Abstract
Instigating question: What does a concrete poem communicate? In the widest sense, one could answer that a concrete poem communicates the same things as any other kind of poem. That is, it does not communicate the same things as discourse, using this word in the sense given it by Susanne K. Langer as language in its literal use (1957:71). A large part of Langer's work has been devoted to the demonstration of the non-discursive, symbolic nature of art and poetry as opposed to the discursive symbolism of literal language. Susanne Langer prefers not to speak of communication with reference to poetry, in order to distinguish qualitatively the function and the effects peculiar to it. Poetry exercises what Langer calls a formulative function of language, normally coincident with the communicative functions, but largely independent of them [ ... j (p. 149). Some quotes from Problems of Art will clarify her theory:
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