pDrawn from the acclaimed New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, the articles in this concise new reference book provide a complete survey of the poetic history and practice in every major national literature or cultural tradition in the world. As with the parent volume, which has sold over 10,000 copies since it was first published in 1993, the intended audience is general readers, journalists, students, teachers, and researchers. The editor's principle of selection was balance, and his goal was to embrace in a structured and reasoned way the diversity of poetry as it is known across the globe today.pbrp In compiling material on 106 cultures in 92 national literatures, the book gives full coverage to Indo-European poetries all the major Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages, as well as other obscure ones such as Hittite, the ancient middle Eastern poetries Hebrew, Persian, Sumerian, and Assyro-Babylonian, subcontinental Indian poetries the widest linguistic divers