The Reach of PoetryPoets, deeply imbued in the language and conditions of their society, stand forth to produce an utterance that reveals their constant "exposure" and their resourceful adaptiveness. Albert Cook's wide-ranging study characterizes poetry by testing its reach beyond given points or boundaries of expression. Through an insightful analysis of key poets in various Western traditions, Cook demonstrates that the best poetry, while subject to the language and conditions of its time, also rises above these conditions by playing them back against themselves with a freedom whose ineffability is the sign of its ultimate lucidity. Beginning with modern poetry, Cook moves backward in time, aiming at the effect of echoes as much as of cumulations. In each movement forward, the intensities are gathered - by Dante, by the troubadours, by Catullus, and by Alcman. This reach forward is also a reach backward: Alcman's fusions in the seventh century B.C.E. remain permanent within the Western tradition and are accessible in the stream of discourse to modern poets who may never have heard of him. In addition to addressing poems in the short compass of epigram, and ballad, The Reach of Poetry discusses the distinctive achievement of certain lyric poets - among them Wordsworth, Rimbaud, Whitman, Donne, the Shakespeare of the Sonnets, Dante, the troubadours, Catullus, Lucretius, Pindar, and such modern poets as Yeats, Stevens, Rilke, Montale, Follain, Char, Celan, and Ashbery. |
Contents
| 12 | |
| 26 | |
Point Closure Amplitude and the Conditions of Utterance Wordsworth Whitman and Rimbaud | 53 |
Image Intensification the Selfs Dialogic Posture and Petrarchan Mutations Donne and Shakespeare | 73 |
Dante Irasumanar per verba | 95 |
Trobar The Pitches of Desire | 135 |
The Transcendence of Hellenistic Norms The Reach of Catullus | 159 |
The Angling of Poetry to Philosophy The Nature of Lucretius | 188 |
The Multiplicities and Comprehensions of Pindar | 213 |
The Possible Intersections of Cosmology Religion and Abstract Thought in the Lyric Fragments of Alcman | 235 |
Prophecies and Occlusions Yeats Rilke Stevens Montale Char Celan Ashbery | 249 |
Notes | 286 |
| 317 | |
| 329 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Alcaeus Alcman allegorical Amor assertion Bacchylides Beatrice beginning Catullus Catullus's Celan celebration Char characterization complex connection context contrast conversational Dante Dante's dark death desire Divina commedia doctrine Donne Donne's echoes elaborate Elegy Empedocles enlists Epicurean Epicurus epigram erotic evoked expands expression fig tree figure force fragment gnomic gods Greek Heidegger Heracles hero Homer human images implied Isthmian language last line Lesbia light Lucretius Lucretius's lyric match ment metaphor Minnesang modern moves myth occlusion offers Olympian once oracular otium Paul Celan Pelops perception person philosophical Pindar poem poet poet's poetic poetry poros praise present prophetic Pythian range reference rhetorical rhyme Rimbaud Sappho says sense sequence Shakespeare social song sonnet sort soul speak speaker stanza statement structure term terza rima theological things tion tonality tradition Trojan War troubadour turns utterance verse victor vision visual voice Whitman whole word Wordsworth καὶ
Popular passages
Page 24 - The Red Wheelbarrow so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.
Page 20 - Rose Aylmer AH what avails the sceptred race! Ah what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee.