Beauty judgements of non-professional poetry

Abstract

The process of reading and writing poetry is increasingly conducted by non-professionals. The current study utilized a series of regression models to explore the mechanism through which beauty judgements of non-professional poetry are made. The analysis addressed the relationships among the decision that a poem was written by a published poet (authorial attribution), a perception of the quality of the writing, the emotional response to the poem and a beauty judgement of the poem. 54 participants from two graduate applied linguistics programs rated 5 non-professional poems for their beauty, emotive response, quality of writing and semi-professional status of the writer. Analyses were conducted on averaged ratings across all five poems. The results indicate the beauty judgements, emotive response and quality of writing judgements were closely related. The decision that a poem is written by a published poet predicted the quality of writing and emotional response to the poem. An inconsistent mediation model was determined, in which increases in the semi-professional status of the writer increased the self-reported emotive response and quality of writing which in turn increased the beauty judgement of the poem. The results suggest a mechanism by which convergence of aesthetic judgement with novice reviewers is directed by the social sanctioning of the authority and quality of the writer.