Reading Poetry

Tom Furniss is Senior Lecturer in English Studies at the Universityof Strathclyde in Glasgow, where he has spent nearly twenty years teaching poetry, literary theory and Romanticism. Michael Bath taught English literature for more than 30 years at the University of Strathclyde, where his research interests centred on relations between literature and the visual arts, emblems and iconology.

Contents Acknowledgements Preface Part One: Formal Introduction 1. What Is Poetry? How Do We Read It? 2. Rhythm and Metre 3. Significant Form: Metre and Syntax 4. Creative Form and the Arbitrary Nature of Language Part Two: Textual Strategies 5. Figurative Language 6. Poetic Metaphor 7. Hearing Voices in Poetic Texts 8. Voices with Attitude: Tone and Irony 9. Ambiguity Part Three: Texts in Contexts/Contexts in Texts 10. Introducing Contexts 11. Genre 12. The Sonnet 13. Allusion, Influence and Intertextuality 14. Poetry, Discourse, History 15. The Locations of Poetry 16. Post-Colonial Poetry Part Four: An Open-ended Conclusion 17. Closure, Pluralism and Undecidability Glossary Key to Poems and Passages Discussed or Used for Exercises Bibliography Index