Poetry Criticism

Drawing on examples ranging from Chaucer to children's rhymes, Cole Porter to Dylan Thomas, and from around the English-speaking world, it shows how any reader can understand and gain pleasure from poetry. This comprehensive guide explores poetry's relationship to everyday language and introduces major genres and technical aspects. Each chapter proceeds through chronological examples from a wide range of English language poems.

The sonnets are a collection numbering 154 poems dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty, and mortality. They were probably written over a long period of Shakespeare's life up until 1609, when they were first printed. The first 17 poems, traditionally referred to as the "procreation sonnets", are addressed to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty by passing it on to his descendants.

This first audio edition of Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Conversation with America’s Poets (Knopf, 2010), invites listeners into an intimate classroom with eight acclaimed poets. Full of compelling, in-depth conversation about manuscripts and drafts by the poets themselves, plus readings of the finished poems, these historic recordings offer one of the most detailed portraits ever produced of how poems are actually made.

Leland Ryken provides a clear pathway to understanding the "Great Works" through this engaging series of short guidebooks. Beginning with "why the classics matter" and "the nature and function of literature," listeners will find a helpful path to understanding and analyzing influential works in the Western canon. Evaluating the included selection of poetry from a distinctly Christian perspective, this guide to the devotional poetry of Donne, Herbert, and Milton includes commentary on the work, including Scriptural allusions, and provides prompts for reflection and discussion.