The Poet's Craft
A Course in the Critical Appreciation of Poetry

This volume was first published in 1957 and was intended as an appreciation of poetry.

A. F. Scott (Author)

9781107601277, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 March 2012

234 pages
20.3 x 12.7 x 1.4 cm, 0.26 kg

This volume was first published in 1957 and was intended as an appreciation of poetry, based on the study of authors' corrected manuscripts, revised published versions, transpositions of prose into verse, and contrasted translations. A. F. Scott divides his study into five sections: the first section has photographs of manuscript poems by twenty-four poets. The second section presents for comparison the first published version of eight well-known poems, with the revisions published later. A brief history of the changes is given, so that the making of some of the poems can be followed over the years. The third section gives six poems, with the source used by the poet for his poem. The fourth section gives 34 poetical versions of twelve originals. The fifth and final section contains 120 poems, paired for contrast and comparison, unsigned, and with a specific critical subject suggested for each pair.

Preface: purpose and method
Acknowledgements
Part I. The Poet's Manuscript: A Selection of Photographs and Transcriptions of Manuscript Poems: 1. From 'Sir Thomas More' William Shakespeare
2. 'Perfection' George Herbert
3. From 'Lycidias' John Milton
4. From 'The Elegy' Thomas Gray
5. 'The Halibut' William Cowper
6. 'Jane Adair' George Crabbe
7. 'The Tyger' William Blake
8. From 'The Waggoner' William Wordsworth
9. 'Lewti' S. T. Coleridge
10. 'Oh! Statch'd away in Beauth's Bloom' Lord Byron
11. From 'Death of Adonis' P. B. Shelley
12. From 'Ode to the Nightingale' John Keats
13. 'Dream Peddlary' T. L. Beddoes
14. 'Milton: Alcaics' Lord Tennyson
15. From 'The Ring and the Book' Robert Browning
16. 'Love's Compass' D. G. Rossetti
17. 'Sleeping at Last' Christina Rosetti
18. From 'Rococo' A. C. Swinburne
19. 'The Starlight Night' G. M. Hopkins
20. 'Adlestrop' Edward Thomas
21. 'The Soldier' Rupert Brooke
22. 'Anthem for Dead Youth' Wilfred Owen
23. From 'Moses' Isaac Rosenberg
Part II. The Poet's Printed Revisions: A Selection of Poems and Passages of the First Edition Compared with a Revised, Later Edition: 24. 'To Anthea' Robert Herrick
25. From 'The Deserted Village' Oliver Goldsmith
26. 'The Poplar-field' William Cowper
27. 'The Daffodils' William Wordsworth
28. From 'The Ancient Mariner' S. T. Coleridge
29. From 'Hyperion' John Keats
30. From 'The Lotos-Eaters Lord Tennyson
31. From 'The Blessed Damozel' D. G. Rosetti
Part III. The Poet's Raw Material: Material Adapted by the Poet, Presented for Comparison with the Poetry: 32i. From a translation of Plutarch's Lives Sir Thomas North
32ii. From Antony and Cleopatra William Shakespeare
33i. From a translation of Plutarch's Lives Sir Thomas North
33ii. From Coriolanus William Shakespeare
34i. From a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses Arthur Golding
34ii. From The Tempest William Shakespeare
35i. From Holinshed's Chronicles Raphael Holinshed
35ii. From Macbeth William Shakespeare
36i. From Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio
36ii. From 'Isabella' John Keats
37i. From Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory
37ii. From Morte D'Arthur Lord Tennyson
Part IV. The Poet's Translation: Selected Translations of the Same Poems for Comparison: 38. Homer, Iliad VIII, 542–61 George Chapman, Alexander Pope, Lord Derby and Lord Tennyson
39. Homer, Odyssey XXIV, 1–14 George Chapman, William Cowper, William Morris, F. L. Lucas
40. Homeric Hymn, 'To the Earth' George Chapman and P. B. Shelley
41. Anacreon, Ode XXXIII Thomas Stanley and Thomas Moore
42. Catallus, Ode XXXI C. S. Calverley and Thomas Hardy
43. Virgil, Aeneid VI, 269–294 John Dryden, James Elroy Flecker, Robert Bridges and Rolfe Humphries
44. Virgil, Georgics I, 311–34 John Dryden and C. Day Lewis
45. Horace, Odes I, v John Milton, Stephen de Vere and G. S. Fraser
46. Horace, Odes I, ix John Dryden, William Cowper and H. Rackham
47. Horace, Odes I, vii Samuel Johnson, A. E. Housman and James Maclean Todd
48. Dante, Paradiso, Canto XXXIII, 97–145 H. F. Cary, H. W. Longfellow and Laurence Binyon
49. Chaucer, The Nonne Preestes Tale, 1–16 John Dryden and Nevill Coghill
Part V. Poems for Appreciations: A Number of Unsigned Poems Grouped for Contrast and Comparison
Appendix
Notes on the manuscript poems
Book list.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]