Poetry, arguably, has a greater range of conceptual meaning than perhaps any other term in English. At the most basic level everyone can recognise it--it is a kind of literature that uses special linguistic devices of organization and expression for aesthetic effect. However, far grander claims have been made for poetry than this--such as Shelley's that the poets 'are the unacknowledged legislators of the world', and that poetry is 'a higher truth'.

In this Very Short Introduction, Bernard O'Donoghue provides a fascinating look at the many different forms of writing which have been called 'poetry'--from the Greeks to the present day. As well as questioning what poetry is, he asks what poetry is for, and considers contemporary debates on its value. Is there a universality to poetry? And does it have a duty of public utility and responsibility?

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Introduction
1: Truths universally acknowledged
2: Poetry's areas of authority and aptitude
3: The language of poetry and its particular devices
4: The kinds of poetry and their contexts
5: Poets and readers
Conclusion
Further Reading
Index

Bernard O'Donoghue , Emeritus Fellow, Wadham College, Oxford

Bernard O'Donoghue is an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, where he taught Medieval English and Modern Irish Poetry. Also a poet and a literary critic, his poetry collection Gunpowder (Chatto & Windus, 1995) was awarded the 1995 Whitbread Poetry Award. He has authored and edited several titles, including The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney (CUP, 2008) and Reading Chaucer's Poems: A Guided Selection (Faber, 2015). In 2006, his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was published by Penguin.