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Poetry (from the Greek "Template:Polytonic", poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns or lyrics.

Poetry, and weiners of it, have a long history. Early attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition and rhyme, and emphasised the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from prose. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more loosely defined as a fundamental creative act using language.

Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to expand the literal meaning of the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poetry's use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor and simile create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.

Some forms of poetry are specific to particular cultures and genres, responding to the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. While readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as being written in rhyming lines and regular meter, there are traditions, such as those of Du Fu and Beowulf, that use other approaches to achieve rhythm and euphony. In today's globalized world, poets often borrow styles, techniques and forms from diverse cultures and languages.

Basic elements

Poetic form

Poetic form is more flexible in modernist and post-modernist poetry, and continues to be less structured than in previous literary eras. Many modern poets eschew recognisable structures or forms, and write in 'free verse'. But poetry remains distinguished from prose by its form and some regard for basic formal structures of poetry will be found in even the best free verse, however much it may appear to have been ignored. Similarly, in the best poetry written in the classical style there will be departures from strict form for emphasis or effect. Among the major structural elements often used in poetry are the line, the stanza or verse paragraph, and larger combinations of stanzas or lines such as cantos. The broader visual presentation of words and calligraphy can also be utilized. These basic units of poetic form are often combined into larger structures, called poetic forms or poetic modes (see following section), such as in the sonnet or haiku.

Lines and stanzas

Poetry is often separated into lines on a page. These lines may be based on the number of metrical feet, or may emphasize a rhyming pattern at the ends of lines. Lines may serve other functions, particularly where the poem is not written in a formal metrical pattern. Lines can separate, compare or contrast thoughts expressed in different units, or can highlight a change in tone. See the article on line breaks for information about the division between lines.

Lines of poems are often organized into stanzas, which are denominated by the number of lines included. Thus a collection of two lines is a couplet (or distich), three lines a triplet (or tercet), four lines a quatrain, five lines a quintain (or cinquain), six lines a sestet, and eight lines an octet. These lines may or may not relate to each other by rhyme or rhythm. For example, a couplet may be two lines with identical meters which rhyme or two lines held together by a common meter alone. Stanzas often have related couplets or triplets within them.

Other poems may be organized into verse paragraphs, in which regular rhymes with established rhythms are not used, but the poetic tone is instead established by a collection of rhythms, alliterations, and rhymes established in paragraph form. Many medieval poems were written in verse paragraphs, even where regular rhymes and rhythms were used.

In many forms of poetry, stanzas are interlocking, so that the rhyming scheme or other structural elements of one stanza determine those of succeeding stanzas. Examples of such interlocking stanzas include, for example, the ghazal and the villanelle, where a refrain (or, in the case of the villanelle, refrains) is established in the first stanza which then repeats in subsequent stanzas. Related to the use of interlocking stanzas is their use to separate thematic parts of a poem. For example, the strophe, antistrophe and epode of the ode form are often separated into one or more stanzas. In such cases, or where structures are meant to be highly formal, a stanza will usually form a complete thought, consisting of full sentences and cohesive thoughts.

In some cases, particularly lengthier formal poetry such as some forms of epic poetry, stanzas themselves are constructed according to strict rules and then combined. In skaldic poetry, the dróttkvætt stanza had eight lines, each having three "lifts" produced with alliteration or assonance. In addition to two or three alliterations, the odd numbered lines had partial rhyme of consonants with dissimilar vowels, not necessarily at the beginning of the word; the even lines contained internal rhyme in set syllables (not necessarily at the end of the word). Each half-line had exactly six syllables, and each line ended in a trochee. The arrangement of dróttkvætts followed far less rigid rules than the construction of the individual dróttkvætts.

Visual presentation

Even before the advent of printing, the visual appearance of poetry often added meaning or depth. Acrostic poems conveyed meanings in the initial letters of lines or in letters at other specific places in a poem. In Arabic, Hebrew and Chinese poetry, the visual presentation of finely calligraphed poems has played an important part in the overall effect of many poems.

With the advent of printing, poets gained greater control over the mass-produced visual presentations of their work. Visual elements have become an important part of the poet's toolbox, and many poets have sought to use visual presentation for a wide range of purposes. Some Modernist poetry takes this to an extreme, with the placement of individual lines or groups of lines on the page forming an integral part of the poem's composition, whether to complement the poem's rhythm through visual caesuras of various lengths, or to create juxtapositions so as to accentuate meaning, ambiguity or irony, or simply to create an aesthetically pleasing form. In its most extreme form, this can lead to concrete poetry or asemic writing.

