A reference guide to various forms of poetry with entries arranged in alphabetical order. Each entry defines the form and gives its history, examples, and suggestions for usage.

"Thanatopsis" is a renowned poem written by William Cullen Bryant, an American poet and editor of the 19th century. First published in 1817 when Bryant was just 17 years old, the poem is considered one of the early masterpieces of American literature. In "Thanatopsis," Bryant explores themes related to death and nature, contemplating the idea of mortality and the interconnectedness of life and death. The title, derived from the Greek words "thanatos" (death) and "opsis" (view), suggests a meditation on the contemplation of death. The poem begins with an invocation to nature, portraying it as a grand and eternal force. Bryant expresses the idea that death is a natural part of the cycle of life, and all living things ultimately return to the earth. He emphasizes the consoling and unifying aspects of death, encouraging readers to view it as a peaceful and harmonious process. "Thanatopsis" reflects the Romantic literary movement's appreciation for nature and its role in shaping human perspectives. Bryant's eloquent language and profound reflections on mortality contribute to the enduring appeal of the poem.

Traces the practice of induction - manipulating textual evidence by selective quotation - and its uses by Romantic-period writers.

"Poems end. They begin, and they end. In between beginnings and ends are the middles--the means--of getting from the one to the other. How poems get to their ends--the directions they take, and give, and the consequences of following them--is the topic of this study."--from the Introduction Lyric poems, argues Timothy Bahti, do not simply end in the sense of arriving at the end of a story or the conclusion of an argument. Instead, these endings return their own structures and statements (as well as the readers' engagements with the poems' meanings) back to the beginnings and middles of the poems. Thus, Bahti contends, lyric poetry does not end, but re-begins and continues anew toward its ends. Studying poetry from five Western languages, from antiquity through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Ends of the Lyric combines advanced methods in literary interpretation with a focus on lyric poetry's surprisingly recurrent motifs, devices, and figures of language. "It is not only that Bahti has a range of knowledge of extraordinary depth, not only that he analyzes with exceptional precision and brings us to important theoretical insights about the lyric and about reading and language in general, not only that he knows the secondary works thoroughly and is able to read others' reading in a disciplined and productive manner. He also manages to write beautifully."--Carol Jacobs, State University of New York at Buffalo

This work is an anthology of 225 translated and annotated Sinitic poems (kanshi 漢詩) composed in public and private settings by nobles, courtiers, priests, and others during Japan’s Nara and Heian periods (710-1185). The authors have supplied detailed biographical notes on the sixty-nine poets represented and an overview of each collection from which the verse of this eminent and enduring genre has been drawn. The introduction provides historical background and discusses kanshi subgenres, themes, textual and rhetorical conventions, styles, and aesthetics, and sheds light on the socio-political milieu of the classical court, where Chinese served as the written language of officialdom and the preeminent medium for literary and scholarly activity among the male elite.

This book explores the words, forms, and styles Shakespeare used to interact with the verbal marketplace of early modern England.

A wonderful edition of Herbert's poetry, edited by his acclaimed biographer John Drury and including elegant new translations of his Latin verse by Victoria Moul. George Herbert wrote, but never published, some of the very greatest English poetry, recording in an astonishing variety of forms his inner experiences of grief, recovery, hope, despair, anger, fulfilment and - above all else - love. This volume, edited by John Drury, collects Herbert's complete poetry - including such classics of English devotional poetry as 'The Altar', Easter-Wings' and 'Love'. It also includes the verse Herbert wrote in Latin, newly translated into English by Victoria Moul. George Herbert was born in 1593 and died at the age of 39 in 1633, before the clouds of civil war gathered. He showed worldly ambition and seemed sure of high public office and a career at court, but then for a time 'lost himself in a humble way', devoting himself to the restoration of a church and then to his parish of Bemerton, three miles from Salisbury. When in the year of his death his friend Nicholas Ferrar published Herbert's poems under the title The Temple, his fame was quickly established. John Drury is Chaplain and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His books include The Burning Bush (1990), Painting the Word (1999), and, most recently, Music at Midnight, the culmination of a lifetime's interest in Herbert. Victoria Moul is Lecturer in Latin Literature and Language at Kings College London. She is author of Jonson, Horace and the Classical Tradition (2010) and editor of Neo-Latin Literature (2014).

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