The Prosody Handbook: A Guide to Poetic Form

by Robert Beum, Karl Shapiro

Written by two major American poets, this guide to versification is immensely useful for anyone interested in poetry or in general poetic structure. Its systematic study of meter, tempo, rhyme, and other components of verse incorporates countless vivid illustrative examples.
Concise and informal, The Prosody Handbook progresses from the smaller elements to the larger: from syllables to feet to lines to stanzas, and from smaller stanzas to larger ones. Its modified notation for marking times and stresses is easily understandable. The extensive and expanded material in the chapter titled "Scansions and Comments" introduces the manifold problems of scansion, confronting readers with the necessity of considering a poem's prosody simultaneously with all its other elements and aspects.
A glossary provides ready definitions and illustrations of the most common prosodic terms. A brief chapter covers classical prosody, and the text concludes with an updated bibliography. Both readers and writers of poetry will find this comprehensive volume an essential companion.

Genres: Poetry, Reference, Language

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 2006

Reviews

[Tara Betts]

I thought this book was extremely helpful in terms of breaking down meter, syllabics and the basic linguistic elements in a thorough fashion. It's not exciting reading, but it gets the job done if you want a solid read on poetry. It had me thinking about some of Monica de la Torre's poems.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful, not very enjoyable