Poetic diction

Poetic diction treats of the manner in which language is used, and refers not only to the sound but also to the underlying meaning and its interaction with sound and form. Many languages and poetic forms have very specific poetic dictions, to the point where distinct grammars and dialects are used specifically for poetry.

Poetic diction can include rhetorical devices such as simile and metaphor, as well as tones of voice, such as irony. Aristotle wrote in the Poetics that "the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor." Since the rise of Modernism, some poets have opted for a poetic diction that deemphasizes rhetorical devices, attempting instead the direct presentation of things and experiences and the exploration of tone. On the other hand, Surrealists have pushed rhetorical devices to their limits, making frequent use of catachresis.

Allegorical stories are central to the poetic diction of many cultures, and were prominent in the west during classical times, the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Rather than being fully allegorical, however, a poem may contain symbols or allusions that deepen the meaning or effect of its words without constructing a full allegory.

Another strong element of poetic diction can be the use of vivid imagery for effect. The juxtaposition of unexpected or impossible images is, for example, a particularly strong element in surrealist poetry and haiku. Vivid images are often, as well, endowed with symbolism.

Many poetic dictions use repetitive phrases for effect, either a short phrase (such as Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" or "the wine-dark sea") or a longer refrain. Such repetition can add a somber tone to a poem, as in many odes, or can be laced with irony as the context of the words changes. For example, in Antony's famous eulogy of Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Antony's repetition of the words, "For Brutus is an honorable man," moves from a sincere tone to one that exudes irony.

Poetic forms

Specific poetic forms have been developed by many cultures. In more developed, closed or "received" poetic forms, the rhyming scheme, meter and other elements of a poem are based on sets of rules, ranging from the relatively loose rules that govern the construction of an elegy to the highly formalized structure of the ghazal or villanelle. Described below are some common forms of poetry widely used across a number of languages. Additional forms of poetry may be found in the discussions of poetry of particular cultures or periods and in the glossary.

Sonnets

Among the most common form of poetry through the ages is the sonnet, which, by the thirteenth century, was a poem of fourteen lines following a set rhyme scheme and logical structure. The conventions associated with the sonnet have changed during its history, and so there are several different sonnet forms. Traditionally, English poets use iambic pentameter when writing sonnets, with the Spenserian and Shakespearean sonnets being especially notable. In the Romance languages, the hendecasyllable and Alexandrines are the most widely used meters, although the Petrarchan sonnet has been used in Italy since the 14th century. Sonnets are particularly associated with love poetry, and often use a poetic diction heavily based on vivid imagery, but the twists and turns associated with the move from octave to sestet and to final couplet make them a useful and dynamic form for many subjects. Shakespeare's sonnets are among the most famous in English poetry, with 20 being included in the Oxford Book of English Verse.

Jintishi

The jintishi (近體詩) is a Chinese poetic form based on a series of set tonal patterns using the four tones of the classical Chinese language in each couplet: the level, rising, falling and entering tones. The basic form of the jintishi has eight lines in four couplets, with parallelism between the lines in the second and third couplets. The couplets with parallel lines contain contrasting content but an identical grammatical relationship between words. Jintishi often have a rich poetic diction, full of allusion, and can have a wide range of subject, including history and politics. One of the masters of the form was Du Fu, who wrote during the Tang Dynasty (8th century). There are several variations on the basic form of the jintishi.

Sestina

The sestina has six stanzas, each comprising six unrhymed lines, in which the words at the end of the first stanza’s lines reappear in a rolling pattern in the other stanzas. The poem then ends with a three-line stanza in which the words again appear, two on each line.

Villanelle

The Villanelle is a nineteen-line poem made up of five triplets with a closing quatrain; the poem is characterized by having two refrains, initially used in the first and third lines of the first stanza, and then alternately used at the close of each subsequent stanza until the final quatrain, which is concluded by the two refrains. The remaining lines of the poem have an a-b alternating rhyme. The villanelle has been used regularly in the English language since the late nineteenth century by such poets as Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, and Elizabeth Bishop. It is a form that has gained increased use at a time when the use of received forms of poetry has generally been declining.

Pantoum

The pantoum is a rare form of poetry similar to a villanelle. It is composed of a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next.

