CRITICAL BOOK REVIEW
TITLE OF BOOK
The Edinburgh Introduction To Studying English Literature
(Poetry)
Program Study
Introduction To Literature
Lecturer : Juliantina, MS
Created by:
Deden Riansyah
ENGLISH EDUCATION PBI IVA
SEKOLAH TINGGI KEGURUAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN (STKIP) BUDIDAYA BINJAI
SEKOLAH TINGGI KEGURUAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN (STKIP) BUDIDAYA BINJAI
BINJAI
2017
PREFACE
First of all, I feel like saying “thanks” for God’s love and grace for us. Thanks to God for helping me and give me chance to finish this assignment timely. And I would like to say “Thank you” to mom Juliantina, MS as the lecturer that always teaches us and give much knowledge about how to practice English well.
This assignment is the one of English task that composed of critical book review. I realized this assignment is not perfect. But I hope that it can be useful for us. Critics and suggestion are needed here to make this assignment be better. Hopefully, we as a student in STKIP BUDIDAYA BINJAI can work more professional by using English as the second language whatever we done. Thank you.
TABLE OF CONTENT
PREFACE
BAB I BACKGROUND
· Objective and Benefits
BAB II DEFINITION AND DISCUSSION
BAB III SUMMARY OF CONTENT
BAB IV ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION
· Strength and weakness
BAB V CONCUSION AND SUGGESTION
· Conclusion
· Suggestion
BAB I
BACKGROUND
Bibliographic Information
Name of book : The Edinburgh Introduction To Studying English Literature
The certain topic : Poetry
Author : Edited by Dermot Cavanagh, Alan Gillis, Michelle Keown, James Loxley and Randall Stevenson
Year : © in this edition Edinburgh University Press, 2010
Amount of section : Four Section
Amount of pages : 234 Pages
Distribution and city : Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
A. Background
“Reading literature offers us diverse and abiding pleasures and can be rewarding in a great variety of ways. Such pleasures, though, can be enhanced, sustained and deepened by the critical study of literature, and such study can be an absorbing, challenging and enriching experience in itself. This book aims to open the door to such experience and to give a glimpse of its rewards. Expert, thorough, up to date and easy to follow, the chapters which follow provide a straight forward and effective pathway towards increasing your enjoyment and broadening your understanding of literature. (The author’s mean)”
Based on this book’s background of this study “Literature”, l can tell my reaction that this book can be a speacial way for enhancing, enriching, deepening knowledge about english literature so that learning english literature is not glimpsed. This book can be a sustaining in developing our reference in learning english literature. It’s meant, this book has several discussion about literature subject. Espeacially students of university, using this book they afford to increase reference in learning literature.
Actually, this book has several main discussion completely with its own interesting topic and explanation such as the most complete discussion about introductionary of linguistic, complete discussion about Poetry, Narrative and the detail discussion about english drama section. Even though, this book has weakness in the most complete all materials’ literature, but this book need to take considering cause complete discussion in 4 matters of english literature types.
B. Objective and Benefits
The chapters of this book do not need to be read in sequence, and you may find it more useful to read particular chapters or sections in an order that suits your own needs. The book aims to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the forms and techniques literature uses and the variety of ways in which it can be interpreted. This means that the essays do use specific and specialist terminology to define particular critical approaches and literary techniques.
These are explained by each contributor as they arise in discussion. later chapters may refer back to these defi nitions and indicate where each term first occurs. However, if you find a particular term or idea puzzling, the Index will point you towards the page or pages where it is fi rst explained and to any subsequent uses or elucidation. At the end of each chapter you will fi nd a list of ‘Next Steps’, indicating critical works that our contributors judge to be good places to continue your own reading and research in a particular area. (From the author)
If we talk about the objective from this book, actually this book’s author said “the book aims to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the forms and techniques literature uses and variety of ways in which it can be interpreted”. Based on the aim above, we can make a concluding that this book Objective/ aim is it will provide us general knowledge and development of English literature. More especial, this book will provide us literature discussions that can be several ways for improving the readers’ interpreting skill due to variety topics and English literature discussions.
