The Force of PoetryChristopher Ricks is one of the best-known living critics of English, and was described by W. H. Auden as "the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding." Though published independently over many years, each of the essays in this collection asks how a poet's words reveal the "force ofpoetry," that force--in Dr Johnson's words--"which calls new power into being, which embodies sentiment, and animates matter." The poets covered range from John Gower, Marvell, and Milton to Wordsworth, Empson, Stevie Smith, Lowell, and Larkin, and the book contains four wider essays on cliches, lies, misquotations, and American English. |
Contents
Metamorphosis in other words | 1 |
Its own resemblance | 34 |
Sound and sense in Paradise Lost | 60 |
Copyright | |
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acknowledge American Appreciations become Beddoes begins better blood brackets bring called child cliché comes create criticism dark dead death earth effect Eliot Empson English Essays eyes face fact fear feel felt final force give Gower's hand heart Hill Hill's human hyphen idea imagination important instance Johnson kind language less lies light live look Lowell matter means metaphor mind move nature never once pain particular pass Pater perhaps person phrase play poem poet poetry possible Prelude present punctuation question relation rhyme seems seen sense silence simply song sound speak spirit story suggest tell thing thou thought touch true truth turn verse violence voice whole wish words Wordsworth write young