Do you love books but never really 'got' poetry? Have you ever wondered why verse is so important to British culture? Rhyme and Reason is the book about poetry you never knew you needed ... until now According to bestselling author Mark Forsyth, most poetry is actually very easy to enjoy. You just have to look at it from the right point of view. From a music teacher in Tudor times finding a love sonnet slipped between the strings of his lute to an eighteenth-century kitchen-maid in Northamptonshire reading Alexander Pope and writing poems back to him, through an MP walking into the House of Commons with a proof copy of Paradise Lost and announcing that he is holding the greatest poem ever written in any language, Rhyme and Reason is a history of English poetry from the reader's point of view: who they were, what they read, and why they liked it. This witty and entertaining tour of British history through the prism of our greatest poets and movements, as well as those lesser known, explains everything you need to know to enjoy poetry. And by teaching you the basics of English verse and how poetry works, it might just equip you with the ability to become the next Shakespeare.