Abstract
This article argues for a neural basis behind Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘Poetic Principle’ and Charles Olson’s ‘Projective Verse’ to create a more robust cross-disciplinary aesthetic model. Brian Boyd and Ellen Dissanayake show that ‘attention’ and ‘making new’ in poetry is a stable but evolving technique. This shows up in constant variation in ‘classic’ and ‘modern’ poetry and it forms a pattern for interpretation. This article will look at Poe’s and Olson’s essays in relation to this technique, steering their conclusions toward a partially naturalized conception of poetics in conjunction with more standard literary models in order to broaden aesthetic understanding.
Highlights
Olson’s ‘Projective Verse’ to create a more robust cross-disciplinary aesthetic model
I hope to soften the edges of a kind of evolutionary aesthetics such that inroads may be made toward other types of literary criticism for a future synthesis
Poe denies that there can be no long poem and Olson focuses on the physicality of the breath versus line in poetic creation
Summary
To say that the arts must exhibit evidence of evolution (natural and sexual selection) is to accept that we evolved dispositions which found themselves evinced in what we call artistic practices, and that certain universals and patterns should be shared by all humans. If this is true, certain particulars in our behaviors should still show evidence of this heritage through generally shared patterns among our species. What is left for us is to attempt to explore where the demarcations begin and end and push further into the blurry areas
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