Studying Poetry

by Stephen Matterson; Darryl Jones

• ISBN13: 9780340759424
• ISBN10: 0340759429
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-04-20
• Publisher: Hodder Education Publishers

Summary

This accessible and compact guide helps students to understand and appreciate poetry as a genre, to develop an informed and articulate response to individual poems, and to become aware of the larger concerns involved in reading poetry. The first part of the book, "Form and Meaning," deals with the formal characteristics of poetry, such as metaphor, symbol, image, meter, rhythm, and rhyme. The second section, "Critical Approaches," explores the relationship between reading poetry and key concepts in critical theory, focusing on the poem as an object, the idea of the author, and the role of the reader. In part three, "Interpreting Poetry," the discussion explores such issues as political poetry, the poem in history, and the limits of poetry.Studying Poetryrefers to a wide range of poetry and poets and offers stimulating readings of individual poems.

Author Biography

Darryl Jones is Lecturer in English at Trinity College Dublin.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
Introduction	1	(8)
PART I: FORM AND MEANING
Poem and form	9	(24)
Poem and communication	33	(20)
Poem and tradition	53	(20)
PART II: CRITICAL APPROACHES
Poem as object	73	(20)
Poem and author	93	(15)
Poem and reader	108	(17)
PART III: INTERPRETING POETRY
The poem in history	125	(18)
Public poetry	143	(13)
The limits of poetry	156	(12)
Further reading	168	(2)
Glossary	170	(9)
Index	179