A History of Free VerseThis book examines the most salient and misunderstood aspect of twentieth-century poetry, free verse. Although the form is generally approached as if it were one indissoluble lump, it is actually a group of differing poetic genres proceeding from much different assumptions. Separate chapters on T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, H.D., and William Carlos Williams elucidate many of these assumptions and procedures, while other chapters address more general theoretical questions and trace the continuity of Modern poetics in contemporary poetry. Taking a historical and aesthetic approach, this study demonstrates that many of the forms considered to have been invented in the Modern period actually extend underappreciated traditions. Not only does this book examine the classical influence on Modern poetry, it also features discussions of the poetics of John Milton, Abraham Cowley, Matthew Arnold, and a host of lesser-known poets. Throughout it is an investigation of the prosodic issues that free verse foregrounds, particularly those focusing on the reader's part in interpreting poetic rhythm. |
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Page 39
... wanted to add to the store of biblical proverbs using the manner of the King James Bible . Long - line verse , then , was by no means the invention of Whitman . It was well established enough for an otherwise conventional poet such as ...
... wanted to add to the store of biblical proverbs using the manner of the King James Bible . Long - line verse , then , was by no means the invention of Whitman . It was well established enough for an otherwise conventional poet such as ...
Page 55
... wanted to grow out of . Symptomatic of the difference between the Good Gray Poet and some of his twentieth - century extrapolators , the earlier poet's frequent word for the articulation of his poems is “ chant , ” which suggests some ...
... wanted to grow out of . Symptomatic of the difference between the Good Gray Poet and some of his twentieth - century extrapolators , the earlier poet's frequent word for the articulation of his poems is “ chant , ” which suggests some ...
Page 58
... wanted to discard what Pound called the " encumbrance " or " set moods , set ideas , conventions " ( Ezra 1.73 ) . Poetry needed , Pound thought , not more prosaic poetic , but poetry with what Eliot called prose virtues . These include ...
... wanted to discard what Pound called the " encumbrance " or " set moods , set ideas , conventions " ( Ezra 1.73 ) . Poetry needed , Pound thought , not more prosaic poetic , but poetry with what Eliot called prose virtues . These include ...
Page 112
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Page 124
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Contents
13 | |
61 | |
The Haunting of Wallace Stevens | 101 |
Straight Talk Straight as the Greeks | 135 |
The Parsing Meter and Beyond | 179 |
Avoiding Prosody? | 223 |
Notes | 237 |
Works Cited | 255 |
Index | 273 |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic alliteration approach argues Arnold asserted begins Blue Guitar cadence called century chapter claim classical Coleridge Coleridge's consider contemporary couplets Cowley Cowley's create critics decorum describes Dover Beach E. E. Cummings Eliot English enjambment essay example feel free verse free-verse theory genre grammatical Greek Henley iambic pentameter iambs idea Imagist imitate implies insists irregular ode language Letters line breaks lineal form long-line loose lyric means metaphor metrical Milton's natural nineteenth-century notion organic organicism pattern perhaps phrase Pindar poem poem's poet's poets Pope Pound prose Prufrock reader regular rhyme and meter rhythmic rules scansion seems sense short lines short-line sonnet sort sound speaker speech stanza Stevens Stevens's stress suggests syllables tetrameter thing thought tion traditional prosody traditional verse translation triadic line trimeter twentieth-century variable foot vers libre versification visual Wallace Stevens Whitman William Carlos Williams Williams Williams's words writing wrote