Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse
by John Hollander
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Poet John Hollander surveys the schemes, patterns, and forms of English verse in this classic text, illustrating each variation with an original and witty self-descriptive example. In new essays for this fourth edition, J.D. McClatchy and Richard Wilbur each offer a personal take on why the book has played such an important role in the education of young poets and student scholars.Tags
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John Hollander's self-referential guide to the formal structure of verse brings playfulness and wit to a potentially dry subject. Browsing the book is a pleasure even for those of us who do not write or study poetry.
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Author Information

88+ Works 6,421 Members
John Hollander has edited several Everyman's Library Pocket Poet volumes, including "Robert Frost", "Christmas Poems", "War Poems", "Marriage Poems", "Animal Poems", & "Garden Poems". He is the A. Bartlett Biamatti Professor of English at Yale University, & the author of numerous books of poetry & criticism. He was made a MacArthur Fellow in 1990. show more (Publisher Provided) John Hollander was born in Manhattan, New York on October 28, 1929. He received a B.A. in 1950 and a master's degree in 1952 from Columbia University and a doctorate in 1959 from Indiana University. He taught at Connecticut College, Hunter College, and Yale University, where he was named Sterling Professor of English in 1995 and retired in 2002. As a young poet, he fell under the influence of W. H. Auden and it was Auden who selected Hollander's first collection of poems, A Crackling of Thorns, for the Yale Series of Younger Poets, which was published it in 1958 with an introduction by Auden. During his lifetime he wrote several collections of poetry including The Night Mirror: Poems, Harp Lake, Tesserae, and A Draft of Light. He also wrote many works of criticism including The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry, 1500-1700, Vision and Resonance, The Gazer's Spirit, and The Work of Poetry. He edited the two-volume collection American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century for the Library of America. He died of pulmonary congestion on August 17, 2013 at the age of 83. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Genres
- Literature Studies and Criticism, Poetry
- DDC/MDS
- 821.009 — Literature & rhetoric English & Old English literatures British Poetry English poetry {by more than one author} Modified standard subdivisions History, description, critical appraisal of English poetry not limited by time period or kind of form
- LCC
- PE1505 .H6 — Language and Literature English language English Modern English
- BISAC
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- Reviews
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- (4.13)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 6




























