Tanka

The Tanka is a form of Japanese poetry, generally not possessing rhyme, with five lines structured in a 5-7-5 7-7 patterns. The 5-7-5 phrase (the "upper phrase") and the 7-7 phrase (the "lower phrase") generally show a shift in tone and subject matter. Tanka were written as early as the Nara period by such poets as Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, at a time when Japan was emerging from a period where much of its poetry followed Chinese form. Tanka was originally the shorter form of Japanese formal poetry, and was used more heavily to explore personal rather than public themes. It thus had a more informal poetic diction. By the 13th century, Tanka had become the dominant form of Japanese poetry, and it is still widely written today.

Haiku

Haiku is a popular form of traditional Japanese poetry. As it has evolved in recent centuries, haiku is a 17-onji verse comprising three metrical units of 5, 7, and 5 onji. The onji is a linguistic idea identical in concept with that of mora. Onji are not syllables.

Ruba'i

Four lines of verse practised by Arabian and Persian poets. Omar Khayyam is famous for his Rubaiyat. The most famous translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam from Persi into English was done by Edward Fitzgerald. An example is given below:

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep

The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:

And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass

Stamps o'er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.

Sijo

A short musical lyric practised by Korean poets. They are usually written in three lines. The lines average 14-16 syllables, for a total of 44-46. There is a pause in the middle of each line and so, in English, Sijo are sometimes printed in six lines instead of three. An example is given below:

You ask how many friends I have? Water and stone, bamboo and pine.

The moon rising over the eastern hill is a joyful comrade.

Besides these five companions, what other pleasure should I ask?

Ode

Odes were first developed by poets writing in ancient Greek, such as Pindar, and Latin, such as Horace. Forms of odes appear in many of the cultures that were influenced by the Greeks and Latins. The ode generally has three parts: a strophe, an antistrophe, and an epode. The antistrophes of the ode possess similar metrical structures and, depending on the tradition, similar rhyme structures. In contrast, the epode is written with a different scheme and structure. Odes have a formal poetic diction, and generally deal with a serious subject. The strophe and antistrophe look at the subject from different, often conflicting, perspectives, with the epode moving to a higher level to either view or resolve the underlying issues. Odes are often intended to be recited or sung by two choruses (or individuals), with the first reciting the strophe, the second the antistrophe, and both together the epode. Over time, differing forms for odes have developed with considerable variations in form and structure, but generally showing the original influence of the Pindaric or Horatian ode. One non-Western form which resembles the ode is the qasida in Persian poetry.

Ghazal

The ghazal (Persian/Urdu/Arabic: غزل) is a form of poetry common in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Bengali poetry. In classic form, the ghazal has from five to fifteen rhyming couplets that share a refrain at the end of the second line (which need be of only a few syllables). Each line has an identical meter, and there is a set pattern of rhymes in the first couplet and among the refrains. Each couplet forms a complete thought and stands alone, and the overall ghazal often reflects on a theme of unattainable love or divinity. The last couplet generally includes the signature of the author.

As with other forms with a long history in many languages, many variations have been developed, including forms with a quasi-musical poetic diction in Urdu. Ghazals have a classical affinity with Sufism, and a number of major Sufi religious works are written in ghazal form. The relatively steady meter and the use of the refrain produce an incantatory effect, which complements Sufi mystical themes well. Among the masters of the form is Rumi, a Persian poet who lived in Turkey.

Other forms

Other forms of poetry include acrostic poetry, in which letter patterns create multiple messages (such as where the first lettres of lines, read downward, form a separate phrase or word), and concrete poetry, which uses word arrangement, typeface, color or other visual effects to complement or dramatize the meaning of the words used; cinquains, which have five lines with two, four, six, eight, and two syllables, respectively, and free verse, which is based on the irregular rhythmic cadence or the recurrence, with variations, of phrases, images, and syntactical patterns rather than the conventional use of meter.

Poetic genres

In addition to specific forms of poems, poetry is often thought of in terms of different genres and subgenres. A poetic genre is generally a tradition or classification of poetry based on the subject matter, style, or other broader literary characteristics. Some commentators view genres as natural forms of literature. Others view the study of genres as the study of how different works relate and refer to other works.

Epic poems are one commonly identified genre, often defined as lengthy poems concerning events of a heroic or important nature to the culture of the time. Lyric poetry, which tends to be shorter, melodic, and contemplative, is another 'commonly identified genre. Some commentators may organize bodies of poetry into further subgenres, and individual poems may be seen as a part of many different genres. In many cases, poetic genres show common features as a result of a common tradition, even across cultures. Greek lyric poetry influenced the genre's development from India to Europe.

