20–9853
In attempting “to set forth in decent prose some of the strange potencies of verse” the author has given but little space to the epic and drama and has devoted himself more especially to the various forms of the lyric, which to him seems to hold the future of poetry. “The folk-epic is gone, the art-epic has been outstripped by prose fiction, and the drama needs a theatre. But the lyric needs only a poet, who can compose in any of its myriad forms.... Through it today, as never before in the history of civilization, the heart of a man can reach the heart of mankind.” Accordingly the book falls into two parts. Part I, Poetry in general, treats of poetry in retrospect, of the province of poetry and the poet, of rhythm and metre, rhyme, stanza and free verse. Part II, The lyric in particular, contains: The field of lyric poetry; Relationships and types of the lyric; Race, epoch and individual; The present status of the lyric. There are also Notes and illustrations, an appendix, a bibliography and an index.
+ Booklist 17:106 D ’20
“While it has a genuine interest for the creator and critical interpreter of poetry, its specific value is for that very large body of readers who are between these two groups.” W: S. Braithwaite
+ Boston Transcript p6 O 30 ’20 2100w
“The book is avowedly written with the classroom’s needs in view, as well as those of the inquiring general reader, and the former aim to some extent vitiates the author’s treatment by imposing too eclectic an ideal upon him. The book is a résumé of poetics rather than a personal confession.” Llewellyn Jones
+ − Freeman 2:235 N 17 ’20 1500w
“No critic since Matthew Arnold seems to us to have so positively as Mr Perry the capacity to make us see more clearly and think more accurately and sensibly about poetry and at the same time make the seeing and the thinking increase our enthusiasm for the vital things.” C. F. L.
+ Grinnell R 16:308 D ’20 640w