The contemporary reader of English poetry is able to take pleasure in the sounds and movements of the English language in works written over the past eight centuries, and to find poems that convey powerful emotions and vivid images from this entire period. This book investigates the ways in which poets have exploited the resources of the language as a spoken medium--its characteristic rhythms, its phonetic qualities, its deployment of syntax--to write verse that continues to move and delight. The chapters in the first of the two parts examine a number of issues relating to poetic form: the resurgence of interest in formal questions in recent years, the role of syntactic phrasing in the operation of poetry, the function of rhyme, and the relation between sound and sense. The second part is concerned with rhythm and metre, explaining and demonstrating 'beat prosody' as a tool of poetic analysis, and discussing three major traditions in English versification: the free four-beat form used in much popular verse, the controlled power of the iambic pentameter, and the twentieth-century invention of free verse. All these topics are discussed by means of particular case studies, from the metrical form of a thirteenth-century lyric to uses of sound in recent poetry. Among the many poets whose work is considered are Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Keats, Tennyson, Hardy, Yeats, Frost, Ashbery, Hill, Plath, Paterson, and Prynne. Drawing on Derek Attridge's thirty-five years of engagement with the forms of poetry, this volume provides extensive evidence of the importance of close attention to the moving and sounding of language in the poems we enjoy.

Moving Words: Forms of English Poetry

Literature & Fiction

Attridge, Derek

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

What is distinctive about the cultural practice called 'literature'? How does it benefit individuals and society? How do literary works retain their importance and their capacity to give pleasure over decades and centuries? What constitutes responsible criticism? These are some of the questions addressed in this book, which develops the arguments put forward in Derek Attridge's influential study The Singularity of Literature (2004). Beginning with an extended cross-examination in the form of an interview addressing a range of topics relating to the work of literature (understood both as the activity of the writer and as the text itself) and the practices of literary reading and literary criticism, it asks what it means to 'do justice to' a work of literature, provides a full account of the concept of singularity, considers the problematic power of criticism, and advances an account of the role of context in the writing and reading of literary works. In other chapters it explores the issue of cultural difference in responses to literature, discusses the working of metaphor, questions the attribution of knowledge to literary works, and addresses the topics of affect and hospitality. The book follows through the consequences of regarding the singular and inventive work of literature as an event that takes place anew each time it is read, providing an opening to an otherness excluded by prevailing cultural norms and habits of thought and feeling. Although the focus of the book is on literature, the arguments are relevant to all the arts, and engage with the thought of major aesthetic theorists in a number of traditions.

The Work of Literature

Was the experience of poetry--or a cultural practice we now call poetry--continuously available across the two-and-a-half millennia from the composition of the Homeric epics to the publication of Ben Jonson's Works and the death of Shakespeare in 1616? How did the pleasure afforded by the crafting of language into memorable and moving rhythmic forms play a part in the lives of hearers and readers in Ancient Greece and Rome, Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and Britain during the Renaissance? In tackling these questions, this book first examines the evidence for the performance of the Iliad and the Odyssey and of Ancient Greek lyric poetry, the impact of the invention of writing on Alexandrian verse, the performances of poetry that characterized Ancient Rome, and the private and public venues for poetic experience in Late Antiquity. It moves on to deal with medieval verse, exploring the oral traditions that spread across Europe in the vernacular languages, the place of manuscript transmission, the shift from roll to codex and from papyrus to parchment, and the changing audiences for poetry. A final part investigates the experience of poetry in the English Renaissance, from the manuscript verse of Henry VIII's court to the anthologies and collections of the late Elizabethan era. Among the topics considered in this part are the importance of the printed page, the continuing significance of manuscript circulation, the performance of poetry in pageants and progresses, and the appearance of poets on the Elizabethan stage. In tracking both continuity and change across these many centuries, the book throws fresh light on the role and importance of poetry in western culture.