One reason literature matters is its longevity as a practice and an art form. In this book, we have drawn on a wide variety of examples from different periods.This is because the serious study of literature demands historical awareness: literature has changed over the centuries, and will probably change again; unsurprisingly, what is understood or defined as literature has changed as well. All of the literary examples are drawn from easily accessible sources, either standard and familiar editions or widely-available anthologies such as those published by Norton and Longman.(From the author)
And then based on another aim from the author, it can appear our reaction that why the author said this book has variety discussion, because actually this book’s contents was mixed by wide variety and its example taking by different period. It’s meant, the topic and literature in this book was upgraded or in other word had taken up to date in new period like right now. Due to literature’s convertment by several century make us aware that it’s kaind of us if we can choose the best one English literature book was upgraded in modern period/ the least up to date.
So for the benefits, using this book we can realize how to learn English literature types. And we will acquire the up to date discussion about English literature in the least update. Something interesting from this book is this book’s content was from different period. I think, it will attempt for getting good response by the learners.
BAB II
DEFINITION AND DISCUSSION
Definition of Poetry
As we know, Poetry is a part from English literature. If you find other source of literature, in the book’s content must be involved by Poetry discussion and this element will be explained through this book. So, this papper’s section will tell about what poetry is? How does it work? And whole discussion about poetry. The first one, I want to write what poetry is? poetry is a mode of language uses marked by a high degree of verbal patterning or design. Poetry manipulates language more intensely than any other kind of literature, and poems mostly achieve this through being set in verse.
A vital aspect of poetry is what we call lexis or diction. These are technical terms for word choice. Language is comprised of an overlapping multitude of idioms. Words have distinct but changeable personalities, always pre- loaded with cultural associations and value. (From the book)
Based on the a little bit discussion above, l took more comprehending in poetry aspects. Beause based on the explanation above, Poetry has a vital aspects. It’s called “Lexis or diction”. What’s lexis? Lexis or diction is Selection of patterned sound and as usual as in poetry has another component, it’s called “Rhythm”. So, what’s Rhythm? Rhythm is a repeatition generally being a part in Poetry expression.
Poetry manipulates both the specific meanings and looser associations of words, is alert to their historical provenance and social domain, while it also plays with their pure sound as a
thing- in- itself. But most importantly, words in poems exist, and influence one another, in orchestrated relation, never in isolation. (From the book)
Based on a brief clarification above I obtained a spesific mean that Poetry can be a way for drawing an ilustration in mind when the poetry is read by someone with persist word stress and intonation. As usual as done, many people who felt difficult for differring Poetry and poem. Generally, the two are in one aspect in using stanzas, rhythm, and also diction.
So, how to clarify it? As we know as usual as done, it’s not difficult for us to differ between poetry and poem. If in Indonesia Poem is “Pantun”, in english literature “Poem” is a part of poetry. Fof example if there is an Indonesia poem like:
“Apa bila ada sumur di ladang, bolehlah kita menumpang mandi...
Kalau ada umur yang panjang, bolehlah kita berjumpa lagi...”
BAB III
SUMMARY OF CONTENT
Poetry: An Introduction
In 1595, Sir Philip Sidney argued the end of poetry was to ‘teach and delight’, echoing the Roman poet Horace from about 1,600 years earlier (Sidney, ‘Defence of Poesy’, 217; Horace 90). Since then, as before, many different kinds of poem have been written. Indeed, there are so many types of poem, and so many diverging concepts of what poetry is, that we should always take definitions of it with a pinch of salt. Differing poems from differing epochs and cultures amount to a kaleidoscope of contrasting ideas about the nature of language, art, individuality, consciousness, society, politics, history, existence, reality and so on.
Metre and Rhythm
A general introduction to the subject of metre and rhythm might usefully begin by saying that English verse is, in its most basic form, a succession of syllables. Some of these syllables will take a strong emphasis (they will be stressed, in other words); others will take a much lighter emphasis. What we call metre is set up by the way in which the heavily stressed syllables interact with the more lightly stressed syllables. The metrical units in which heavily and more lightly stressed syllables interact are called feet. There are many diff erent types of feet that constitute the metrical patterns of the poems that you will read. You will probably know the names of some of them: the iamb (da dum), the trochee (dum da), the anapaest (da da dum), the dactyl (dum da da), the amphibrach (da dum da) and so on.
