The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

Citation

Greene, R., & Cushman, S. (Eds.), Cavanagh, C., Ramazani, J., Rouzer, P., Feinsod, H., Marno, D., & Slessarev, A. (2012). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4th ed.). Princeton University Press.

Chapter Summary

This is an alphabetical reference work, not a book with chapters. The fourth edition runs to about 1,640 pages and, according to the publisher, contains more than 1,000 entries and well over a million words. Entries range from brief paragraphs to major essays of up to 15,000 words, and they include bibliographies and cross-references. The edition is fully indexed for the first time, which makes the index the second way into the book after the alphabetical order. The sections below follow the alphabetical divisions of the contents.

Overview of the fourth edition

Princeton describes this as the first new edition in almost twenty years and the first compiled by an entirely new team of editors, following three earlier editions over more than four decades. It adds more than 250 new entries on recent terms, movements and related topics, and it widens coverage with articles on the poetries of more than 110 nations, regions and languages, with expanded attention to the non-Western and developing worlds. The subject matter covers history, movements, genres, prosody, rhetorical devices and critical terms.

Letters A to E

A begins the volume at page 1 and runs to roughly page 113. B and C follow, with C one of the longest letters (from about page 173 to page 332). D starts around page 333, and E begins around page 386.

Letters F to L

F starts around page 476, G around 537 and H around 592. I begins at about page 652, J at 750, K at 767 and L at 780, so J and K are short divisions.

Letters M to P

M starts around page 837, N around 911, O around 963 and P around 990. P is one of the longest divisions and spans roughly 145 pages.

Letters Q to S

Q and R share a single division starting around page 1136, and S begins around page 1243. S is also long, at roughly 165 pages.

Letters T to Z

T starts around page 1408, U around 1477 and V around 1503. W begins around page 1528, X around 1543, Y around 1547 and Z around 1552, so these closing letters are very short.

Key Concepts

Kinds of entry

• Poetic history and movements: entries that situate poetry in time, from ancient traditions to contemporary practice.
• Genres and forms: entries on kinds of poem and their conventions.
• Prosody: entries on metre and the formal patterns of verse.
• Rhetorical devices: entries on figures and techniques of poetic language.
• Critical terms: entries on the vocabulary of poetics and criticism.
• World poetries: articles on the poetries of more than 110 nations, regions and languages.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Scale and range. More than 1,000 entries and over a million words allow the book to cover forms, devices, movements and terms in one place, and entries can be as short as a paragraph or as long as an essay, so a reader can pick the depth needed.
• Bibliographies and cross-references. The publisher highlights updated bibliographies and cross-references. For students, an entry can serve as the start of a research trail, not only as a definition.
• Revised for the present. A new editorial team, more than 250 new entries and broader international coverage mean that the edition pays greater attention to the international aspects of poetry than before.
• Index. The edition is fully indexed for the first time, so terms and names that lack their own entry can still be located.

Limitations

• Not for continuous reading. An alphabetical reference suits looking things up; readers who want an argument about poetry or a history of its development will find the structure fragmentary.
• Heavy and long. At about 1,640 pages the volume is a large reference, and beginners may find the amount of detail daunting.
• Date. The edition appeared in 2012, so developments and terms since then are not included.
• Uneven depth. Because entry length ranges from a paragraph to essays of 15,000 words, coverage of a given topic may be brief or extensive depending on its entry; the index and cross-references are needed to assemble a full picture.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the poetry course, this is the reference that sits behind the other books. The Norton Introduction to Poetry is a comprehensive introduction that explains poetic elements, forms and analysis with poems to practise on, and The Norton Anthology of Poetry is a chronological, annotated anthology of poems in English that also includes essays on versification and on reading and writing about poetry. When either book uses a term such as a form, a metre or a device, the Princeton entry gives a fuller and more scholarly treatment.

Jonathan Culler's Theory of the Lyric is an extended argument about the lyric as a genre, and the encyclopedia is the place to check the critical terms such an argument relies on. Kaveh Akbar's Calling a Wolf a Wolf is a collection of contemporary poems, a text to read and discuss, and the encyclopedia is a place to look up the forms and traditions it draws on.

How to Use This Book

This is a reference for undergraduates who have started to read poetry seriously and for graduate students and teachers. It assumes you already have a first course in reading poetry. Keep it beside the poems and the critical books you are reading, and consult it when a term needs more than a glossary definition.

A practical routine is to look up a term, read the entry through once, follow its cross-references to related entries, and then use the bibliography to find the scholarly works it points to. Use the index when a term or name does not have its own entry. For a longer entry, read the opening for the definition and the history that follows for context. Do not try to read the volume in order; instead, choose a set of terms from your course and build a short glossary of your own, citing the entry that each came from.