by Anne Ferry (Author)

A theoretical, critical and historical exploration of the traditions for titling shorter poems by British and American poets, from the beginnings of printing to the present. Ferry approaches the subject by asking the kinds of questions a reader might ask about a poem, which the title purports to answer. There are complex relationships between what titles purport to tell and what they actually tell, and this is true not only of titles so worded that they demand interpretation, but also of those that appear straightforward. The examples are taken from a wide range of British and American poets, but particularly from Jonson, Wordsworth, Browning, Whitman, Hardy, Frost, Williams, Stevens, Auden and Ashbery. The diversity of examples in this book shows ways of reading the title that raise new kinds of questions about all sorts of poems and open new dimensions to the experience of reading particular poems, even very familiar ones.

Back Jacket

This is a powerful, elegant, and most original study that moves across and through the range of English and American verse. . . . What is so impressive, too, about this book is that the author's thought about the nature and structure and function of titles is rooted in, and leads to, wonderfully illuminating readings of the poems in question.--John Hollander, Yale University
"There hasn't been an adequate history of the business of poetic titling until this new book by Ferry, and it is stimulating and welcome. . . .This is an indispensable hornbook. Anne Ferry has written the last word on the first words on any poem."--Partisan Review

Author Biography

Anne Ferry has taught at Hunter, Wellesley, and Boston Colleges and at Harvard University.