The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

Rating:
Summary: A Must-have easy-reference tool.
Review: Basically, it has abstracts that touch on just about any topic you would conceivably want to look up in the course of doing any analysis of poetry. Not only does it provide fully adequate, concise definitions, but it includes a bibliography for each entry, providing loads of sources for further inquiry if you aren't satisfied with the book's definitions.

Rating:
Summary: An Indispensable Reference for Poets and Poetasters
Review: I love huge, exhaustive books like this. I hate not being able to find the answer to a question in under five minutes, and my library has dozens of books like this that make such searches easy (the internet is another fast tool, but very few websites have more than the most basic knowledge.) If you want to learn how to write poetry and learn prosody by hands-on examples, go read John Hollander's little masterpiece, "Rhyme's Reason." If you want fast biographical and literary references, go check out "Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia." But if you want the absolute last word on poetic forms and meters, with absolutely thorough histories of each subject, use this book. It's saved my critic's keister more than once in the classroom. As one of my professors said, a scholar is not somebody who knows all the answers: a scholar is somebody who knows how to find all the answers. This book is an indispensable reference tool for anybody seriously interested in poetry.

Rating:
Summary: The ulimate reference work for poetics
Review: I love huge, exhaustive books like this. I hate not being able to find the answer to a question in under five minutes, and my library has dozens of books like this that make such searches easy (the internet is another fast tool, but very few websites have more than the most basic knowledge.) If you want to learn how to write poetry and learn prosody by hands-on examples, go read John Hollander's little masterpiece, "Rhyme's Reason." If you want fast biographical and literary references, go check out "Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia." But if you want the absolute last word on poetic forms and meters, with absolutely thorough histories of each subject, use this book. It's saved my critic's keister more than once in the classroom. As one of my professors said, a scholar is not somebody who knows all the answers: a scholar is somebody who knows how to find all the answers. This book is an indispensable reference tool for anybody seriously interested in poetry.

Rating:
Summary: Less than perfect
Review: one of the three books that any student or writer of poetry needs to own, besides a good dictionary. (The other two are Pound's "ABCs of Reading" and Shapiro's "Primer.") Answers questions & points you in the right direction for more. Once you open it, you'll wonder how you got by without it.

Rating:
Summary: It really is
Review: one of the three books that any student or writer of poetry needs to own, besides a good dictionary. (The other two are Pound's "ABCs of Reading" and Shapiro's "Primer.") Answers questions & points you in the right direction for more. Once you open it, you'll wonder how you got by without it.

Rating:
Summary: It really is
Review: one of the three books that any student or writer of poetry needs to own, besides a good dictionary. (The other two are Pound's "ABCs of Reading" and Shapiro's "Primer.") Answers questions & points you in the right direction for more. Once you open it, you'll wonder how you got by without it.

Rating:
Summary: Less than perfect
Review: This book is comprehensive and probably essential for the study of poetry. But there are several serious problems. First, there is only a completely useless Table of Contents and no index. Yes, it is an encyclopedia and the entries are in alphabetical order but the subjects are very broad (Symbol, Twentieth-Century Poetics) making it necessary to scan several pages in several different subject areas without knowing if you have missed the poem or poet you are looking for. How will you know to look for comments on The Illiad under the heading of Simile or that the subject heading Intuition contains a discussion of the Neo-Platonists? Scanning pages for a specific piece of information is difficult because the print is tiny. The Preface and Acknowledgments are in big print and then they switch to very small print for the remainder of the book. You will need lots of time and a magnifying glass to take full advantage of this book.

Rating:
Summary: not a quick-reference, but not meant to be
Review: This book is not for quick reference (it is, after all, an encyclopedia, not a dictionary). Nor is it a place to look up information about individual poets (imagine how much more impossibly--albeit delightfully--bulky it would be if it was!). And it is probably not the best place for newcomers to poetry to begin their education on the matter (best to start by reading short, basic, readable introductions like Fussell's _Poetic Meter & Poetic Form_ and John Hollander's _Rhyme Reason_, and most importantly, by reading around in something like _The Norton Anthology of Poetry_). But the NPEPP is an important, perhaps necessary, volume (tome, really) for anyone (poets [real/serious and presumptuously self-declared alike], graduate students, scholars and academics) who needs more than a novice-level knowledge of poetry.

And while students of poetry are the main audience for this book, beginning students of literary theory should also take note of it, because the NPEPP has entries on critical terms, trends, and schools that are more comprehensive, detailed and satisfying than those in most handbooks of literary/critical theory.

But beyond its academic value, the NPEPP is surely a must for anyone who simply appreciates a good reference book (on whatever topic). Which is to say, eclectic armchair factophiles shoud shelve it next to their _NFL Encyclopedia_ and their _Domesday Book_ (and ideally within arm's-reach of the toilet) and enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive, informative and awkward
Review: This is the most comprehensive and informative encylopedia of poetry and poetics that I know. It at times seems so comprehensive and detailed as to make understanding of its entries possible. It is in fact so overwhelming sometimes that it confuses by telling much more than I, at least, need or want to know. It seems to me in a way a very academic work, wonderful for critics but probably of very little use in inspiring to poetry. So much knowledge about poetry is not necessarily what poetry is.

Rating:
Summary: An Indispensable Reference for Poets and Poetasters
Review: This stunningly comprehensive volume truly merits the title "encyclopedia". Nearly 1,400 pages, two columns to a page, with small print (the size of the print being one of the few shortcomings of the book). Over 700 entries, each including a brief bibliography. Detailed discussions of 106 national poetries. Entries on all varieties of poetic schools and movements, including Dada, Surrealism, Beat Poets, and . . . Fyrtiotalisterna (a group of Swedish modernist poets). Definitions of every imaginable poetic term, from anacoluthon to chiasmus to vers libre. Entries written by recognized authorities, from A. B. Lord writing on "Oral Poetry" to M. H. Abrams discussing "Theories of Poetry" to Elaine Showalter on "Feminist Poetics". "The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics" is simply the best single volume on poetry and poetics available, an indispensable reference for anyone seriously interested in poetry, as well as anyone interested in literature, literary history and prosody.