Table Of ContentThe Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms
The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms
Third Edition
edited by
Roland Greene and
Stephen Cushman
princeton university press
princeton and oxford
Copyright © 2016 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Greene, Roland, 1957– editor. | Cushman, Stephen, 1956– editor.
Title: The Princeton handbook of poetic terms / edited by Roland Greene,
Stephen Cushman.
Description: Third edition. | Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University
Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015044023| ISBN 9780691171999 (hardback)
| ISBN 9780691170435 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Poetry—Dictionaries. | Poetics—Dictionaries. | Poetry—History
and criticism. | BISAC: LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry. | LITERARY
CRITICISM / Reference. | POETRY / General.
Classification: LCC PN1021 .N39 2016 | DDC 808.1/03—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044023
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Adobe Garamond Pro
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Alphabetical List of Entries xi
Bibliographical Abbreviations xiii
General Abbreviations xvii
Contributors xix
Entries A to Z 1
Index 393
Preface
How does one begin to study poetry? This marks when some qualification is needed,
volume, derived from the fourth edition as in the form of many etymologies: for
of the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and example, arsis and thesis (Gr., “raising
Poetics, provides a rich store of technical and lowering”). Translated titles of works
and conceptual information, and invites generally appear in the most comprehen-
its readers to commence their study with sive articles; entries of smaller scope often
fundamental ideas, facts, and practices. give original titles without translation,
Poetics, the discipline out of which this although some contributors have trans-
book comes, is concerned with the nature lated titles where doing so clarifies the ar-
of poetry across times and cultures. Those gument. (We tolerate inconsistency that
of us who are committed to the discipline reflects to some degree the field at hand:
often find ourselves trying to balance the thus some entries, such as “eclogue” or
kind of technical, highly particular mate- “ode,” rarely translate titles because many
rials collected here with larger questions readers of those genres are familiar with
that open outward from them: What is the the original languages; others, such as
character of the poetic? How does poetic “love poetry,” give only translated titles.)
description change the world it represents? Translated titles of books are italicized
Who speaks in a poem, and who listens? when the title refers to a published Eng-
While these are broad, durable questions, lish translation: for example, Joachim du
our consideration of them is indivisible Bellay’s Les Antiquités de Rome (Ruins of
from our knowledge of rhythm and meter, Rome). For poems, translated titles are
rhyme and its shadings, line and stanza, given with quotation marks when the
scheme and trope, or a fixed form and its translation has been published under that
history. To make that knowledge attain- title, but without quotation marks when
able, this Handbook gathers authoritative the translated title is ad hoc.
accounts of basic, essential terms. This convention sometimes entails
The entries selected for this volume reproducing a nonliteral rendering that
are chosen for their value in a classroom, appears in a published translation, such
a reading community, or a personal ex- as Francisco de Quevedo’s Canta sola a
perience of poetry. For some readers, the Lisi as Poems to Lisi. We believe that the
Handbook will be a threshold across which value of indicating an extant translation
they will move in search of greater knowl- outweighs the occasional infelicity. At the
edge. The Princeton Encyclopedia includes same time, it is likely we have overlooked
not only the entries collected here but some published translations, and many
many more that complement them and new ones will appear over the life of this
lend them context; moreover, the bibliog- book.
raphies for every item in the Handbook and Dates of the lives and works of poets
the Encyclopedia make a virtually bound- and critics often appear in the most com-
less resource for further exploration. prehensive entries on a given topic (e.g.,
The present volume maintains several “lyric”), showing up less often as topics be-
conventions of the Princeton Encyclopedia. come narrower (“alba,” “envoi”). Dates of
Translations are generally given within works in the age of print refer to publica-
parentheses, without quotation marks if tion unless otherwise indicated.
no other words appear in the parentheti- Articles contain two types of cross-
cal matter, but set off within quotation references: those that appear within the
vii
viii Preface
body of an entry (indicated with asterisks distant and recent past. The bibliographies
or in parentheses with small capitals), and have been lightly standardized, but some
those that follow an entry, just before the entries— say, those that narrate the devel-
bibliographies. The former are often top- opment of a field—g ain from citing works
ics that extend the fabric of the definition of scholarship in their original iterations
at hand; the latter often indicate adjacent (John Crowe Ransom’s essay “Criticism,
topics of broader interest. Of course, both Inc.” in its first appearance in the Virginia
kinds of cross- reference hold out the dan- Quarterly Review of 1937) or in their origi-
ger of infinite connection: nearly every nal languages, while many others choose to
entry could be linked to many others, and cite later editions or translations into Eng-
the countless usages of terms such as line, lish as a convenience for the reader.
metaphor, and poetics cannot all be linked At a time in which poetry is thriving as
to the entries concerned with those terms. an art, and poetics is gaining fresh disci-
Accordingly we have tried to apply cross- plinary force, the study of poetry at the
references judiciously, indicating where secondary and college level depends on
further reading in a related entry really maintaining a living connection to these
complements the argument at hand. scenes of renewal. With hundreds of con-
The bibliographies are intended not tributors active in the field (including
only as lists of works cited in the entries many poets) and access to advanced think-
but as guides to relevant scholarship of the ing, this Handbook is that connection.
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the following Inc. and renewed by T. S. Eliot. Reprinted
authors, publishers, and agents for grant- by permission of Houghton Mifflin Har-
ing us permission to use brief selections court Publishing Company. All rights
from the copyrighted material listed below. reserved.
Great care has been taken to trace all the New Directions Publishing Corpora-
owners of copyrighted material used in this tion for five lines of “The Five Day Rain”
book. Any inadvertent omissions pointed by Denise Levertov, from Collected Earlier
out to us will be gladly acknowledged in Poems 1940– 1960, copyright © 1960 by
future printings. Denise Levertov, and four lines of “Poems”
Faber and Faber Ltd. for two lines of by Dylan Thomas, from Collected Poems,
“The Hollow Men” by T. S. Eliot from copyright © 1952 by Dylan Thomas. Both
Collected Poems 1909– 1962 by T. S. Eliot, reprinted by permission of New Directions
copyright © 1974 by Faber and Faber, Publishing Corp.
Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Society of Biblical Literature for six lines
Faber, Ltd. of “Kirta,” from Ugaritic Narrative Poetry,
Harvard University Press for five lines edited by Simon B. Parker, copyright ©
of “Artifice of Absorption” from A Poetics 1997. Reprinted by permission of the So-
by Charles Bernstein, Cambridge, Mass.: ciety of Biblical Literature.
Harvard University Press, copyright © University of Virginia Press for four
1992 by Charles Bernstein, and four lines lines of “A Warm Day in Winter” by Paul
of The Kalevala: Or, Poems of the Kalevala Laurence Dunbar from The Collected Poetry
District, compiled by Elias Lönnrot, trans- of Paul Laurence Dunbar, edited by Joanne
lated by Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., M. Braxton, copyright © 1993 Rector and
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Visitors of the University of Virginia. Re-
Press, copyright © 1963 by the President printed by permission of the University of
and Fellows of Harvard College. Both re- Virginia Press.
printed by permission of the publisher. Wesleyan University Press for eight lines
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing of “Spring Images” by James Wright from
Company for excerpts from “The Hollow Collected Poems, copyright © 1971 by
Men” from Collected Poems 1909– 1962 by James Wright. Reprinted by permission of
T. S. Eliot, copyright © 1936 by Harcourt, Wesleyan University Press.
ix
