A Poet's Notebook

by Edith Sitwell

Overview

First published in 1943, this is a selection of writings from Dr. Sitwell's private notebooks. It includes essays on prosody, the role of the poet, the nature of poetry, and includes her full length work 'A Notebook on William Shakespeare', as well as discussion of Chaucer, Herrick, Wordsworth, Pope and Byron amongst others.

The section on Shakespeare consists of essays on the general aspect of the plays - those great hymns to the principle and the glory of life. There are long essays on King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet. Miss Sitwell believes, with all humility, that she has discovered new sources of the inspiration of King Lear, throwing a new light on the whole play , and giving us new meaning to the mad scenes, of an unsurpassable grandeur, depth and terror. There are essays on many of the comedies, and long passages about the Fools and Clowns, all of which serve to illiminate Shakespeare's mighty and many-sided genius.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448200269
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	05/23/2013
Pages:	206
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Edith Sitwell was born in 1887 into an aristocratic family and, along with her brothers, Osbert and Sacheverell, had a significant impact on the artistic life of the 20s. She encountered the work of the French symbolists, Rimbaud in particular, early in her writing life and became a champion of the modernist movement, editing six editions of the controversial magazine Wheels. She remained a crusading force against philistinism and conservatism throughout her life and her legacy lies as much in her unstinting support of other artists as it does in her own poetry. Sitwell died in 1964.

Table of Contents

Foreword

I On the Poet's Nature

II Notes on the Nature of Poetry

III Notes on Technical Matters

IV On a Necessity of Poetry: The Centre, the Core

V On Morality in Poetry

VI On Simplicity

VII On the Senses

VIII On Over-Civilisation

IX The Need for the Refreshing of the Language

X On the Poets Labour

XI On Imagery in Poetry

XII On the Poet, the Natural World, and Inspiration

XIII On the Power of Words

XIV On the Deaths of Two Poets

XV Of Ben Johnson

XVI Applicable to the Augustans

XVII Some Notes on Alexander Pope

XVIII A Note on Byron

XIX Applicable to Blake

XX Applicable to Baudelaire

XXI Applicable to Verlaine

XXII A Note on the Earliest English Poetry

XXIII Notes on Chaucer

XIV Notes on Certain Poems by Dunbar, Skelton, Gower, and a Poem by An Anonymous Poet

XV Notes on Herrick

XVI Notes on Smart, With a Note on Gerard Manley Hopkins

XVII Notes on Wordsworth

XVIII Notes on Shakespeare

Epilogue

A Note on the Author