Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

Alex Preminger (Editor ),

T.V.F. Brogan (Editor )

Frank J. Warnke (Editor )

4.51 · Rating details · 203 ratings · 13 reviews

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in length from relatively brief notices to substantial articles of about 20,000 words.The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, published in 1965, established itself book as a standard in the field. Among the 215 contributors were Northrop Frye writing on allegory, Murray Krieger on belief in poetry, Philip Wheelwright on myth, John Hollander on music, and William Carlos Williams on free verse. In 1974, the Enlarged Edition increased the entries with dozens of new subjects, including rock lyric, computer poetry, and black poetry, to name just a few.The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics accounts for the extraordinary change and explosion of knowledge within literary and cultural studies since the 1970s. This edition, completely revised, preserves what was most valuable from previous editions, while subjecting each existing entry to revision. Over 90 percent of the entries have been extensively revised and most major ones entirely rewritten. Completely new entries number 162, including those by new contributors Camille Paglia, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Elaine Showalter, Houston Baker, Andrew Ross, and many more. New entries include those on cultural criticism, discourse, feminist poetics, and Chicano poetry.Improvements cover several areas: All the recent developments in theory that bear on poetry areincluded; bibliographies of secondary sources are ex-tended; cross- references among entries and through blind entries have been expanded for greater ease of use; and coverage of emergent and non-Western poetries is dramatically increased. Indeed, a hallmark of the encyclopedia is its world-wide orientation on the poetry of national and cultural groups.The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in length from relatively brief notices to substantial articles of about 20,000 words.The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, published in 1965, established itself book as a standard in the field. Among the 215 contributors were Northrop Frye writing on allegory, Murray Krieger on belief in poetry, Philip Wheelwright on myth, John Hollander on music, and William Carlos Williams on free verse. In 1974, the Enlarged Edition increased the entries with dozens of new subjects, including rock lyric, computer poetry, and black poetry, to name just a few.The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics accounts for the extraordinary change and explosion of knowledge within literary and cultural studies since the 1970s. This edition, completely revised, preserves what was most valuable from previous editions, while subjecting each existing entry to revision. Over 90 percent of the entries have been extensively revised and most major ones entirely rewritten. Completely newentries number 162, including those by new contributors Camille Paglia, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Elaine Showalter, Houston Baker, Andrew Ross, and many more. New entries include those on cultural criticism, discourse, feminist poetics, and Chicano poetry.Improvements cover several areas: All the recent developments in theory that bear on poetry are included; bibliographies of secondary sources are ex-tended; cross- references among entries and through blind entries have been expanded for greater ease of use; and coverage of emergent and non-Western poetries is dramatically increased. Indeed, a hallmark of the encyclopedia is its world-wide orientation on the poetry of national and cultural groups. ...more

Get A Copy

Paperback, 1440 pages

Published May 9th 1993 by Princeton University Press (first published March 1st 1993)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 4.51 ·

Rating details

· 203 ratings · 13 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

Mar 14, 2009 Anselm rated it it was amazing

A 21st century update would be useful, but this is a bad ass read for the specialist and spoonist alike, even if some of the entries are wildly uptight (though that also makes them rather interesting from the perspective of one who understand that free verse (Prince) defeated formalism (Michael Jackson) rather handily.....the analogy fails once Prince joins the Jehovah's Witness flock, but maybe that's the fate of the free versers ultimately as well.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Mar 02, 2008 Tana rated it it was amazing

A "must have" for scholars and aspiring writers of poetry; those who wish to explore more fully the myriad forms and theories of poetry, and to track its metamorphoses through several thousand years of human history. This book offers specific elements of the poetic tradition in alphabetic order. This is a great reference book.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Mar 19, 2008 TC rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poetry

uh, i haven't exactly read the entire thing.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Feb 17, 2019 Melody Schwarting rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-read-in-2019, r-poetry

This resource is invaluable. It's helpful in reading, writing, and criticizing poetry. I use it more frequently than most other reference books of any kind. Even for those who do not engage with poetry creatively, it's a fantastic critical resource for understanding poets/poetry in context--e. g., looking at writers in the context of their movements and referencing uses of their forms/styles/methods.

flag Like · see review

Mar 12, 2019 Scott Avery rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction

Short enjoyable read

flag Like · see review

May 14, 2009 globulon rated it really liked it

Shelves: reference, books-i-own, lit-crit

This was given to me as a gift at a time when I was very into poetry, both reading and writing. At that time I would read this a lot. Flipping through it and reading random headings that caught my eye or looking up specific terms to see what they had to say. All in all it was a quite positive experience and I learned a lot. I guess my only criticism would be that at times it seemed to verge into 'theory' a bit too much for me, (but then I don't have much tolerance for what I understand about it, ...more

flag Like · see review

Dec 01, 2009 Stephanie Graves rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: grad-school-readings

This is really an invaluable resource for anybody studying poetry. And of course, I haven't read it cover to cover per se, but I sure reference it a lot.

flag Like · see review

Mar 25, 2009 Xenophon Hendrix rated it really liked it

comprehensive

flag Like · see review

Aug 21, 2007 Meg rated it it was amazing

super-helpful-idea-machine-definer.

flag Like · see review

Aug 22, 2008 Rich rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

If you're interested in writing poetry, you simply must own this book. Sure, it's very expensive, but it's one of the most useful resources you'll have on your bookshelf.

flag Like · see review

Dec 01, 2011 Sam rated it really liked it

This is the tome of all answers. I love teaching my students to read the entries, training for reading the OED.

flag Like · see review

Aug 29, 2010 Mandy rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, 2010

A very comprehensive list of terms. Definitions are historical as well as literary, which makes it an extremely useful text. Definitely worth the money I spent!

flag Like · see review