Poetry for the People.

Discover some poetic and prosodic terms.

In linguistics, prosody is the study of elements of speech, including intonation, stress, rhythm and loudness, that occur simultaneously with individual phonetic segments: vowels and consonants. Often, prosody specifically refers to such elements, known as suprasegmentals when they extend across more than one phonetic segment. Prosody reflects the nuanced emotional features of the speaker or of their utterances: their obvious or underlying emotional state, the form of utterance (statement, question, or command), the presence of irony or sarcasm, certain emphasis on words or morphemes, contrast, focus, and so on. Prosody displays elements of language that are not encoded by grammar, punctuation or choice of vocabulary.

Research Tools for Literature

• Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945

  Publication Date: Cambridge UP, 2013

  Explores how American poetry has documented and helped propel the literary and cultural revolutions of the past sixty-five years. This Companion sheds light on the Beat, Black Arts and other movements while examining institutions that govern poetic practice in the United States today.
• Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics Since 1900

  Publication Date: Cambridge UP, 2023

  Offering detailed case studies, this book discusses the relationships between poetry and social views found in work by well-established authors such as Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, and Gwendolyn Brooks, as well as lesser known, but influential figures such as Muriel Rukeyser.
• Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature

  Call Number: Print: Olin Reference PS21 E537 2004 +

  Publication Date: Oxford UP, 2004

  4 vols. Contains essays on US poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists. Figures such as Whitman, Melville, and Morrison are discussed in detail and examined in the context of their times, with an assessment of the writer's current reputation, a bibliography of major works, and a list of major critical and biographical works about the writer.
• Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.

  Call Number: Olin Reference PN1021 N39 2012+ c.2; also 501 Olin (Grad & Faculty Study Room)

  Publication Date: Princeton University Press, c2012. 4th ed.

  A revised and updated version of the major reference work for poetry. Compiled by an entirely new team of editors, this first new edition in almost twenty years reflects recent changes in literary and cultural studies, providing up-to-date coverage and giving greater attention to the international aspects of poetry, all while preserving the best of the previous volumes. [publisher] 1993 edition available online in LION.
• New Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms

  Publication Date: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994

  Includes 200 entries selected from the New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, with primary emphasis on poetic and prosodic terms that are most common in literary study.
• Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature

  Publication Date: Oxford UP, 2015-present

  updated regularly with individually commissioned articles, and in addition includes articles from related stand-alone printed volumes, such as the Oxford Encyclopedias of American Literature, Literary Theory, Latina and Latino Literature, and others.
• Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms

  Call Number: Print: Olin Reference PN41 C67 2008

  Publication Date: Oxford University Press, 2008.

  Provides explanations of almost twelve hundred terms as well as coverage of traditional drama, rhetoric, literary history, and textual criticism.
• Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory

  Call Number: Print copy: Olin Reference PN81 .O94 2022 +

  Publication Date: Oxford UP, 2022

  Illustrates the problems, the concepts, and the methodologies that arise when we discuss literary criticism. Around 180 full-length essays written by international experts discuss the theoretical categories and formal structures; the institutions that support the production, dissemination, interpretation, and valuation of literary texts; the identities of the real and textual persons who interact in the study of texts; and the systematic methodologies of literary interpretation and understanding.
• Columbia Granger's World of Poetry

  Call Number: Library Annex PN4321 G75+ (old editions)

  "Indexes poetry in published anthologies. Contains full text of anthologized poems in the public domain, poetry excerpts from copyrighted works, and citations providing poem title, author, publisher, subject(s), and a list of anthologies in which the selected poem appears."

• Gale Literature

  A literature database combining biographical, bibliographical, and contextual
  information on authors and their works (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism). Includes both textual and visual material from the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Authors, and Contemporary Literary Criticism.