Described below are some common genres, but the classification of genres, the description of their characteristics, and even the reasons for undertaking a classification into genres can take many forms.

Narrative poetry

Narrative poetry is a genre of poetry that tells a story. Broadly it subsumes epic poetry, but the term "narrative poetry" is often reserved for smaller works, generally with more direct appeal than the epic to human interest.

Narrative poetry may be the oldest genre of poetry. Many scholars of Homer have concluded that his Iliad and Odyssey were composed from compilations of shorter narrative poems that related individual episodes and were more suitable for an evening's entertainment. Much narrative poetry — such as Scots and English ballads, and Baltic and Slavic heroic poems — is performance poetry with roots in a preliterate oral tradition. It has been speculated that some features that distinguish poetry from prose, such as meter, alliteration and kennings, once served as memory aids for bards who recited traditional tales.

Notable narrative poets have included Ovid, Dante, Chaucer, William Langland, Luís de Camões, Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Robert Burns, Adam Mickiewicz, Alexander Pushkin, Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Tennyson.

Epic poetry

Epic poetry is a genre of poetry, and a major form of narrative literature. It recounts, in a continuous narrative, the life and works of a heroic or mythological person or group of persons. Examples of epic poems include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Vergil's Aeneid, the Nibelungenlied and Luís de Camões' Os Lusíadas, Epic of Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, Valmiki's Ramayana, Ferdowsi's Shahnama, and the Epic of King Gesar. While the composition of epic poetry, and of long poems generally, became less common in the west after the early 20th century, a number of notable epics have continued to be written. For example, Derek Walcott won the Nobel prize to a great extent on the basis of his epic, Omeros.

Dramatic poetry

Dramatic poetry is drama written in verse to be spoken or sung, and appears in varying and sometimes related forms in many cultures. Verse drama may have developed out of earlier oral epics, such as the Sanskrit and Greek epics. Greek tragedy in verse dates to the sixth century B.C., and may have been one of the influences on the development of Sanskrit drama,, just as Indian drama in turn appears to have influenced the development of the bainwen verse dramas in China, the forerunning of the Chinese Opera. East Asian verse dramas also notably include the Noh form in Japan.

Satirical poetry

Poetry can be a powerful vehicle for satire. The punch of an insult delivered in verse can be many times more powerful and memorable than that of the same insult, spoken or written in prose. The Greeks and Romans had a strong tradition of satirical poetry, often written for political purposes. A notable example is the Roman Martial's epigrams, whose insults stung the entire spectrum of society.

The same is true of the English satirical tradition. Embroiled in the feverish politics of the time and stung by an attack on him by his former friend, Thomas Shadwell (a Whig), John Dryden (a Tory), the first Poet Laureate, produced in 1682 Mac Flecknoe, one of the greatest pieces of sustained invective in the English language, subtitled "A Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet, T.S." In this, the late, notably mediocre poet, Richard Flecknoe, was imagined to be contemplating who should succeed him as ruler "of all the realms of Nonsense absolute" to "reign and wage immortal war on wit."

Another master of 17th-century English satirical poetry was John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester. He was known for ruthless satires such as "A Satyr Against Mankind" (1675) and a "A Satyr on Charles II."

Another exemplar of English satirical poetry was Alexander Pope, who famously chided critics in his Essay on Criticism (1709).

Dryden and Pope were writers of epic poetry, and their satirical style was accordingly epic; but there is no prescribed form for satirical poetry.

The greatest satirical poets outside England include Poland's Ignacy Krasicki and Portugal's Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, commonly known as Bocage.

Lyric poetry

Lyric poetry is a genre that, unlike epic poetry and dramatic poetry, does not attempt to tell a story but instead is of a more personal nature. Rather than depicting characters and actions, it portrays the poet's own feelings, states of mind, and perceptions. While the genre's name, derived from "lyre," implies that it is intended to be sung, much lyric poetry is meant purely for reading.

Though lyric poetry has long celebrated love, many courtly-love poets also wrote lyric poems about war and peace, nature and nostalgia, grief and loss. Notable among these are the 15th century French lyric poets, Christine de Pizan and Charles, Duke of Orléans. Spiritual and religious themes were addressed by such medieval lyric poets as St. John of the Cross and Teresa of Ávila. The tradition of lyric poetry based on spiritual experience was continued by later poets such as John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins and T. S. Eliot.

