The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Shorter Fifth Edition
Status: Available Author: Ferguson, Salter, Stallworthy ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-393-97921-3 Year: 2005 Description: Text / Softcover / / 1424 pages Instructor's Guide/Teacher's Resource: Available Subject: Advanced Placement, English Division: School Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Contact: Lindsay Sutherland
Overview
Offering over one thousand years of verse from the medieval period to the present, The Norton Anthology of Poetry is the classroom standard for the study of poetry in English.
The Fifth Edition retains the flexibility and breadth of selection that has defined this classic anthology, while improved and expanded editorial apparatus make it an even more useful teaching tool.
New Selections, Enduring Value The Fifth Edition includes 1,828 poems (191 new) by 334 poets (17 new); the Shorter Fifth Edition includes 1,113 poems (124 new) by 251 poets (12 new). No other poetry anthology offers such abundance, which is why students hold onto The Norton Anthology of Poetry long after the course ends — it is their poetry reference for life.
Strengthened Contents In response to instructors' requests, a number of important works by major poets have been added to the Fifth Edition. New additions include: Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"; Spenser, "The Shepheardes Calendar: Aprill" and book 1, canto 2 of The Fairie Queene; Shakespeare, ten additional sonnets; Milton, from Book 4 of Paradise Lost; Mary Wroth, 7 additional sonnets; Swift, "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift"; Keats, "Lamia"; T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding" and "The Hollow Men."
??Instructors committed to teaching the rich diversity of English-language poetry will welcome the Fifth Edition's increased attention to world poetry in English and to often-overlooked American voices. Among the poets newly included are Richard Wright, Weldon Kees, Robyn Sarah, Charles Bernstein, Anne Carson, Vikram Seth, and Simon Armitage.
New Help with Syntax and Versification
An indispensable aid in helping students become better readers and interpreters of poetry, Margaret Ferguson's new essay, "Poetic Syntax," goes to the heart of a perennial stumbling block — how to recognize, describe, analyze, and appreciate syntactic ambiguity in English poetry.
??Jon Stallworthy's much-admired essay, "Versification," has been revised to offer clearer explanations of rhyme and form while paying new attention to metrics in Old and Middle English and Renaissance verse.
Strengthened Apparatus
Annotations throughout the anthology have been extensively revised to clarify archaisms and allusions, and biographical sketches situating the poet's life, works, and literary concerns have been updated. A more legible typeface has also been adopted for this edition.
Resources Highlighting Intertextuality
Poetry instructors have come to depend on the flexibility and rich intertextuality of The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Three free learning resources — one online, for students, and two in print, for instructors — now offer more possibilities for demonstrating ways that poems speak to one another across time, place, and tradition through literal borrowings, forms, conventions, themes, and cultural concerns, among other means.
Margaret Ferguson (Ph.D. Yale University) is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California—Davis.
Mary Jo Salter (M.A. Cambridge University) is Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Mount Holyoke College, where she teaches poetry and poetry-writing.
Jon Stallworthy (M.A. and B.Litt. Oxford) is Senior Research Fellow at Wolfson College of Oxford University, where he is also Professor of English Literature.
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