Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-l9twb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-10T22:32:50.256Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

28 - Theories of poetry

from VI - Genre criticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

M. A. R. Habib
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Get access

Summary

Anarchy rules the wide field of literature in every country. This chapter focuses on Wilhelm Dilthey's assurance that poetic theory is equal to the task of bringing this anarchic field of literature under the critic's control. Language imposes the conditions relevant to the art of poetry, and Victor Cousin finds these conditions to be the most conducive to the expressive ends of the arts. Cousin's expressivism would appear to coincide in many respects with the theory of poetry advanced by his younger compatriot, Charles Baudelaire, whose critical writings echo Cousin's supreme rule. Understood as beautiful objects, poems are part of what Marx called the superstructure of a society. Literary criticism gave rise to a discipline of human sciences that has much in common with the cultural poetics characteristic of the new historicism which arose a full century after the publication of Dilthey's Poetics.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×