Although the most popular form for western lyric poetry to take may be the 14-line sonnet, as practiced by Petrarch and Shakespeare, lyric poetry shows a bewildering variety of forms, including increasingly, in the 20th century, unrhymed ones. This the most common type of poetry, as it deals intricately with the author's own emotions and views. Due to this fact, lyric poems of the First-person narrative are often accused of navel-gazing, and may be scorned by other, less self-centered, poets.

Verse fable

The fable is an ancient and near-ubiquitous literary genre, often (though not invariably) set in verse form. It is a brief, succinct story that features anthropomorphized animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that illustrate a moral lesson (a "moral"). Verse fables have used a variety of meter and rhyme patterns; Ignacy Krasicki, for example, in his Fables and Parables, used 13-syllable lines in rhyming couplets.

Notable verse fabulists have included Aesop (mid-6th century BCE), Vishnu Sarma (ca. 200 BCE), Phaedrus (15 BCE–50 CE), Marie de France (12th century), Biernat of Lublin (1465?–after 1529), Jean de La Fontaine (1621–95), Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801), Ivan Krylov (1769–1844) and Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914). All of Aesop's translators and successors have owed a fundamental debt to that semi-legendary fabulist.

Prose poetry

Prose poetry is a hybrid genre that demonstrates attributes of both prose and poetry. It may be indistinguishable from the micro-story (aka the "short short story," "flash fiction"). Most critics argue that it qualifies as poetry because of its conciseness, use of metaphor, and special attention to language.

While some examples of earlier prose strike modern readers as poetic, prose poetry is commonly regarded as having originated in 19th-century France, where its practitioners included Aloysius Bertrand, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé.

The genre has subsequently found notable exemplars:

• English: Oscar Wilde, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, Allen Ginsberg, Seamus Heaney, Russell Edson, Robert Bly, Charles Simic
• French: Francis Ponge
• Italian: Eugenio Montale, Salvatore Quasimodo, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Umberto Saba
• Polish: Bolesław Prus, Zbigniew Herbert
• Portuguese: Fernando Pessoa, Mário Cesariny, Mário De Sá-Carneiro, Eugénio de Andrade, Al Berto, Alexandre O'Neill, José Saramago, António Lobo Antunes
• Russian: Ivan Turgenev, Anatoly Kudryavitsky
• Spanish: Octavio Paz, Ángel Crespo
• Swedish: Tomas Tranströmer

Since the late 1980s especially, prose poetry has gained increasing popularity, with entire journals devoted solely to that genre.

See also

• List of basic poetry topics
• Poetry terminology
• theopoetics
• The years-in-poetry project, accessible through "Centuries in poetry" or "List of years in poetry."

