In Don't Read Poetry, award-winning poet and literary critic Stephanie Burt offers an accessible introduction to the seemingly daunting task of reading, understanding, and appreciating poetry. Burt shows readers how to find more poems once they have some poems they like, and how to connect the poetry of the past to the poetry of the present. Burt moves seamlessly from Shakespeare and other classics to the contemporary poetry circulated on Tumblr and Twitter. She challenges the assumptions that many of us make about "poetry," whether we think we like it or think we don't, in order to help us cherish--and distinguish among--individual poems.
Literary Analysis & Essay Writing Guide is an essential reference tool for anyone studying literature or writing an essay in high school or college. By arranging the elements of composition and literature graphically around several wheels, teachers and students are better able to visualize how the elements of literature develop style, coherence, and meaning. Flip to the corresponding page of any element to find a detailed definition of the term, several examples, factors to consider, and additional questions to ask about how that device functions in the literature or composition at hand.
A theoretical study of linguistic structure in literature focuses on verse and narrative from a linguistic perspective. How does a literary text get to have literary form, and what is the relation between literary form and linguistic form? Nigel Fabb provides a simple and realistic linguistic explanation of poetic form in English from 1500-1900, drawing on the English and American verse and oral narrative traditions, as well as contemporary criticism.
Entries provide in-depth historical background information on each movement as well as modern critical interpretation of each movement's characteristic styles and themes.
Contents: v. 1. Bildungsroman -- Classicism -- Colonialism -- Elizabethan drama -- Enlightenment -- Gothic literature -- Greek drama -- Humanism -- Medieval mystics -- Neoclassicism -- Realism -- Renaissance literature -- Romanticism -- Transcendentalism -- v. 2. Absurdism -- Beat movement -- Existentialism -- Expressionism -- Harlem renaissance -- Imagism -- Magic realism -- Modernism -- Naturalism -- Postcolonialism -- Postmodernism -- Science fiction and fantasy literature -- Surrealism -- Symbolism.