Essay on Rime by Karl Shapiro Third Printing, Published by Reynal & Hitchcock in 1945. Prosody & Poetics Book, Hardcover Format. OP

Karl Shapiro (1913 - 2000)

Published by Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945

About this Item

Karl Shapiro's "Essay on Rime" is a brilliant essay on poetry written in verse.

TITLE : Essay on Rime
AUTHOR : Karl Shapiro (1913 - 2000)
IMPRINT : Reynal & Hitchcock
PLACE : New York
DATE : (1945)
EDITION : Third Printing
STATUS : OP - Reynal & Hitchcock are no longer in business.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Trade hardcover; 72 pages; approximately 5 1/2" x 8" (octavo); beige cloth with title, etc. in black and red on spine and front

CONDITION -- GOOD ONLY -- This is a previously owed book which remains clean and serviceable with the following particulars noted:

SPINE : The most egregious imperfection displays at the head: two small splits to the head, with accompanying fraying and slight loss of material -- foot is compressed and displays a definite slant - slight darkening of cloth - title displays clearly; text-block edges are clean.
BOARDS :
FRONT -- Light smudging - near-negligible weathering along fore-edge
REAR -- Smudging, weathering and surface abrasion a bit more pronounced
BINDING : Solid
END PAPERS : There is a sticker ghost on front paste-down - this ghost also has a tiny bit of surface loss -- else clear .
INTERIOR : Clean and presentable with no writing, marginalia, or underlining.
DUST JACKET : Not present

Excerpted from "Essay on Rime" :

The Rhetoric of Rime in "Ulysses"
Lines 1037 - 1054 :
Here we return to Joyce, the modern Lyly
To some, to others the mighty sphinx of words.
To him we put the question: Do you proceed
from rime to prose or prose to rime or both?
The riddle I believe is just; whoever
Sees in Ulysses willy-nilly form
Has not coped with the book as composition.
The poet takes every measurement of a word,
Weight, sound and size, before setting it in
its preordained position in the line.
The novelist works in larger scale; the mass
To him is greater than the particle;
Nor does he dare, for fear of interrupting
The narrative momentum, to attract
The eye upon a snag of rhetoric.
Joyce measures every inch; each line can pass,
By virtue of its word-by-word impact,
As poetry of the highest skill.

ANOTHER EXCERPT :

The Darwinian Poet
Lines 1570 - 1089
One wonders what the youth of Darwin's day
Felt at his dread conclusion that the mind
Of God-created man differs from that
Of the Quadrumana only in degree
And not in kind. I daresay he fell mute,
Though possibly he merely yawned; the world
Had come that distance from the sphere of faith
Before the evolutionist; some despaired,
Some paid no heed, but the significant
Un art caught the Spencerian contagion
And prophesied the new and perfect man.
Nor can it be denied that man in spirit
Had suffered a traumatic shock.
The organic chain of human breeding-stock
Saw the last mystery dispelled. The eye
Appraised the man as beast, the beast as man,
Sometimes with preference for the lower form.
There is a passage in The Descent of Man
Which matches in distemper Whitman's cry
I think I could turn and live with animals.

Seller Inventory # 1344

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Essay on Rime by Karl Shapiro Third Printing, Published by Reynal & Hitchcock in 1945. Prosody & Poetics Book, Hardcover Format. OP
• Publisher: Reynal & Hitchcock
• Publication Date: 1945
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Forgotten Books
  • Prosody
  • American Authors
  • Poetry