This updated eight-volume set contains new entries on poems by classic writers including Geoffrey Chaucer,John Milton, Anne Bradstreet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Robert Frost, and contemporary poets including Marge Piercy, Robert Bly, Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich and Margaret Atwood. Each article begins with ready-reference information that includes the author’s name and date of birth (and death if applicable) and the date of the poem’s first publication. For poems first published in a foreign language, the original title and date are given, as well as well as the name and date of the original collection and of the English translation. A summary is followed by two sections that explore the workin depth.
Forms and Devices
examines the poetic devices employed and explores such concepts as language choice, meter, rhyme, point of view, symbolism, and other literary techniques.
Themes and Meanings
analyzes the main focus of the poetry and the poet’s overriding concerns; this section often provides context by relating the work at hand to the poet’s larger body of work. All essays carry a byline.