Poetry as Imitation

Abstract

INTEND TO USE the art of poetry as an example of how one can speak precisely of the nature of Art. Each statement to be understood as asserted of each of the arts, in its own terms. seems, however, that the effort to describe the nature of art presumptuous, naive, and romantic. Mr. T. S. Eliot, to use the usual prominent example, has often objected: Those who indulge in the Essence of Poetry fantasy... Repeated meditation led me to suspect that there are surprisingly few things that can be said about Poetry. 3 On the contrary, notions of what poetry is are repeatedly implied in Mr. Eliot's criticisms.4 I. A. Richards, who similarly opposed to the notion that poetry any one thing, similarly asserts that it one thing, namely, the coordination of impulses and interests: It never what a poem says, but what it that matters. The poet... uses words because the interests which a situation brings into play combine to bring them, just in this