PrefacePart One IntroductionChapter One Brief Introduction to British and American Poetry 2
Chapter Two What Is Poetry 8
Chapter Three How to Read a Poem 11
Chapter Four How to Evaluate a Poem 13
Chapter Five Themes of a Poem 14
Part Two Elements of PoetryChapter One Voice:Speaker and Tone 16
John Donne:The FleaRobert Frost:Stopping by Woods On a Snowy EveningWilliam Blake:The LambTheodore Roethke:My Papa's WaltzRobert Hayden:Those Winter SundaysChapter Two Diction 23
John Milton:Methought I Saw My Late Espoused SaintWilliam Blake:LondonWilliam Wordsworth:I Wandered Lonely as a CloudAlfred,Lord Tennyson:Crossing the BarChapter Three Imagery 29
Robert Browning:Meeting at NightAlfred,Lord Tennyson:Break,Break,BreakEzra Pound:In a Station of the MetroSeamus Heaney:The Play WayChapter Four Figures of Speech 35
Section One Simile,Metaphor 35
Robert Burns:A Red,Red RoseAlfred,Lord Tennyson:The Eagle:A FragmentSylvia Plath:MetaphorsSection Two Metonymy,Synecdoche 38
Andrew Marvell:To His Coy MistressPercy Bysshe Shelley:OzymandiasSection Three Personification,Apostrophe 42
William Wordsworth:London, 1802
John Keats:To AutumnSylvia Plath:MirrorSection Four Irony 46
William Blake:The Chimney SweeperStephen Crane:The War Is KindSection Five Paradox 49
Richard Lovelace:To Lucasta,Going to the WarWilliam Wordsworth:She Dwelt Among the Untrodden WaysThomas Hardy:HapChapter Five Symbolism and Allegory 53
William Blake:The Sick RoseThomas Stearns Eliot:The Boston Evening TranscriptEmily Dickinson:I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I DiedWilliam Butler Yeats:The Second ComingChapter Six Syntax 58
Thomas Hardy:The Man He KilledWilliam Butler Yeats:An Irish Airman Foresees His DeathChapter Seven Sound:Rhyme,Alliteration and Assonance 61
Emily Dickinson:The Soul Selects Her Own SocietyWystan Hugh Auden:That Night When Joy BeganChapter Eight Rhythm and Meter 65
Robert Herrick:An Ode for HimEdna St.Vincent Millay:God's WorldPart Three Types of PoetryChapter One Narrative Poetry 72
Section One Epic 73
John Milton:Paradise LostSection Two Ballad 75
Anonymous:Get Up and Bar the DoorJohn Keats:La Belle Dame Sans MerciSection Three Romance 80
Anonymous:Sir Gawain and the Green KnightChapter Two Lyric Poetry 84
Section One Sonnet 85
William Shakespeare:Sonnet 55
William Wordsworth:The World Is Too Much with UsJohn Keats：On the Grasshopper and the CricketSection Two Ode 89
Percy Bysshe Shelley:Ode to the West WindJohn Keats:Ode on a Grecian UrnSection Three Song 96
John Donne:SongBen Jonson:Song:To CeliaRobert Burns:Auld Lang SyneSection Four Elegy 100
John Milton:LycidasThomas Gray:Elegy Written in a Country ChurchyardPercy Busshe Shelley:AdonaisSection Five Dirge 109
William Shakespeare:Full Fathom FivePercy Bysshe Shelley:A DirgeSection Six Aubade 111
John Donne:The Sun RisingRobert Browning:Parting at MorningSection Seven Pastoral 114
Christopher Marlowe:The Passionate Shepherd to His LoveWilliam Wordsworth:Michael:A Pastoral PoemChapter Three Dramatic Poetry 118
Robert Browning:My Last DuchessPercy Bysshes Shelley:Prometheus UnboundChapter Four Other Types of Poetry 125
Section One Descriptive Poetry 125
James Thomson:The SeasonsWilliam Wordsworth:Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,September 3, 1802
Section Two Reflective Poetry 129
William Cowper:The Task:The Stricken DeerSection Three Didactic Poetry 131
Alexander Pope:An Essay on CriticismSection Four Satirical Poetry 133
Percy Bysshe Shelley:England in 1819
Erenst Jones:The Song of the Lower ClassesA Glossary of Poetic Terms 136
List of Poets 151
Bibliography 154