare and John Donne, according to Britannica.
“The sonnet is unique among poetic forms in Western literature in that it has retained its appeal for major poets for five centuries,” the encyclopedia stated.
A University of Salford slideshow shared with staff stated that teachers have “simplified the assessment offering choice to write thematically rather than to fit into pre-established literary forms…which tend to the products of white western culture,” according to documents cited by The Telegraph.
The slideshow affirmed the change as an example of best practice in “decolonising the curriculum.” The Telegraph defined “decolonising” as “a term used to describe refocusing curricula away from historically dominant Western material and viewpoints.”
Instead, the course will incorporate “inclusive criteria” that better “reflect and cater for a diverse society,” according to internal training materials review by The Telegraph. The materials also showed that the courses could be upgraded by utilizing “a choice of assessment methods” allowing students to be tested “in a way that suits them.”
British historian: assuming sonnets alienate non-white students is ‘hugely patronising’
The Telegraph quoted Oxford-trained historian Zareer Masani’s statement that the course overhaul was “outrageous.”
“It is hugely patronising to assume non-White students would be put off by Western poetic forms,” he said. “Poetic forms vary widely across the world, but good poetry is universal.”
Scott Thurston, leader of the creative writing program at Salford, said the course was “often updated to take account of new trends and development in contemporary writing,” according to The Telegraph.
Thurston said that teachers would still instruct creative writing students in traditional forms in their first year and give them exercises in writing them. However, the curriculum would also include creative experimentation with students’ “own forms.”
Who was Claude McKay?
Oh, that’s right, a black writer from the Harlem Renaissance that wrote almost exclusively in sonnets.
Are they going to drop electric power too?
Then non-white rappers should only be permitted to rap in languages that arose among non-whites ... you wouldn’t want them being white supremacists, would you?
They want to take us back to living in caves and sitting around picking lice out of our hair
Harlem Dancer by Claude McKay
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,
I knew her self was not in that strange place.
Face it. Neo pagan Western Europe has committed cultural suicide.
Apparently (if these academy nitwits were to be more thorough) that was cultural appropriation and him being a secret white supremacists.
To be replaced with rap lyrics.
Only the white lice, though.
English is a “product of white western culture” so it should be replaced with Swahili.
While they are at it, they can drop anything arising from engineering, thermodynamics, calculus, differential equations, metallurgy, heat transfer, kinematics, and solid state physics.
Just do away with the English language
and piss off already.
Should white folks stop lisnin’ to Motown because it is mostly the production of black folk?
Isn’t University ‘products of white western culture’ ?
Every freedom you enjoy is a product of “white western culture” you blithering imbeciles.
Limericks must go, too.
There once was a President’s son...
(I don’t have any particular completion in mind).
These pointy headed academics are just being pseudo-intellectually niggardly.
But Greater Manchester, England is white, western culture.
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