Description
Analytical commentary on single poems
is required for many public examinations
and it is impossible to appreciate poetry
fully without some knowledge of the
various aspects of poetic technique. Miss
Bulton’s friendly little book aims at
providing the needed introduction. It will
undoubtedly be of great use to examina-
tion candidates, but it is not a dreary
cram-book; there are plenty of unusual
examples and the reader is encouraged to
think independently. The explanation of
what are often misleadingly called ‘irre-
gularities’ in rhythm is one of the few
detailed explanations available to the non-
specialist, and the exposition of the func-
tion of association is up to date, without
being too recondite.
This book should be in every secondary
school and college library; teachers as
well as pupils will find it helpful; anyone
intending to begin a course in literature
would be glad to possess it; and it is
sufficiently human to deserve a place on
the private bookshelf of the inquiring
reader.
The Anatomy of Poetry is an elementary,
and happy attemp to direct the student,
as if in a class-room, from the first piston
movement of the verse to the more ad-
vanced driving-seat of critical analysis of a
whole poem. This is a simple introduction
to the technicalities, as they are carelessly
called, of poetry, a small book packed with
useful information for a boy or girl whose
ambition stretches not much further than
answering “Question I”(a)” well and
glibly.
But it could also introduce a young stu-
dent, eager to understand the complicated
human mechanism from which a poem is
formed, into the world of imagination for
which a passport of precision, knowledge
of detail, exact attention to meaning and
form, is as necessary as the wish to travel
on the literary continent. Miss Boulton’s
anatomy very properly gives this kind of
student, who is the one kind that can be
taught since he is self-teaching, a good
look at the skeleton.’ –Times Literary
Supplement.
‘Miss Boulton is young and up to date, yet
devoted to poetic traditions. Her analysis
of English poetic methods and processes is
both lucid and acute; the “literary bobby-
soxers” would learn a good deal from it.’
–The Listener.
189 pages
Hardcover
In good preloved condition with the exception of wear to the plastic cover in place over the papercover and minor spotting on two pages at the very front and back of the book due to tape adhesive transfer.
