Wiley Blackwell Reading Poetry – serie

Combining detailed explorations of both mainstream and experimental poets with a clear historical and literary overview, Reading Postwar British and Irish Poetry offers readers at all levels an ideal guide to the rich body of poetic works published in Britain and Ireland over the last half-century.            Features detailed discussions of individual poems that are widely available in anthologies and selected poems volumesPays explicit attention to how to read the poems, focusing on language and form and the institutional conditions of literary possibility in which poets workedIncludes poets of all types and styles from throughout the post-war period, including canonical and mainstream poets alongside experimental poets, women, and poets of color

Reading Shakespeare’s Poetry A lively exploration of Shakespeare’s poems and how they speak to readers Reading Shakespeare’s Poetry presents a fresh interpretation of Shakespeare’s non-dramatic poems, providing insights into the individual poems, their themes and composition, and their relation to the cultural context of Shakespeare’s world. Dympna Callaghan considers what makes Shakespeare’s language poetic and shows how his poetry is comprised not only of lyrical intensity but also of the language of everyday life. Presented chronologically, lucidly-written chapters examine Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, the Sonnets, and A Lover’s Complaint. Special attention is paid to the distinctive ways in which lineation, rhyme, verse forms, and meter serve to delineate or erase the boundaries of Shakespeare’s poetry. Throughout the book, the author explains how Shakespeare’s language is influenced by predecessors such as Ovid and Petrarch while highlighting how ideas about the social and cultural function of poetry permeate Shakespeare’s works. Offers an eminently readable yet scholarly exploration of the literary importance of Shakespeare’s poemsExplains the technical features of Shakespeare’s poetic languageAddresses the significance of the material form in which Shakespeare’s poems appearIncludes a discussion of songs, poems, and sonnets embedded in Shakespeare’s dramatic verseReading Shakespeare’s Poetry is both a fresh and indispensable guide to the poems and a significant critical intervention. This is a must-have book for scholars, students, and general readers alike.

Reading Paradise Lost “This lucid and entirely jargon-free guide to Paradise Lost will help any reader of the poem to find their feet, and to understand what makes it the best poem in the English language. Hopkins has one, and only one, resemblance to Milton’s Satan, which is that he can make intricate seem straight.”Colin Burrow, Oxford University“This is the best introduction to Paradise Lost there is, suitable for the intelligent sixth-former or undergraduate, or the enquiring general reader outside the academy – or indeed anyone who cares about poetry. It is also a joy to read, indeed a real page-turner – and of how many academic books can one say that?”Charles Martindale, Bristol UniversityConcise enough to be assimilated in a single session, this short volume maps the wonders of Milton’s poetic landscape. The book offers an exploration of some of the main narrative and poetic elements of the epic poem – qualities which have compelled and fascinated readers for more than three centuries. The author, a celebrated authority on English poetry of the period, engages with (and attempts to counter) some of the critical arguments that impede readers’ enjoyment of the poem. This volume emphasizes the aesthetic experience of reading Paradise Lost and brings out the pleasure to be derived from one of the great literary achievements of humanity.

Reading Romantic Poetry introduces the major themes and preoccupations, and the key poems and players of a period convulsed by revolution, prolonged warfare and political crisis. Provides a clear, lively introduction to Romantic Poetry, backed by academic research and marked by its accessibility to students with little prior experience of poetryIntroduces many of the major topics of the age, from politics to publishing, from slavery to sociability, from Milton to the mind of manEncourages direct responses to poems by opening up different aspects of the literature and fresh approaches to readingDiscusses the poets' own reading and experience of being read, as well as analysis of the sounds of key poems and the look of the poem on the pageDeepens understanding of poems through awareness of their literary, historical, political and personal contextsIncludes the major poets of the period, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Burns and Clare —as well as a host of less familiar writers, including women

Reading Paradise Lost “This lucid and entirely jargon-free guide to Paradise Lost will help any reader of the poem to find their feet, and to understand what makes it the best poem in the English language. Hopkins has one, and only one, resemblance to Milton’s Satan, which is that he can make intricate seem straight.”Colin Burrow, Oxford University“This is the best introduction to Paradise Lost there is, suitable for the intelligent sixth-former or undergraduate, or the enquiring general reader outside the academy – or indeed anyone who cares about poetry. It is also a joy to read, indeed a real page-turner – and of how many academic books can one say that?”Charles Martindale, Bristol UniversityConcise enough to be assimilated in a single session, this short volume maps the wonders of Milton’s poetic landscape. The book offers an exploration of some of the main narrative and poetic elements of the epic poem – qualities which have compelled and fascinated readers for more than three centuries. The author, a celebrated authority on English poetry of the period, engages with (and attempts to counter) some of the critical arguments that impede readers’ enjoyment of the poem. This volume emphasizes the aesthetic experience of reading Paradise Lost and brings out the pleasure to be derived from one of the great literary achievements of humanity.

