This paper reviews Michael Meyer's Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, focusing on the textbook's treatment of poetic language and analysis. The review examines Meyer's discussion of explication, word choice, word order, and tone as essential tools for reading poetry. Drawing on pages 570–580, the paper explores how these elements interact to shape meaning and effect in a literary work. The review also engages briefly with the formalist critical approach underlying Meyer's framework, noting its emphasis on the internal relationship between form and meaning rather than on the sociological or psychological context surrounding a writer.
Michael Meyer ought to be lauded for such a well-rounded, comprehensive resource as the Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. It offers a wonderful variety of poetry and critical commentaries on various selections, and gives wry examples of how to recognize bad writing — including a passage from a particularly bad romantic novel and an example of doggerel poetry — the kind of material a student of literature would find both stimulating and appealing.
In the pages under discussion (pages 570–580), the speaker elaborately addresses word choice, word order, and tone, paying careful attention to language: the connotations of words, allusion, figurative language, irony, symbol, rhythm, sound, and so on. These elements are examined in relation to one another and to the overall effect and meaning of a work.
One of the key terms the speaker elaborates is explication. An explication is a detailed analysis of a passage of poetry or prose. Because explication is an intensive examination of a text line by line, it is most often used to interpret a short poem in its entirety or a brief passage from a longer poem, short story, or play. This method of close reading demands that the reader account for every word and structural choice the poet has made.
A poet's job, according to the speaker, is not to write reality as it is — poetry condenses reality. Even a single word can carry two, three, or ten meanings. Drawing on Reading, Thinking, Writing (5th ed., New York: St. Martin Press, 2000), the speaker offers a memorable analogy: a poem can be like a recipe. Just as one does not simply drop all the ingredients for a cake into a large bowl and mix, one must first combine the dry ingredients, then cream the butter and sugar separately, then add the eggs, and finally fold in the dry mixture. Poetry is very similar. One must be very careful about choice of word, word order, and tone if one does not want the poem to turn into a lumpy mess.
"Tone as expression of authorial attitude and mood"
"Formalist criticism and its appeal in literary study"
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