Notes

1. Heath, Malcolm (ed). Aristotle's Poetics. London, England: Penguin Books, (1997), ISBN 0140446362.
2. See, for example, Immanuel Kant (J.H. Bernhard, Trans). Critique of Judgment. Dover (2005).
3. Dylan Thomas. Quite Early One Morning. New York, New York: New Direction Books, reset edition (1968), ISBN 0811202089.
4. For examples of different uses of visual space in modern poetry, see E. E. Cummings works or C.J. Moore's poetic translation of the Fables of LaFontaine, which usees color and page placement to complement the illustrations of Marc Chagall. Marc Chagall (illust) and C.J. Moore (trans.). Fables of La Fontaine. The New Press, (1977), ISBN 1565844041.
5. A good pre-modernist example of concrete poetry is the poem about the mouse's tale in the shape of a long tail in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, available in Wikisource.
6. See, for example, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge for a well-known example of symbolism and metaphor used in poetry. The albatross that is killed by the mariner is a traditional symbol of good luck, and its death takes on metaphorical implications.
7. See
   • The Poetics of Aristotle at Project Gutenberg at 22.
8. Aesop's Fables, repeatedly rendered in both verse and prose since first being recorded about 500 B.C., are perhaps the richest single source of allegorical poetry through the ages. Other notables examples include the Roman de la Rose, a 13th-century French poem, William Langland's Piers Ploughman in the 14th century, and Jean de la Fontaine's Fables (influenced by Aesop's) in the 17th century (available in French on wikisource)..
9. See Act III, Scene II in Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, available at Wikisource.
10. Arthur Quiller-Couch (Ed). Oxford Book of English Verse. Oxford University Press, (1900). Note that the relative prominence of a poet or a set of works is often measured by reference to the Oxford Book of English Verse or the Norton Anthology of Poetry, with many people counting poems or pages allocated to a given poet or subject.
11. E.g., "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" in Dylan Thomas. In Country Sleep and Other Poems. New York, New York: New Directions Publications, (1952).
12. "Villanelle", in W. H. Auden. Collected Poems. New York, New York: Random House, (1945).
13. "One Art", in Elizabeth Bishop. Geography III. New York, New York, Farar, Straus & Giroux, (1976).
14. The extant Odes of Pindar as translated by Ernest Myers are freely available on-line from Gutenberg.
15. In particular, the translations of Horace's odes by John Dryden were influential in establishing the form in English, though Dryden utilizes rhyme in his translations where Horace did not.
16. For a general discussion of genre theory on the internet, see Daniel Chandler's Introduction to Genre Theory.
17. See, for example, Northrup Frye. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, (1957).
18. Jacques Derrida, Beverly Bie Brahic (Trans.). Geneses, Genealogies, Genres, And Genius: The Secrets of the Archive. New York, New York: Columbia University Press(2006), ISBN 0231139780.
19. Hatto, A. T. Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry (Vol. I: The Traditions ed.). Maney Publishing.
20. Shakespeare parodied such analysis in Hamlet, describing the genres as consisting of "tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral..."
21. See Press Release from the Nobel Committee, , accessed January 20, 2008.
22. A. Berriedale Keith, Sanskrit Drama, Motilal Banarsidass Publ (1998).
23. A. Berriedale Keith at 57-58.
24. William Dolby, Early Chinese Plays and Theatre, in Colin Mackerras, Chinese Theatre" , University of Hawaii Press (1983) at 17.

References

2. Part 2

Anthologies

• Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter & Jon Stallworthy (Eds). The Norton Anthology of Poetry. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Co. (4th ed, 1996), ISBN 0393968200 .
• Helen Gardner (Ed). New Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1950. New York, New York and London, England: Oxford University Press, (1972), ISBN 0-19-812136-9.
• Donald Hall (Ed). New Poets of England and America. New York, New York: Meridian Press, (1957).
• Philip Larkin (Ed). Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse. New York, New York and London, England: Oxford University Press, (1973)
• James Laughlin (Ed). New Directions in Prose and Poetry Annuals. Norfolk, Connecticut and New York, New York: New Directions Publications (1936–1991).
• Arthur Quiller-Couch (Ed). Oxford Book of English Verse. Oxford University Press, (1900).
• W.B. Yeats (Ed). Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935. Oxford University Press, (1936)

Scansion and Form

• Alfred Corn. The Poem's Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody. London, England: Storyline Press (1997), ISBN 1885266405.
• Paul Fussell. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. New York, New York: Random House (1965).
• John Hollander. Rhyme's Reason (3rd ed). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press (2001).
• James McAuley. Versification, A Short Introduction. Michigan State University Press (1983), ISBN B0007DTS8K
• Robert Pinsky. The Sounds of Poetry (1998).

Critical and historical works

• Cleanth Brooks. The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. New York, New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, (1947).
• William K. Wimsatt, Jr. & Cleanth Brooks. Literary Criticism: A Short History. New York, New York: Vintage Books, (1957).
• T. S. Eliot. The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. London, England: Methuen Publishing, Ltd., (1920).
• George Gascoigne. Certayne Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of English Verse or Ryme.
• Ezra Pound. ABC of Reading. London, England: Faber, (1951).
• Władysław Tatarkiewicz. "The Concept of Poetry," translated by Christopher Kasparek, Dialectics and Humanism: the Polish Philosophical Quarterly, vol. II, no. 2 (spring 1975), pp. 13–24.
• John Thompson. The Founding of English Meter. New York, New York: Columbia University Press (1961).

Linguistics and language

• Zhiming Bao. The structure of tone. New York, New York: Oxford University Press (1999) ISBN 0-19-511880-4.
• Morio Kono. "Perception and Psychology of Rhythm" in Accent, Intonation, Rhythm and Pause. (1997).
• Moria Yip. Tone. Cambridge textbooks in linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2002) ISBN 0-521-77314-8 (hbk), ISBN 0-521-77445-4 (pbk).

Other Works

• Alex Preminger, Terry V.F. Brogan and Frank J. Warnke (Eds). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (3rd Ed.). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-02123-6.

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