ON THE NATURE OF POETRY By the same author AWARENESS BEYOND MIND BREATHING WITH THE MIND THE SPACIOUS MIRROR THE UNSEEN REFLECTION SONNETS ON THE NATURE OF POETRY AN APPRAISAL AND INVESTIGATION OF THE ART WHICH FOR 4,000 YEARS HAS DISTILLED THE SPOKEN THOUGHTS OF MANKIND K E N N E T H V E R I T Y SHEPHEARD-WALWYN (PUBLISHERS) LTD ©Kenneth Verity 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd First published in 2007 by Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd 107 Parkway House, Sheen Lane, London SW14 8LS www.shepheard-walwyn.co.uk British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN-13: 978-0-85683-246-8 Typeset by Alacrity, Winscombe, Somerset Printed through Print Solutions, Wallington, Surrey Dedicated to My Critics, Confidantes, and Counsellors Contents Acknowledgements xi Author’s Preface xiii Introduction xv 1 THE ANCIENT WORLD 1 Epic of Gilgamesh; Egyptian Poetry Poetry and The Biblical Tradition 2 THE GREEKS 7 Homer; The Homeric Hymns Hesiod Greek Drama, Tragedy, Comedy Developments in Greek Poetry Archilochus, Sappho, Pindar, Praxilla, Simonides, Philetas, Theocritus Pre-Socratic Criticism of Poets Plato’s Criticism of Poets The Loss of Greek Independence 3 THE ROMANS 30 Latin and Roman Poetry: Satura, Fables; Juvenal, Epigram, Martial Greek Influence on Roman Literature Tragedy, Comedy, Naevius, Plautus, Statius Caecilius, Terence, Manilius Latin and Roman Poets: Ennius, Lucretius, Catullus Horace, Virgil, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid Post-Augustan Poetry Quintilian, Lucan The Shift Away from Rome 4 POETRY IN THE SHADOWS 55 The Dark Ages Beowulf, Caedmon The Middle Ages vii The Mystery of Allegory: Romance of the Rose, Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Vision of Piers Plowman Figures of Speech in Medieval Poetry A Psychological Awakening – Chaucer A New Realism – Villon, Marot 5 HUMANISM AND SPIRITUALITY 82 Renaissance Italy Dante, The Divine Comedy, The New Life Petrarch, Canzoniere The Development of the Sonnet: Petrarchan, Spenserian, Elizabethan The Sonnet’s Sequent History 6 THE RENAISSANCE ENTERS ENGLAND 96 The Elizabethans Wyatt, Earl of Surrey, Spenser Humanism in England Sidney, Daniel, Drayton, Kyd Shakespeare Plays: Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Shakespeare’s Plays as Poetry, The Sonnets The Concept ‘Love’ 7 METAPHYSICAL POETRY 136 Metaphysics Donne and the Metaphysical Poets The Wider Dimension The Augustan Age 8 IDEALS AND DREAMS 150 The Romantic Movement Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Keats Shelley, Coleridge The Post-Romantic Period The Victorian Poets Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Clough, Swinburne German Poetry – Influence in Europe Gerard Manley Hopkins viii 9 A FRESH LYRICISM 184 The Georgians A.E. Housman, Davies, Walter de la Mare, Masefield, Edward Thomas, Andrew Young, Blunden, Owen, Sassoon, Robert Bridges, Yeats 10 NEW APPROACHES 203 Modern Poetry Eliot: Plays, Poetry, Criticism Eliot and Valéry, The Social Poets W.H. Auden, MacNeice, Spender, Day-Lewis, New Apocalypse 11 DIFFERENCES WITHIN UNIVERSALITY 235 Oriental Poetry India, China, Japan, Russia, Sufi Poetry 12 SUBSTANCE AND FORM 261 Aristotle’s Treatise on Poetry The Structure of Poetry Prose in a Verse-Play Words in Their Place Structural Analysis Metre and Rhythm: The Metrical Foot Sound and Rhyme Music in Poetry 13 POETRY’S FIGURATIVE ELEMENT 275 Defining Poetry, Rhyme A Sonnet Within a Play Figurative Language Metaphor and Analogy Symbol and Symbolism Image and Imagism Epigram and Proverb Emblem and Ensign Allegory Semiotics ix