Poetry History category: 2770 books

The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry analyzes major premises, preoccupations, and practices of English poets writing from 1700 to the 1790s. These specially-commissioned essays avoid familiar categories and single-author approaches to look at the century afresh. Chapters consider such...

An eminent literary critic argues for the restoration of poetry to the place of honor it once held in ancient times in this 1905 collection on the Greek poets, Milton, Byron, William Watson, Gerald Massey, the poetry of America, and “The True Functions of Poetry.”

Examining the relationship between German poetry, philosophy, and visual media around 1900, Carsten Strathausen argues that the poetic works of Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Stephan George focused on the visible gestalt of language as a means of competing aesthetically with the increasing...

This collection of contemporary poetry is written in four languages: English, Urdu, Persian & Punjabi, with a stunning presentation of background images that compliment the poems. He writes the traditional Ghazal along with experimenting with other contemporary styles of poetic form. All poetry...

I write about anything that touches the essence of my existence. What I witness, what I feel, what I think, what I fear, what I treasure. I write about life, which is our greatest gift. --Mattie Stepanek, 1990-2004Mattie J. T. Stepanek lived and died a child, but he had the spirit of a giant....

This short biography of John Greenleaf Whittier, published in 1917, was part of the Poetry and Life series, combining biography and poetry to present a fully rounded portrait of its subject. Hudson was of the opinion that Whittier “was not a great poet… He produced nothing on a large scale which...

The first full flowering of Chinese poetry occurred in the illustrious T’ang Dynasty, and at the beginning of this renaissance stands Meng Hao-jan (689-740 c.e.), esteemed elder to a long line of China’s greatest poets. Deeply influenced by Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, Meng was the first to make poetry...

This 1911 volume was written by Hudson for use in schools.  Part of the Poetry and Life series, it combines a biography with a selection of James Russell Lowell's poetry. Hudson created the series because he believed students’ interests would be piqued by the theory that personality informs poetry—he based this volume on Lowell’s conservative opinions.

The authority of poetry varies from one period to another, from one culture to another. For Robert von Hallberg, the authority of lyric poetry has three sources: religious affirmation, the social institutions of those who speak the idioms from which particular poems are made, and the extraordinary...

The most inovative study of Chinese poetry ever written, François Cheng's Chinese Poetic Writing--now in its first expanded, English-language edition--is an essential read for fans and scholars of Chinese literature and the art of poetry in general.   Since its first publication in French in 1977,...

Monster: Distortion, Abstraction, and Originality in Contemporary American Poetry argues that memorable and resonant poetry often distorts form, image, concept, and notions of truth and metaphor. Discussing how changes in electronic communication and artificial notions of landscape have impacted form...

A collection of bold, insightful, and controversial essays by “a poetry critic of the very first order” (New York Times). Over the last ten years, through essays in The New Republic, The New Yorker, and other magazines, Adam Kirsch—“one of the most promising young poet-critics in America”...

The Poetry Toolkit: For Readers and Writers provides students with the essential intellectual and practical tools necessary to read, understand, and write poetry. Explains the most important elements of poetry in clear language and an easily accessible manner Offers readers both the expertise...

Francisco de la Torre has long been praised as an outstanding poet in the mould of Garcilaso de la Vega and his simplicity of style and soft, gentle, Arcadian environment of his poetry have been emphasized. In this volume Professor Hughes attempts to define more accurately the position of Francisco...