The Experience of Poetry: From Homer's Listeners to Shakespeare's Readers

Poet, Thomas Carper, and scholar, Derek Attridge, join forces in Meter and Meaning to present an illuminating and user-friendly way to explore the rhythms of poetry in English. They begin by showing the value of performing any poem aloud, so that we can sense its unique use of rhythm. From this starting point they suggest an entirely fresh, jargon-free approach to reading poetry. Illustrating their 'beat/offbeat' method with a series of exercises, they help readers to appreciate the use of rhythm in poems of all periods and to understand the vital relationship between meter and meaning. Beginning with the very basics, Meter and Meaning enables a smooth progression to an advanced knowledge of poetic rhythms. It is the essential guide to meter for anyone who wants to study, write, better appreciate, or simply enjoy poetry. Carper and Attridge make studying meter a pleasure and reading poetry a revelation.

Meter and Meaning: An Introduction to Rhythm in Poetry

Carper, Thomas

Routledge

The Singularity of Literature

Winner of the ESSE (European Society for the Study of English) Book Award for Literature 2006  Literature and the literary have proved singularly resistant to definition. Derek Attridge argues that such resistance represents not a dead end, but a crucial starting point from which to explore anew the power and practices of Western art.In this lively, original volume, the author:  considers the implications of regarding the literary work as an innovative cultural event, both in its time and for later generations; provides a rich new vocabulary for discussions of literature, rethinking such terms as invention, singularity, otherness, alterity, performance and form; returns literature to the realm of ethics, and argues the ethical importance of the literary institution to a culture; demonstrates how a new understanding of the literary might be put to work in a 'responsible,' creative mode of reading. The Singularity of Literature is not only a major contribution to the theory of literature, but also a celebration of the extraordinary pleasure of the literary, for reader, writer, student or critic.

Winner of the ESSE (European Society for the Study of English) Book Award for Literature 2006 Literature and the literary have proved singularly resistant to definition. Derek Attridge argues that such resistance represents not a dead end, but a crucial starting point from which to explore anew the power and practices of Western art. In this lively, original volume, the author: <ul>
<li>considers the implications of regarding the literary work as an innovative cultural event, both in its time and for later generations;</li> <li>provides a rich new vocabulary for discussions of literature, rethinking such terms as invention, singularity, otherness, alterity, performance and form;</li> <li>returns literature to the realm of ethics, and argues the ethical importance of the literary institution to a culture;</li> <li>demonstrates how a new understanding of the literary might be put to work in a 'responsible,' creative mode of reading.</li> <li>The Singularity of Literature is not only a major contribution to the theory of literature, but also a celebration of the extraordinary pleasure of the literary, for reader, writer, student or critic.</li>
</ul>

Peculiar Language: Literature as Difference from the Renaissance to James Joyce

First published in 1988, Peculiar Language is now established as one of the most important discussions of the language of literature. This thought-provoking book challenges traditional notions of literary criticism, arguing that all attempts by writers, critics and literary theorists to define the language of literature have involved self-contradiction. Through examination of key moments in literary history, Derek Attridge demonstrates that such contradictions in accounts of literary language are embedded in our cultural concept of 'literature' and asserts that in order to appreciate the forces that determine the limits of literary language, we must look beyond the realm of the 'literary' and embrace the wider political and social sphere. Re-issued as a result of sustained critical interest in the book, this edition includes a new preface by the author.

Essays & Correspondence

First published in 1988, Peculiar Language is now established as one of the most important discussions of the language of literature. This thought-provoking book challenges traditional notions of literary criticism, arguing that all attempts by writers, critics and literary theorists to define the language of literature have involved self-contradiction. Through examination of key moments in literary history, Derek Attridge demonstrates that such contradictions in accounts of literary language are embedded in our cultural concept of 'literature' and asserts that in order to appreciate the forces that determine the limits of literary language, we must look beyond the realm of the 'literary' and embrace the wider political and social sphere. Re-issued as a result of sustained critical interest in the book, this edition includes a new preface by the author.

British & Irish

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Attridge, Derek. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Attridge, Derek

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Attridge, Derek. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Moving Words: Forms of English Poetry

The Work of Literature

The Work of Literature

The Experience of Poetry: From Homer's Listeners to Shakespeare's Readers

The Experience of Poetry: From Homer's Listeners to Shakespeare's Readers

Meter and Meaning: An Introduction to Rhythm in Poetry

The Singularity of Literature

The Singularity of Literature

Peculiar Language: Literature as Difference from the Renaissance to James Joyce

Peculiar Language: Literature as Difference from the Renaissance to James Joyce