Book Description
To find a personal style is, for a writer, to become adult; and to write one's first "perfect" poem--a poem that wholly and successfully embodies that style--is to come of age as a poet. By looking at the precedents, circumstances, and artistry of the first perfect poems composed by John Milton, John Keats, T. S. Eliot, and Sylvia Plath, Coming of Age as a Poet offers rare insight into this mysterious process, and into the indispensable period of learning and experimentation that precedes such poetic achievement.
Milton's L'Allegro, Keats's On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Plath's The Colossus are the poems that Helen Vendler considers, exploring each as an accession to poetic confidence, mastery, and maturity. In meticulous and sympathetic readings of the poems, and with reference to earlier youthful compositions, she delineates the context and the terms of each poet's self-discovery--and illuminates the private, intense, and ultimately heroic effort and endurance that precede the creation of any memorable poem.
With characteristic precision, authority, and grace, Vendler helps us to appreciate anew the conception and the practice of poetry, and to observe at first hand the living organism that breathes through the words of a great poem.
Coming of Age as a Poet: Milton, Keats, Eliot, Plath ANNOTATION
To find a personal style is, for a writer, to become adult; and to write one's first "perfect" poem--a poem that wholly and successfully embodies that style--is to come of age as a poet. By looking at the precedents, circumstances, and artistry of the first perfect poems composed by John Milton, John Keats, T. S. Eliot, and Sylvia Plath, Coming of Age as a Poet offers rare insight into this mysterious process, and into the indispensable period of learning and experimentation that precedes such poetic achievement.
Milton's L'Allegro, Keats's On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Plath's The Colossus are the poems that Helen Vendler considers, exploring each as an accession to poetic confidence, mastery, and maturity. In meticulous and sympathetic readings of the poems, and with reference to earlier youthful compositions, she delineates the context and the terms of each poet's self-discovery--and illuminates the private, intense, and ultimately heroic effort and endurance that precede the creation of any memorable poem.
With characteristic precision, authority, and grace, Vendler helps us to appreciate anew the conception and the practice of poetry, and to observe at first hand the living organism that breathes through the words of a great poem.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"To find a personal style is, for a writer, to become adult; and to write one's first "perfect" poem - a poem that wholly and successfully embodies that style - is to come of age as a poet. By looking at the precedents, circumstances, and artistry of the first perfect poems composed by John Milton, John Keats, T. S. Eliot, and Sylvia Plath, Coming of Age as a Poet offers rare insight into this mysterious process, and into the indispensable period of learning and experimentation that precedes such poetic achievement." Milton's L'Allegro, Keats's On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Plath's The Colossus are the poems that Helen Vendler considers, exploring each as an accession to poetic confidence, mastery, and maturity. In meticulous and sympathetic readings of the poems, and with reference to earlier youthful compositions, she delineates the context and the terms of each poet's self-discovery - and illuminates the private, intense, and ultimately heroic effort and endurance that precede the creation of any memorable poem.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
Coming of Age as a Poet feel claustrophobic at times, it is because Vendler is a proud practitioner of the art of close reading. She is critical of the work of upstart New Historicist or poststructuralist critics who insist on posing a relationship between art and politics. She succeeds in revealing the aesthetic power and technical beauty of great poetry. — Laura Ciokowski
Library Journal
Two new entries in the recent spate of books about poetry delve into that elusive concept, the poet's voice. In To Sound Like Yourself, The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Snodgrass offers six lengthy essays examining wordplay, musicality, and other elements that contribute to a distinctive voice. He includes lively descriptions of his own sources of inspiration-owls and belly dancers among them-as well as analysis of other poets, from Whitman to Wordsworth. At times, his complex evaluations seem culled from a graduate-level literature course, assuming familiarity with lesser-known writers, a grasp of music notation, and training in other languages. In Coming of Age as a Poet, Vendler, a renowned poetry critic and author, chooses one breakthrough poem by each of four poets-Milton, Keats, Eliot, and Plath. Through close readings of their structure, imagery, and scansion, she shows how these poems mark each poet's mastery of a unique voice. Three of the four chapters are based on lectures given at the University of Aberdeen. The clarity and expert analysis of all four poems could engage even a casual reader, while the breadth of scholarship and unique interpretations will appeal to more experienced poetry readers. Vendler's work is highly recommended for public and academic libraries, while Snodgrass's work is more appropriate for large university libraries.-Vivian Reed, California State Univ., Long Beach Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.
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