The Poetry Handbook A Guide to Reading Poetry for Pleasure and Practical Criticism

by Lennard, John

• ISBN13: 9780198711490
• ISBN10: 0198711492
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-08-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Poetry Handbook offers a lucid and practical guide to the poet's craft. In addition to the varied examples that accompany chapters on meter, form, layout, lineation, punctuation, rhyme, diction, syntax, history, biography, and gender, at the end of every chapter, Lennard applies each topic to the same poem, Nobel Prize-winner Derek Walcott's "Nearing Forty," building, incrementally, a full technical reading. Lennard italicizes and clearly explains critical and scholarly terms, both in the text and in glossaries. He supplements notes and quotations with detailed references to both the Oxford and Norton poetry anthologies, and includes substantial Suggestions for Further Reading . Designed with the undergraduate as well as the general reader in mind, The Poetry Handbook will fascinate and reward anyone interested in how poems work.

Author Biography

John Lennard is a Fellow and Director of Studies in English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Metre Form Layout

Punctuation Lineation Rhyme Diction

Syntax History Biography Gender Exams

Glossary and Index of Technical Terms

Index of Poems and Poets Quoted and Cited

Select Bibliography and Further Reading

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