The Title to the Poem

The title of a poem is often seen as no more than a convenient means of reference - a way of cataloguing, or of finding the work in a list of contents. But in shorter lyric poems the title can often be as long as a line of verse, and as allusive. The Title to the Poem is a theoretical, critical, and historical exploration of the traditions for titling shorter poems by British and American poets from the beginnings of printing in the fifteenth century to the present day. Ferry offers a thorough introduction to the history of conventions governing the choice of titles, and pursues the origin and development of specific examples. She shows the myriad ways in which a title influences our reading of the poem, illuminating and complicating our understanding of it, its place in the book in which it first appeared, and the poet who wrote it.