《诗歌入门》共分6个章节,分别论述了英语诗歌的要素、视觉形态、声音效果、音韵、比较和联想以及用词,深入浅出地对英语诗歌进行了全面、系统的介绍。本书语言简洁流畅,对英语文学专业的学生以及英语诗歌爱好者有很好的指导作用。

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The key words of poetry
1.1 What is poetry.
1.2 The key words of English poetic history
2 The shape of poetry
2.1 The aesthetics of print
2.2 Pictograms and concrete poems
2.3 Visible but unreadable
2.4 Layout and punctuation
2.5 The poetic stanza and stanzaic form
3 The sound of poetry
3.1 Poetic sound effects: an overview
3.2 Onomatopoeia
3.3 Sound,patterning
3.4 Rhyme
3.5 The 'orthodox' rhyme
3.6 Some 'unorthodox' rhymes
3.7 Some indeterminacies of rhyme
3.8 Rhyme and meaning
4 Metre and rhythm
4.1 Complexities in the study of metre
4.2 The key metrical units
4.3 Metrical regularity and variance
4.4 'Missing' and 'extra' syllables
4.5 Feet
4.6 Iambic metre
4.7 Trochaic metre
4.8 Dactylic metre
4.9 Anapaestic metre
4.10 Occasional feet
4.11 Metrical verse lines
4.12 Free verse
5 Comparisonsandassociations
5.1 Literal v. figurative
5.2 Metaphor and simile
5.3 Metonymy and synecdoche
5.4 Tenor, vehicle and ground
5.5 Conceits and extended similes
5.6 Dead and dying metaphors
5.7 Riddle poems
6 The words of poetry
6.1 Linguistic diversity
6.2 Poetic diction
6.3 Poetry of the everyday language
6.4 Creating your own language
6.5 Diction and argots
6.6 Poems about language
6.7 The Queen's (and other people's) English
A glossary of poetical terms Index

3 The sound of poetry
3.8 Rhyme and meaming
We hope this chapter will have introduced you to some of the complexitiesof rhyme in poetry.In particular,it should have brought home that rhyme isnot a single phenomenon but an umbrella term for several sorts of soundeffect;moreover,the very detection of a rhyme,or of a larger scheme ofrhymes into which it fits,can depend on an impression or an interpretation.We want to finish,however,by moving away from the mere cataloguing ofdifferent sorts of rhyme and discuss instead how rhyme can aggregate orexpress meaning in a piece of verse.Does rhyme have the flexibilit likesome other sound effects we discussed earlier,to mimic or reinforce thecontent of a piece of writing.To consider this important issue,we proposetaking a section from Richard II Act IV Scene i where Richard is on theverge of resigning his crown to the usurper,Henry Bolingbroke:
RICH. To do what service am I sent for hither:
YORK. To do that office of thine own good will
Which tired majesty did make thee offer:
The resignation of thy state and crown
To Henry Bolingbroke.
RICH. C:ive me the crown.Here,cousin,seize the crown.
Here,cousin,
On this side my hand,and on that side thine.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets,filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air.
The other down.unseen,and fun of water.
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs,whilst you mount up on high.
BOL. I thought you had been willing to resign.RICH. My crown I am,but still my griefs are mine.
You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs;still am I king of those.BOL.Part of your cares you give me with your crown.RICH. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
My care is lOSS of care.by old care done.
……

“外教社原版文学入门丛书”以介绍文学理论和小说类型及相应的社会文化背景为主,勾勒出英美文学发展的概貌。本丛书文字简练、语言生动,对我国的外国文学及理论研究者、在校学生以及广大文学爱好者都有很高的参考价值。本书为《诗歌入门》分卷。