Perspective

The author of "Rhyme's Reason" is not only a critic but is a poet himself, who enjoys reading as well as writing poetry. He has his own definite ideas about what makes good poetry and his book is as much advice for other writers as it is a description of the traditional styles of English poetry. He provides a personal perspective on how rhyme, meter and structure have been used and how they should be used.

Hollander is a contemporary poet, however he provides historical perspective on the forms that English poetry has developed since the Renaissance. Many of these forms were consciously adapted from earlier Greek and Latin traditions that greatly influenced writers of the Renaissance period. These forms did not always fit nicely within the natural patterns and rhythms of spoken English, however and thus were changed to form a new distinctly English-language form based on...