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Classic Writings on Poetry - by William Harmon (Paperback)

Classic Writings on Poetry - by  William Harmon (Paperback)
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Last Price: 38.00 USD

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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br><P>The first major anthology of criticism devoted exclusively to poetry. Spanning thousands of years and including some of the most influential critical essays ever written, this is a collection of influential writings on poetry ranging from Aristotle to Laura (Riding) Jackson.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre.--Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "The Poet" <p/>"[The poet] is a seer.... he is individual... he is complete in himself.... the others are as good as he, only he sees it and they do not. He is not one of the chorus. "--Walt Whitman, from the preface to <i>Leaves of Grass</i> <p/>Poetry has always given rise to interpretation, judgment, and controversy. Indeed, the history of poetry criticism is as rich and varied a journey as the history of poetry itself. But classic writings such as Emerson's essay "The Poet" and Whitman's preface to <i>Leaves of Grass</i> serve as more than a critical "call and response" the works are striking examples of how the finest poets themselves have written on poetics and the works of their peers and predecessors--revealing, in the process, much about the theory and passion behind their own works. <p/>Spanning thousands of years and including thirty-three of the most influential critical essays ever written, <i>Classic Writings on Poetry</i> is the first major anthology of criticism devoted exclusively to poetry. Beginning with a survey of the history of poetics and providing an introduction and brief biography for each reading, esteemed poet and critic William Harmon takes readers from Plato's <i>Republic</i> and Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> to the Norse mythology of Snorri Sturluson's <i>Skáldskaparmál</i>. John Dryden's <i>An Essay of Dramatic Poesy</i> and Shelley's <i>A Defence of Poetry</i> are included, as is an excerpt from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's verse novel <i>Aurora Leigh, </i> arriving, finally, at the modernist sensibility of "Poetic Reality and Critical Unreality," by Laura (Riding) Jackson. For anyone interested in the art and artifice of poetry, <i>Classic Writings on Poetry</i> is a journey well worth taking.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>Harmon presents a fine collection in the study of poetics--i.e., the study of what poetry is, and should be--from classical antiquity into the early 20th century.... Recommended.--Choice<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Poet, critic, and anthologist, William Harmon is the James Gordon Hanes Professor in the Humanities (English and Comparative Literature) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the editor of <i>The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, The Top 500 Poems</i>, and <i>The Classic Hundred Poems</i>, all published by Columbia, as well as <i>The Oxford Book of American Light Verse.</i>

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