The Force of Poetry

New
Paperback
1995
$49.33

Christopher 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 indepenently over many years, each of the essays in this collection of his writings asks how a poets words reveal the `force of poetry', 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.

Synopsis

Christopher 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 indepenently over many years, each of the essays in this collection of his writings asks how a poets words reveal the `force of poetry', 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.

$49.33

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 464
Edition: New Ed
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Published: 09 Feb 1995
ISBN 10: 0198183267
ISBN 13: 9780198183266

Media Reviews

Christopher Ricks is our most distinctive critic...the natural heir to Empson, exciting and fertile. * Blake Morrison, Observer *
The richness and variety of these essays is truly remarkable * John Bayley, Listener *

Author Bio

Christopher 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'. He is author of Beckett's Dying Words (OUP, 1993), Keats and Embarrassment (OUP, 1974), and editor of The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (Oxford, 1987).