Poetic Meter and Poetic Form

Rating:
Summary: An oldie but goodie on poetry
Review: This is a lucid, engaging short book on the elements of poetry listed in the title: meter and form. Fussell does not provide the kind of encyclopedic information found in many poetry "handbooks"; what he does offer is a basic approach to scansion and analysis, and models for using these techniques in reading and writing about poems. This is a classic text, written with a great love of formal poetry, and referred to often by students and writers of poetry. The only thing that keeps my rating under 10 is that it is fairly out of date, and there are more recent texts that cover contemporary poets and verse forms with more rigor than Fussell. But for a readable treatment of the accentual-syllabic tradition and the first century or so of free verse, this book is a gem.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the neophyte, but a tremendous study
Review: When I was 21 and in my first year of graduate school, Paul Fussell's "Poetic Meter and Poetic Form" was one of the first text books assigned to me. When I bought the book and saw how slim it was, I snickered, "Grad school's gonna be a walk in the park!"

Yeah, RIGHT!

This densely packed tome is not for the uninitiated and definitely not absorbed in just one reading. On and off, over the last 20 years, I have come back to this book to refresh my memory and, usually, to astonish myself. The book's real strength, besides Professor Fussell's obvious command of his subject, and his ability to convey that command, is in the sprinkling of dozens of anecdotes by and about poets about other poets and poetry. Even at this late date in my life, I can't pretend to understand the entire book but what I do understand I admire and respect. "Poetic Meter and Poetic Form" is not recommended to anyone studying poetry; it is urgently required.