Beautiful & Pointless

Beautiful & Pointless
Author: David Orr
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2011-04-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0062079417

"David Orr is no starry-eyed cheerleader for contemporary poetry; Orr’s a critic, and a good one. . . . Beautiful & Pointless is a clear-eyed, opinionated, and idiosyncratic guide to a vibrant but endangered art form, essential reading for anyone who loves poetry, and also for those of us who mostly just admire it from afar." —Tom Perrotta Award-winning New York Times Book Review poetry columnist David Orr delivers an engaging, amusing, and stimulating tour through the world of poetry. With echoes of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, Orr’s Beautiful & Pointless offers a smart and funny approach to appreciating an art form that many find difficult to embrace.

The Poetics of Aristotle

The Poetics of Aristotle
Author: Aristotle
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2017-03-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9781544217574

In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama - comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play - as well as lyric poetry and epic poetry). They are similar in the fact that they are all imitations but different in the three ways that Aristotle describes: 1. Differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter and melody. 2. Difference of goodness in the characters. 3. Difference in how the narrative is presented: telling a story or acting it out. In examining its "first principles," Aristotle finds two: 1) imitation and 2) genres and other concepts by which that of truth is applied/revealed in the poesis. His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition, "almost every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions."

The Freeman

The Freeman
Author: Francis Neilson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 636
Release: 1923
Genre:
ISBN:

Paradise Lost and Other Poems

Paradise Lost and Other Poems
Author: John Milton
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2011-05-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101514574

With the three works included in this volume--Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, and Lycidas--Milton placed himself next to Shakespeare, Dante, and Homer as one of the greatest literary genius in history.