Customer Reviews

Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction

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Attridge is a careful and helpful reader of English poetry. This book, one of several he has written on the subject, is both elementary and profound. The field is fraught with difficulties and ambiguities, but Attridge sensibly avoids the silly stuff. He provides a helpful summary with each chapter, and numerous exercises that are both instructive and enjoyable. This is the kind of book one feels ought to mark a turning point in the study of prosody. If others may be persuaded to adopt his system of scansion, the field will be enormously rejuvenated. Having read it, one returns to earlier work by Fussell, Gross, Hartman and others wishing they might revise their books accordingly. In any case, the book is spirited, wide-ranging, and important.

This is absolutely the best book on poetic rhythm I have ever read. You must posess this book if you are, as I am, a student of poetry who wishes to get a feel for how rhythm actually works in English verse. Attridge makes it clear from the start that if you speak English, then you have all the tools you need to understand how rhythm works because you already use those tools whenever you speak. Through numerous examples and exercises you will learn to focus on what you natually do when you read a poem and how it affects the way you understand it. You will find (as I did) that Attridge's distinction between stress verse and sylable stress verse clears up a lot of confusion. There's even a chapter on the rudiments of phrasal anaylsis that will, in my opnion, have you thinking like an expert in no time. I've read the book twice in three weeks I enjoyed it so much. Get the book!

Derek Attridge radically changed my thinking about poetry and prosody. I have been reading, writing and teaching poetry for many decades and have always felt intuitively that the ideas expressed in this book were correct though unfortunately I lacked the vocabulary to describe them. Speaking as both poet and teacher, I found this book a liberation. Anyone interested in the art of poetry should inhale this book.

I bought this book after coming across it in Nicholson Baker's "The Anthologist".I am an amateur poet and Attridge clearly,simply explains why English sounds the way it does.It is very readable with examples and exercises along the way.While not a text book,were I teaching poetry this would would be one of the main books that I'd use.It slows you down,as you should be when either reading or writing poetry.It covers all forms and ages of poetry from Middle English to rap,both rhymed and free verse.I would recommend this book to anyone who reads or writes poetry.

This book starts at the dirt basics of poetic rhythm and scansion and works its way up. It tells about the nitty-gritty in different kinds of meters, and it's helpful for learning what to use rhythm for in poetry (heightened language, etc).