Lines and Lyrics: An Introduction to Poetry and Song

An introduction to poetry geared toward the study of song

Bruce Springsteen, Benjamin Britten, Kendrick Lamar, Sylvia Plath, Outkast, and Anne Sexton collide in this inventive study of poetry and song. Drawing on literary poetry, rock, rap, musical theater, and art songs from the Elizabethan period to the present, Matt BaileyShea reveals how every issue in poetry has an important corresponding status in song, but one that is always transformed. Beginning with a discussion of essential features such as diction, meter, and rhyme, the book progresses into the realms of line, syntax, form, and address, and culminates in an analysis of two complete songs. Throughout, BaileyShea places classical composers and poets in conversations with contemporary songwriters and musicians (T.S. Eliot and Johnny Cash, Aaron Copland and Pink Floyd) so that readers can make close connections across time, genres, and fields, but also recognize inherent differences.