The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691032718 ISBN 13: 9780691032719

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1993

Synopsis

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in length from relatively brief notices to substantial articles of about 20,000 words.

The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, published in 1965, established itself as a standard work in the field. Among the 215 contributors were Northrop Frye writing on allegory, Murray Krieger on belief in poetry, Philip Wheelwright on myth, John Hollander on music, and William Carlos Williams on free verse. In 1974, the Enlarged Edition increased the entries with dozens of new subjects, including rock lyric, computer poetry, and black poetry, to name just a few.

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics accounts for the extraordinary change and explosion of knowledge within literary and cultural studies since the 1970s. This edition, completely revised, preserves what was most valuable from previous editions, while subjecting each existing entry to revision. Over 90 percent of the entries have been extensively revised and most major ones entirely rewritten. Completely new entries number 162, including those by new contributors Camille Paglia, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Elaine Showalter, Houston Baker, Andrew Ross, and many more. New entries include those on cultural criticism, discourse, feminist poetics, and Chicano poetry.

Improvements cover several areas: All the recent developments in theory that bear on poetry are included; bibliographies of secondary sources are extended; cross-references among entries and through blind entries have been expanded for greater ease of use; and coverage of emergent and non-Western poetries is dramatically increased. Indeed, a hallmark of the encyclopedia is its world-wide orientation on the poetry of national and cultural groups.

About this title

Review

From abecedarius to zeugma, by way of cywydd, estribillo, Nibelungenstrophe, Tachtigers, and other poetic terms that sound like poetry, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a gold mine for readers and writers of poetry alike. First published in 1965, this tome has evolved to reflect developments in critical thinking and an expanding knowledge of non-Western poetry (without, heaven forfend, being trendy: "a reference work," the editors explain, "must always distance itself from its time while it works to embrace that time"). For this third edition, the editors write, nearly every entry has been changed significantly, and 162 entries have been added. The preface claims coverage of every poetic tradition in the world, and one doesn't doubt it. There's enough material here to keep one browsing well past Yeats's "Second Coming." If that's not enough to quench your poetic thirst, fret not: a detailed bibliography concludes each entry.

About the Author

Alex Preminger is former Associate Professor and Chief of the Humanities Division, Brooklyn College Library, The City University of New York. T.V.F. Brogan, formerly Assistant Professor of English at the University of Hawaii, is an information-systems consultant. Frank J. Warnke was Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia. O. B. Hardison, Jr., was Professor of English at Georgetown University. Earl Miner is Professor of English at Princeton University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0691032718
• ISBN 13: 9780691032719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 1440
• Editor: Preminger Alex, Brogan Terry V.F., Warnke Frank J.