A Companion to Poetic Genre

This eagerly awaited companion features over 40 contributions from leading academicsaround the world, and offers critical overviews of numerous poetic genres. Covering a range of cultural traditions from Britain, Ireland, North America, Japan and the Caribbean, amongst others, this valuable collection considers ancient genres such as the elegy, the ode, the ghazal and the ballad, before moving on to Medieval and Renaissance genres originally invented or codified by the Troubadours or poets who followed in their wake. the book also approaches genres driven by theme, such as the calypso and found poetry. Each chapter begins by defining the genre in its initial stages, charting historical developments and finally assessing its latest mutations, be they structural, thematic, parodic, assimilative or subversive.