The poetry handbook : a guide to reading poetry for pleasure and practical criticism

This volume is a lucid and entertaining guide to the poet's craft, and an invaluable introduction to practical criticism for students. Chapters on each element of poetry offer a wide-ranging general account and end by looking at different poems, to build up sustained analytical readings. The second edition--fully revised, expanded, updated, and supported by a new companion website--confirm The Poetry Handbook as the best guide to poetry available in English. The Poetry Handbook is a lucid and entertaining guide to the poet's craft, and an invaluable introduction to practical criticism for students. Chapters on each element of poetry, from metre to gender, offer a wide-ranging general account, and end by looking at two or three poems (including works by Donne, Keats, Elizabeth Bishop, Geoffrey Hill, and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott), to build up sustained analytical readings.Thorough and compact, with notes and quotations supplemented by detailed reference to the Norton Anthology of Poetry fifth edition, and with a new companion website featuring texts, links, and further discussion, The Poetry Handbook is indispensable for all school and undergraduate students of English. A final chapter addresses examinations of all kinds, and sample essays by undergraduates are posted on the website. Critical and scholarly terms are italicized and clearly explained, both in the text and in a complete glossary; the volume also includes suggestions for further reading.The first edition, widely praised by teachers and students, showed how the pleasures of poetry are heightened by rigorous understanding and made that understanding readily available. This second edition-revised, expanded, updated, and supported by the companion website-confirms The Poetry Handbook as the best guide to poetry available in English. The Poetry Handbook is a lucid and entertaining guide to the poet's craft, and an invaluable introduction to practical criticism for students. Chapters on each element of poetry, from metre to gender, offer a wide-ranging general account, and end by looking at two or three poems from a small group (including works by Donne, Elizabeth Bishop, Geoffrey Hill, and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott), to build up sustained analytical readings. Thorough and compact, with notes and quotations supplemented by detailed reference to the Norton Anthology of Poetry and a companion website with texts, links, and further discussion, The Poetry Handbook is indispensable for all school and undergraduate students of English. A final chapter addresses examinations of all kinds, and sample essays by undergraduates are posted on the website. Critical and scholarly terms are italicised and clearly explained, both in the text and in a complete glossary; the volume also includes suggestions for further reading. The first edition, widely praised by teachers and students, showed how the pleasures of poetry are heightened by rigorous understanding and made that understanding readily available. This second edition -- revised, expanded, updated, and supported by a new companion website - confirm The Poetry Handbook as the best guide to poetry available in English.

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.

The Poetry Handbook is a lucid and entertaining guide to the poet's craft, and an invaluable introduction to practical criticism for students. Chapters on each element of poetry offer a wide-ranging general account and end by looking at different poems, to build up sustained analytical readings. The second edition - fully revised, expanded, updated, and supported by a new companion website - confirm The Poetry Handbook as the best guide to poetry available in English. - ;The Poetry Handbook is a lucid and entertaining guide to the poet's craft, and an invaluable introduction to practical criti This is analysed as five feet, each foot consisting of an unstressed beat following by a stressed beat; I have a separated the feet with a vertical slash: When I I do COUNT I the CLOCK I that TELLS I the TIME This kind of foot is called an iamb (pronounced e-AMB) and there are five of them, so the line is an iambic pentameter (from the Greek word [pente], meaning 'five'). Fully revised, updated and expanded, John Lennard's accessible guide to poetry is noteworthy for its emphasis on practical criticism that is designed to help students gain a new appreciation for poetry and a real insight into how poems work Metre Form Layout Punctuation Lineation Rhyme Diction Syntax History Biography Gender Exams and written work.