18 oct 2010

I've pointed out before that the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism has no entry for prosody, versification, music, or poetics. It has drama theory and narratology, and Murray Krieger, and Roberto Schwarz.

To be fair, the word prosody does come up in 4 articles: Thomas Kuhn, Arabic Theory, Chinese Theory (2); versification comes up 6 times, for Poe, Jakobson, Medieval, Late 18th Century British, Spanish, and Russian Formalism, but some of these references are rather fleeting and insubstantial.

There are 8 references to rhyme.

So what exactly is "Literary Theory and Criticism"? I'd really like to know. Playing gotcha is fun. Looking at what's not visible is highly revealing.

1 comentario:

Jordan dijo...

I'd like to hear you and Monsieur Jourdain debate the relative merits of prosody and narratology. (I'm not Monsieur Jourdain.)