Hearing the Measures: Shakespearean and Other Inflections

When we listen to the words of a poet in the theatre, or read them silently on the page, what is it that we hear? How do such crafty writers as Shakespeare or Donne, Wyatt or Yeats, Wordsworth or Plath arrange their rhythms to make their poetry more expressive? This work is a gathering of perceptive essays written over 25 years, and aims to help us hear the measures poets use to conjure up strangeness, urgency, distance and surprise.