Learning the secrets of English verse : the keys to the treasure chest / David J. Rothman, Susan Delaney Spear.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rothman, David J., 1959- author.

Spear, Susan Delaney, author.

Series:

Springer texts in education

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English poetry--Study and teaching.

English poetry.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvii, 293 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Cham : Springer, [2022]

Summary:

This textbook teaches the writing of poetry by examining all the major verse forms and repeating stanza forms in English. It provides students with the tools to compose successful lines of poetry and focuses on meter (including free verse), rhythm, rhyme, and the many other tools a poet needs to create both music and meaningfulness in an artful poem. Presenting copious examples from strong poets of the past and present along with many recent student examples, all of which are scanned, each chapter offers lessons in poetic history and the practice of writing verse, along with giving students a structured opportunity to experiment writing in all the forms discussed. In Part 1, Rothman and Spear begin at the beginning, with Anglo-Saxon Strong Stress Alliterative Meter and examine every major meter in English, up to and including the free verse forms of modern and contemporary poetry. Part 2 presents a close examination of stanza forms that moves from the simple to the complex, beginning with couplets and ending with the 14-line Eugene Onegin stanza. The goal of the book is to give students the essential skills to understand how any line of poetry in English may have been composed, the better to enjoy them and then also write their own: the keys to the treasure chest. Rothman and Spear present a rigorous curriculum that teaches the craft of poetry through a systematic examination and practice of the major English meters and verse forms. Under their guidance, students hone their craft while studying the rich traditions and innovations of poets writing in English. Suitable for high school students and beyond. I studied with Rothman in graduate school and went through this course with additional scholarly material. This book will help students develop a keen ear for the music of the English language.Teow Lim Goh, author of Islanders.

Contents:

Intro

Acknowledgments

Contents

Preface for Teachers

Introduction: To Make a Poem

Metrical Forms

1 Anglo-Saxon Strong-Stress Alliterative Meter

2 The Ballad

3 Stress-Based Imitations of Classical Quantitative Meters: The Sapphic and the Catullan Hendecasyllable

Interchapter 1: An Explanation of Scansion

4 Iambic Tetrameter Couplets

5 Blank Verse/Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter

6 Triple Meters: Dactyls and Anapests

7 Free Verse

Interchapter 3: The Battles of Schools

8 Nonce Meters

Interlude

Stanza Forms

9 Couplets

10 Terza Rima

11 Quatrains

12 Quintains, Limericks, and Venus and Adonis Stanzas

13 Rhyme Royal

14 Ottava Rima

15 Spenserian Stanzas

Coda: The Eugene Onegin Stanza, the Nonce Stanza and an Ending and a Beginning

Appendix: The Craft of Poetry: A Bibliography of Resources in English

Notes:

Online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed August 19, 2022).

ISBN:

9783030530969

3030530965

OCLC:

1340946841

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.