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How to Read a Poem

Author Burton Raffel

Paperback

$24.00 US

Penguin Adult HC/TR | Plume

5.35"W x 7.97"H x 0.62"D | 8 oz | 48 per carton

On sale Apr 01, 1984 | 272 Pages | 978-0-452-01033-8

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An introductory text that is both an anthology of over 200 poems and a comprehensive exploration of the form. Over 100 poets featured; those most widely represented include Blake, Byron, cummings, Dickinson, Donne, Alan Dugan, Frost, Louise Gluck, George Herbert, Keats, Pope, Pound, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Yeats.

Burton Raffel was a translator, poet, and scholar whose major translations include The Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, Don Quijote, The Red and the Black, and Gargantua and Pantagruel. He also annotated several Shakespeare plays for Yale University Press. He was the distinguished professor emeritus of Arts and Humanities and emeritus professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette until 2003. He lived in Louisiana until his death in 2015. View titles by Burton Raffel

1. What Poetry Means
Poems Supplementary to Chapter 1

2. Metaphor
Poems Supplementary to Chapter 2

3. How Poetry Works: Approaches and Techniques
1. Poetic Music
2. Contrast; Balance
3. Precision
4. Obscurity
Poems Supplementary to Chapter 3

What Poetry Uses: Devices
1. Rhyme
2. Alliteration
3. Repetition; Refrain
4. Allusion; Acrostics
5. Imitation; Parody
6. Onomatopoeia

5. Shapes and Structures
1. Couplets; Quatrains
2. Ballads and Hymns
3. Sonnets (Italian, Shakespearian, Spenserian)
4. Songs (Lyrics)
5. Dialogues; Monologues
6. Other Traditional Forms
7. Free Forms
8. Concrete Poetry

6. Metrics
Author Index
Poem Index
Subject Index