In this Book
- Melodies Unheard: Essays on the Mysteries of Poetry
- Book
- 2020
- Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Series: Johns Hopkins: Poetry and Fiction
- Funder: Mellon/NEH / Hopkins Open Publishing: Encore Editions
- Program:
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

summary
Originally published in 2003. The fruit of a lifetime's reading and thinking about literature, its delights and its responsibilities, this book by acclaimed poet and critic Anthony Hecht explores the mysteries of poetry, offering profound insight into poetic form, meter, rhyme, and meaning. Ranging from Renaissance to contemporary poets, Hecht considers the work of Shakespeare, Sidney, and Noel; Housman, Hopkins, Eliot, and Auden; Frost, Bishop, and Wilbur; Amichai, Simic, and Heaney. Stepping back from individual poets, Hecht muses on rhyme and on meter, and also discusses St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians and Melville's Moby-Dick. Uniting these diverse subjects is Hecht's preoccupation with the careful deployment of words, the richness and versatility of language and of those who use it well.Elegantly written, deeply informed, and intellectually playful, Melodies Unheard confirms Anthony Hecht's reputation as one of our most original and imaginative thinkers on the literary arts.
Table of Contents


- Half Title
- p. i
- Title Page
- p. iii
- Dedication
- pp. v-vi
- Half Title 1
- pp. x-xiii
- Introduction
- pp. 1-16
- Shakespeare and the Sonnet
- pp. 19-50
- Sidney and the Sestina
- pp. 66-85
- On Henry Noel’s “Gaze Not on Swans”
- pp. 86-92
- Technique in Housman
- pp. 95-105
- On Hopkins’ “The Wreck of the Deutschland”
- pp. 106-121
- Uncle Tom’s Shantih
- pp. 122-130
- Paralipomena to The Hidden Law
- pp. 131-153
- On Robert Frost’s “The Wood-Pile”
- pp. 154-158
- Two Poems by Elizabeth Bishop
- pp. 159-171
- Richard Wilbur: An Introduction
- pp. 172-176
- Yehuda Amichai
- pp. 177-187
- Charles Simic
- pp. 188-204
- Seamus Heaney’s Prose
- pp. 205-215
- St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians
- pp. 238-251
- The Music of Forms
- pp. 275-299
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 301-304
Additional Information
ISBN
9781421437385
Related ISBN(s)
9780801869563, 9780801882661, 9781421437361, 9781421437378
MARC Record
OCLC
1135426950
Pages
318
Launched on MUSE
2020-01-10
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-ND