Poetry and Its Forms Book

POETRY AND ITS FORMS OETRY AND ITS FORM By MASON LONG Professor of English Literature THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE COLLEGE P - PUTNAMS NEW YORK 1938 SONS PREFACE Poetry and Its Forms undertakes to set forth those general as pects o poetry which are necessary to an intelligent and a sym pathetic appreciation of poetry as an art. The book is designed to guide the student into such an interpretation of poetry as will aid him not only in formulating sound critical standards of judgment but also in bringing about an enrichment of his own experiences as a human being. Accordingly, historical and technical information is furnished as well as appreciative evaluations. The mood of the entire book has as its objective a stimulation of the readers feeling and imagination and an awakening within him of a desire to read poetry after the personality of the teacher has been withdrawn. Because of this fact, poetry itself is stressed rather than the men who wrote it or the times in which they wrote emphasis is placed upon poetry as a thing to be enjoyed for what it says and the way it says it. As a basis for study, the arrangement by types or forms has been selected. Unlike those texts which follow the plan of an historical survey, this book is concerned mostly with the thought and structure of poetry rather than with sources, developments, influences, and periods. Admirable as other methods of study may be, the study by forms demands our special consideration. More than some other textual arrangements and devices, it holds itself more faithfully to a consideration of poetry as an art. The stress, in this instance, is more likely to be laid upon how the thing is, done and what is said. The student is reminded con stantly of a poem as a part of universal experience rather than as a mouthpiece of a certain school of a given epoch. Where the consideration of classes of poetry does not overshadow the poetry itself, arrangement by forms injects a unifying element into a course in poetry which is both pleasant and fruitful. The study of forms is not therefore an end in itself, but rather a means to a far nobler end, namely that of making poetry infectious. vi PREFACE The author of this book is aware of the difficulty of classifying, certain poems. He does not for a moment assume that his dis position of certain examples is the only one. Every student of poetry knows that many poems admit of several classifications. In such instances the author was guided by their dominant features, and classified them accordingly. In so far as it was possible, the discussion of each form follows a similar plan. A brief history of the form is first given, then the general characteristics of the form. Some outstanding exam ples are next discussed, with regard both to their typical features and to their appeal as pieces of literary art and mirrors of expe rience. Exercises are provided to suggest topics for written re ports or subjects for class discussions. These exercises are also designed to extend the students knowledge of the given subject, and to direct him in applying still more widely the principles which were developed in the course of the chapter. Questions involving exhaustive research or elaborate inquiry into the minutiae of technique are avoided. At the close of each chapter examples from English and American literatures are listed. The author sought to select examples that had intrinsic merit, that represented variations within the type itself, that were most in teresting and most beneficial to the student, that were most likely to be listed in leading anthologies, and that were repre sentative of the whole field of English and American literatures. Poetry and Its Forms may be used in various ways. Obviously, its primary function is most happily realized where the types of poetry are made the basis of study...Read More