Reading Victorian Poetry “Richard Cronin’s exceptionally fine book carries out just what its title promises – reading. The pleasure of his adroit, meticulously imaginative insights into verbal and metrical effects is constant … One of the best general readings of Victorian poetry in the last ten years.”Victorian Studies “Reading Victorian Poetry will make an excellent introduction to Victorian poetry and gives a good account of a number of key issues.”English Studies Reading Victorian Poetry offers close readings of poems from the Victorian era, carefully selected by the author to reflect the breadth and diversity of nineteenth-century poetry. Richard Cronin’s outstanding consideration of a wide range of poets reflects the unusual diversity of Victorian poetry, which includes, amongst others, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, D.G. Rossetti, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. The book investigates key concerns of the era in which poetry was ousted by the novel from the culturally central position that it had enjoyed for centuries. The result is an important and exciting contribution to the understanding of nineteenth-century poetry, and a crucial resource for anyone interested in Victorian literature.

Reading Eighteenth-Century Poetry recaptures for modern readers the urgency, distinctiveness and rewarding nature of this challenging and powerful body of poetry. An essential guide to reading eighteenth-century poetry, written by world-renowned critic, Patricia Meyer SpacksExposes the multiplicity of forms, tones, and topics engaged by poets during this periodProvides in-depth analysis of poems by established figures such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, as well as work by less familiar figures, including Anne Finch and Mary LeaporA broadly chronological structure incorporates close reading alongside insightful contextual and historical detailCaptures the power and uniqueness of eighteenth-century poetry, creating an ideal guide for those returning to this period, or delving into it for the first time

Reading Eighteenth-Century Poetry recaptures for modern readers the urgency, distinctiveness and rewarding nature of this challenging and powerful body of poetry. An essential guide to reading eighteenth-century poetry, written by world-renowned critic, Patricia Meyer SpacksExposes the multiplicity of forms, tones, and topics engaged by poets during this periodProvides in-depth analysis of poems by established figures such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, as well as work by less familiar figures, including Anne Finch and Mary LeaporA broadly chronological structure incorporates close reading alongside insightful contextual and historical detailCaptures the power and uniqueness of eighteenth-century poetry, creating an ideal guide for those returning to this period, or delving into it for the first time

This essential guide to modernist poetry enables readers to make sense of a literary movement often regarded as difficult and intimidating. Provides close examinations of key poems by T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, and othersConsiders key techniques employed to orient and disorient the reader, such as diction, rhythm, and allusionExplores the ideological implications of subject matter and the literary forms and structures of modernist poetryPlaces modernist poetry in relation to its Victorian and Romantic predecessorsEncourages readers to engage with the texts and make their own interpretations, moving away from the question of what the poem says in favour of considering the effect of the poem on its reader

Reading Sixteenth-Century Poetry combines close readings of individual poems with a critical consideration of the historical context in which they were written. Informative and original, this book has been carefully designed to enable readers to understand, enjoy, and be inspired by sixteenth-century poetry. Close reading of a wide variety of sixteenth-century poems, canonical and non-canonical, by men and by women, from print and manuscript culture, across the major literary modes and genresPoems read within their historical context, with reference to five major cultural revolutions: Renaissance humanism, the Reformation, the modern nation-state, companionate marriage, and the scientific revolutionOffers in-depth discussion of Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, Isabella Whitney, Gascoigne, Philip Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Mary Sidney Herbert, Donne, and ShakespearePresents a separate study of all five of Shakespeare’s major poems - Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, 'The Phoenix and Turtle,' the Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint- in the context of his dramatic careerDiscusses major works of literary criticism by Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Philip Sidney, George Puttenham, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Seamus Heaney, Adrienne Rich, and Helen Vendler