Verse Forms
If rhythm and metre are the building blocks of poetry then verse forms are its architectural structure. Using some of the terms introduced in the previous two chapters by Alan Gillis and Lee Spinks, we will see how the eff ects and usages of metre and rhyme grow into larger shapes. ‘Verse form’ is quite a general category. It includes the technical combination of the length of the poem, its divisions into sections, its rhyme scheme and its metre. A sonnet, for example, has fourteen lines and it rhymes in one of a number of patterns. Some verse forms have regular patterns of lines, rhymes and stanzas but do not have special names. Some poems do not rhyme and do not have regular patterns of lines, but they still have form.
Poetic Imagery
Why might female beauty be likened to a whale bone? This is the extraordinary image presented in the opening of this anonymous lyric poem from the fi fteenth century. It seems strange to measure human beauty by a thing no longer living, and of gigantic proportion. The image stands out oddly in a poem in which the speaker is clearly flattering his beloved; after all, she is then compared to the perfection of a brightly inset rosary bead and to a turtle dove, a bird which symbolises love. In fact, the whale bone image was not uncommon in medieval love poetry: suggestive of rarity, whiteness and sharp clarity it could be used to mirror ideas about the ideal beauty of a woman’s skin. Though we, as contemporary readers, might puzzle at its incongruity, we can still recognise its eff ectiveness as it forces two diff erent images into unlikely juxtaposition. An arresting opening image pulls us into the poem’s world, making us more keenly alive to further worlds of possible meanings which even the smallest of lyric poems contains.
Poetry and History
This chapter will illustrate analysis of this kind, as well as some of the more traditional forms of historicist criticism, in relation particularly to a period not necessarily widely familiar to readers or students – the ‘early modern’ period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is worth beginning, though, by recognising that recent re- emphases on historical reading have made ‘always historicise’ a kind of general rallying cry heard in all sorts of ways across the field of literary study. It has led to some powerful re- readings\ of canonical texts, and to the realization that texts and genres once dismissed by scholars as unimportant were actually extraordinarily powerful at the time they were created.
Historicist critics have, for example, been increasingly sensitive not only to what texts say, but also to what they are conspicuously not saying, to those topics on which a poem is conspicuously, perhaps suspiciously, silent. How is it, for example, that Geoff rey Chaucer could write thousands of lines of verse on social issues in his House of Fame (1378–80) or The Canterbury Tales (1388–1400) and not reflect upon the series of profound political crises that shook England in the wake of the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, in which several of his friends and associates lost their lives? Does his apparent avoidance of these events (save for a brief, fl ippant allusion to the peasants’ rising in his Nuns’ Priest’s Tale), while fellow poets John Gower and William Langland seemed obsessed with them, suggest that he was indifferent to the issues they raised? Or was he too cowed by fear or ambition to voice his views?
Vernacular Poetry
‘Words strain,’ T. S. Eliot tells us in ‘Burnt Norton’ (1936); they ‘will not stay in place, / Will not stay still’. He could well be describing the eff ect of the vernacular on language at large. With diff erent meanings accumulated over time, the term ‘vernacular’ stems from the Latin vern[a]cul- us, meaning ‘domestic, native, indigenous’. This in turn derives from verna, the term for a slave born on his master’s estate, who is thus classed as a native but not a citizen of the place. So we might say a relationship of power and subordination is inscribed in the word ‘vernacular’ from the beginning, and that uses of it have been developing and redefi ning that relationship ever since.
One definition given by the Oxford English Dictionary is ‘the informal, colloquial, or distinctive speech of a people or a group’. As such, ‘vernacular’ moves from country or national- territorial application to social class and regional locality, and includes the transforming extension of speech (orality) into writing (literacy). This chapter briefly surveys the evolution of the vernacular, in relation to the historical development of English literature, and culture more generally, before looking more closely at forms of vernacular writing appearing in recent works.
