Starting from the same nonfoundationalist premises, Rosenblatt avoids the extreme relativism of postmodern theories derived mainly from Continental sources. A deep understanding of the pragmatism of Dewey, James, and Peirce and of key issues in the social sciences is the basis for a view of language and the reading process that recognizes the potentialities for alternative interpretations and at the same time provides a rationale for the responsible reading of texts.
Louise M. Rosenblatt’s award-winning work continues increasingly to be read in a wide range of academic fields—literary criticism, reading theory, aesthetics, composition, rhetoric, speech communication, and education. Her view of the reading transaction as a unique event involving reader and text at a particular time under particular circumstances rules out the dualistic emphasis of other theories on either the reader or the text as separate and static entities. The transactional concept accounts for the importance of factors such as gender, ethnicity, culture, and socioeconomic context. Essential reading for the specialist, this book is also well suited for courses in criticism, critical theory, rhetoric, and aesthetics. Starting from the same nonfoundationalist premises, Rosenblatt avoids the extreme relativism of postmodern theories derived mainly from Continental sources. A deep understanding of the pragmatism of Dewey, James, and Peirce and of key issues in the social sciences is the basis for a view of language and the reading process that recognizes the potentialities for alternative interpretations and at the same time provides a rationale for the responsible reading of texts. The book has been praised for its lucid explanation of the multidimensional character of the reading process—evoking, interpreting, and evaluating the work. The nonliterary (efferent) and the literary (aesthetic) are shown not to be opposites but to represent a continuum of reading behaviors. The author amply illustrates her theoretical points with interpretations of varied texts. The epilogue carries further her critique of rival contemporary theories.
A masterful work by a master poet, this brilliant summation of poetry and human nature will speak to all readers who long to place poetry in their lives. How to Read a Poem is an unprecedented exploration of poetry and feeling. In language at once acute and emotional, National Book Critics Circle award-winning distinguished poet and critic Edward Hirsch describes why poetry matters and how we can open up our imaginations so that its message can make a difference. In a marvelous reading of verse from around the world, including work by Pablo Neruda, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath, among many others, Hirsch discovers the true meaning of their words and ideas and brings their sublime message home into our hearts. "The answer Hirsch gives to the question of how to read as poem is: Ecstatically."—Boston Book Review
The astonishing, powerful debut by the winner of a 2016 Whiting Writers' Award WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: What did I know about being Lakota? Signaled panic, blood rush my embarrassment. What did I know of our language but pieces? Would I teach her to be pieces? Until a friend comforted, Don’t worry, you and your daughter will learn together. Today she stood sunlight on her shoulders lean and straight to share a song in Diné, her father’s language. To sing she motions simultaneously with her hands; I watch her be in multiple musics. —from “WHEREAS Statements” WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation—and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.
Her Read: A Graphic Poem is a hybrid text at once poetry and visual art. In the tradition of reusing canvases, Steinorth takes a seminal text, The Meaning of Art by Herbert Read and with the liberal use of correction fluid, scalpel and embroidery floss, transforms the book from art criticism into feminist verse. Though the maternal body appears with frequency in Read’s illustrated text which spans from prehistory to the modern age, he includes zero female artists. Her Read: A Graphic Poem is an excavation of buried voices, a reclamation of bodies framed in gilt and an homage to those whose arts remain unsung.
Lucid, entertaining and full of insight, How To Read A Poemis designed to banish the intimidation that too often attends thesubject of poetry, and in doing so to bring it into the personalpossession of the students and the general reader. Offers a detailed examination of poetic form and its relationto content. Takes a wide range of poems from the Renaissance to the presentday and submits them to brilliantly illuminating closesanalysis. Discusses the work of major poets, including John Milton,Alexander Pope, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson,W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, W.H.Auden, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon,and many more. Includes a helpful glossary of poetic terms.
Reading Poetry offers a comprehensive and accessible guide to the art of reading poetry. Discussing more than 200 poems by more than 100 writers, the book introduces readers to the skills and the critical and theoretical awareness that enable them to read poetry with enjoyment and insight.
Don Paterson is not only one of our great poets, but also an esteemed authority on the art of poetry. In illuminating and engaging prose, he offers his treatise on the making and the philosophy of 'the poem'.Paterson unpicks the process of verse composition with ambition, scholarly flair, and occasional scurrilities, exploring the mechanics of how a poem works and, essentially, what a poem is. His findings take the form of three essays that make up the three sections of the book: 'Lyric' attends to the sound of the poem; 'Sign' envisages ideas of poetic meaning; while 'Metre' studies its underlying rhythms. Through his various professional guises - as poetry editor at Picador Macmillan, professor of poetry at the University of St Andrews, and major prize-winning poet - no one is better placed to grant this 'insider's perspective'. For all those intrigued by the inner workings of the art form and its fundamental secrets, The Poem will surprise and delight.
