Poetry Criticism Research Articles

Poetic Wave and Poetic Particle

Literary criticism has long borrowed its terms from other fields of inquiry: however sure its practitioners have been of their particular judgments, they have in more general matters usually been more sure of something else—of the truths of theology or of the sciences and social sciences. This is now most apparent when political and psychological vocabulary and values are applied in literary judgment, when works of literature are approached, explained, and all too often dismissed in terms of psychoanalysis of their author or a calculation of their probable impact on society. But even when an attempt is made to see the object as in itself it really is, the critics of poetry have employed as if unnoticed terms, concepts, images belonging to a most unlikely science, physics.

Archetypal Analogies in the Langauge of Criticism

The task of analysing the nature and function of metaphor has traditionally been assigned to the rhetorician and to the critic of literature. But metaphor, whether alive or moribund, is an inseparable element of all discourse, including discourse whose professed purpose is neither persuasive nor aesthetic, but descriptive and informative. Metaphysical systems, in particular, are fundamentally metaphorical systems, as Professor Stephen Pepper has recently shown in some detail. Even the languages of the natural sciences cannot claim to be literal, although their key terms often are not recognized to be metaphors until, in the course of time, the general adoption of a new analogy yields perspective into the nature of the old. And in the criticism of poetry, metaphor and analogy, though less conspicuous, are perhaps no less functional than in poetry itself. What I want to do is to indicate briefly the role in the history of criticism of certain submerged conceptual models—what I have called “archetypal analogies”—in helping to select, interpret, systematize, and evaluate the facts of literature.

John Trumbull as a Critic of Poetry

of the items in this collection were ,written in the 177o's and 1780's, a few date from a later period, so that there are comments, sometimes amounting to no more than memoranda, on a variety of writers from Homer to Byron. Too much must not be expected of Trumbull's critical utterances in a period when the most ardent devotees scarcely considered a literary career even possible in America. There is little likelihood that he considered publishing these, both because there was slight demand or market for American criticism and because the essays, though occasionally rich in detail and polished in phrase, are as wholes unfinished. Nevertheless they contain materials of real importance to the student of early American criticism. To give some idea of the range and quality of Trumbull's critical writing, discussion will be centered chiefly about a few topics: his conception

English Teachers as Poetry Critics

English Teachers as Poetry Critics

Four Anthologies of Arabic Poetry

It is remarkable that four important works on the criticism of Arabic poetry, and at the same time anthologies, should appear in one year and, to avoid any misunderstanding, I shall deal with them in the chronological order of the deaths of their authors.

Emerson's Theory and Practice of Poetry

This paper does not attempt to isolate all the influences that determined Emerson's theory and practice of poetry. My purpose is rather to call attention more clearly than I did in a former paper to his obligations to Coleridge and Wordsworth. Emerson's criticism of these two men will aid us in determining not only their relation to each other, but also their position in the history of English poetry and literary criticism. Just as present-day criticism of both Coleridge and Wordsworth shifts from scathing strictures to high praise, so, too, did Emerson's. But Emerson differs from many later critics in that he took cognizance of the manifold forces that entered into their work.

Landor's Criticism in Poetry

Landor's Criticism in Poetry