BAB IV
ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION
Poetry: An Introduction
In the beginning discussion from this book is information about the introduction of Poetry. This Chapter talked about historical development about the written of Poetry then explained completely by the auhor. The main idea from this chapter is I took info that In 1595, Sir Philip Sidney argued the end of poetry was to ‘teach and delight’, echoing the Roman poet Horace from about 1,600 years earlier.
Metre and Rhythm
Based on the brief discussion above, Two geneal discussion of subject “Poetry” involve Metre and Rhythm. What’s difference of metre and rhythm? Lets me explain it. rhythm is the general term, applying to all speech, in every language, as well as sounds in general, provided the sounds are continuous or repetitive, and show some pattern in their continuity or repetition. Music is a good example; it has rhythms, but no meter. Meter, on the other hand, in the sense intended (there are plenty of others), applies strictly to poetry (or vocal song), and refers to certain specific repetitive patterns of syllables, in a particular language.
Verse Forms
This book also involve discussion about verse forms in English poetry. In my view the verse forms discussion of this book was complete. The whole discussion in this chapter will discuss about the technical combination of the length of the poem, its divisions into sections, its rhyme scheme and its metre.
Poetic Imagery
Another discussion of this book is poetic imagery. Lets see the following discussion “The image stands out oddly in a poem in which the speaker is clearly flattering his beloved; after all, she is then compared to the perfection of a brightly inset rosary bead and to a turtle dove, a bird which symbolises love.”. Based on the brief explanation above that I rewrite from this book’s discussion we can obtain main topic of this chapter’s mean. It’s mean “Poetic Imagery” is a part of Poetry that will provide us or attempt for making imagination like something matter (things or people) when we read a Poetry because it’s a Poetry’s special characterictic .
Poetry and History
One special of this book’s discussion is complete Poetry and its history available. “it involves the more traditional forms of historicist criticism, in relation particularly to a period not necessarily widely familiar to readers or students – the ‘early modern’ period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is worth beginning, though, by recognising that recent re- emphases on historical reading have made ‘always historicise’ a kind of general rallying cry heard in all sorts of ways across the field of literary study.” Based on the brief explanation above this chapter will tell you historical improvement or kinds of Poetry started from traditional era till modern era.
Vernacular Poetry
“This chapter briefly surveys the evolution of the vernacular, in relation to the historical development of English literature, and culture more generally, before looking more closely at forms of vernacular writing appearing in recent works.”Based on the brief explanation above from the book , l can take a mean that this chapter will tell us about the relation of English historical development in english literature and its culture more generally.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS
Strenghts
1. The topic about poetry was explanained on detail by the author.
2. There are discussion about Poetry completely with the detail direction.
3. The example of Poetry increadibly put in each topics discussion.
4. It’s not just about the glimps discussion about Poetry but it’s a long discussion about poetry that provide the new and detail poetry mastery to me.
5. Although this book’s section is only 4 section available but each the section was divided beibg several detail discussion.
Weakness
The weakness of this book actually it’s not in its discussion or materials but the weakness in in the difficult to understand the main topic what the book talked about. Ii think native speakers afford to understand the long discussion with non familiar vocabulary but it’s something difficult to me to undeerstand many strange and non familiar Vocabulary And the another weaknesss of this book is its marks written. There are losing mark word in its discussion.
BAB V
CONCUSION AND SUGGESTION
Conclusion
Having studied this book, l am aware if there are kinds of Poetry started from its historical discussion till all complete Poetry’s aspects. I felt great with this book due to the detail discussion in each its Topic. this book is recommended fo us especially an University students who want to improve our English Poetry understanding.
And then being a part of english literature, By learning literature, the readers can know the picture that is actually true about life in this world. Besides, the reader can also learn the important issues of life. When reading the literary work, the readers can feel in the situation of the story.
Suggestion
Suggestion Concerning the learning of literature, the writer suggests that learning literature,especially novel, should be done by understanding it the same as learning life. It is because novel concerns a lot with human life and their problems. The conclusion of this study reveals that in this world, there are still the other mental-retarded persons, who need help. In this case, the writer suggests that people should give special attention to the mental-retarded persons.
After analyzing the characters in the novel, the writer suggests that the following readers can analyze the characters through the personality state of the characters, the actions of the characters, the utterances of the characters, and what the author says about the characters.
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