The Music of What Happens: Poems, Poets, Critics

by Helen Vendler

Book Overview

Join Professor Helen Vendler in her course lecture on the Yeats poem Among School Children. View her insightful and passionate analysis along with a condensed reading and student comments on the course.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674591526
• ISBN13: 9780674591523
• Release Date: February 1988
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 473 Pages
• Weight: 1.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Beautiful writing about beautiful writing.

Is there any critic of fiction or poetry better than Helen Vendler? I always avoided poetry, thinking it the literary equivalent of green vegetables. But in these essays, Vendler calmly and precisely explains what works about a certain poem. Vendler's close reading and teacherly - but never condescending - voice made me want to read more poems, yes, but more than anything, they made me want to read more Vendler. Vendler's interpretive theory would probably be criticised as hopelessly 'undertheorized' new criticism, but that is part of its charm. In her way, Vendler has convinced me of the value and beauty of literary creation.