The Sounds of Poetry Viewed as Music

Drawing on decades of musical theory, The Sounds of Poetry Viewed as Music offers a fresh alternative to traditional literary and generative metrics approaches, redefining our understanding of poetry’s structure. Concise yet profound, it bridges poetry, music, and linguistic theory in bold new ways. – Nigel Fabb, emeritus professor of literary linguistics, University of StrathclydeThe Sounds of Poetry Viewed as Music presents a novel method for capturing perceptually and affectively relevant aspects of poetic structure. Lerdahl rigorously tests his approach against expert performances of poetic classics, offering a broader framework for analyzing verse. – Mara Breen, professor of psychology and education, Mount Holyoke College

Fred Lerdahl is Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University. An acclaimed composer and music theorist, he has written numerous orchestral and chamber pieces, three of which have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in music. His books include A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, with linguist Ray Jackendoff (1983); Tonal Pitch Space (2001); and Composition and Cognition: Reflections on Contemporary Music and the Musical Mind (2020).