Poetry Criticism

A E Housman’s 1896 assembly of sixty-three poems, A Shropshire Lad, over time, has delighted many readers and listeners. The enigmatic poem, "Into my heart an air that kills", has proved especially captivating; its theme of the poet’s nostalgic recollection of a happy childhood, coincides with many people’s own memories of their youth. An unusually short, two-stanza work, this stunning poem comprises just eight lines, and forty-six words. This paper analyses the poem – its meaning, its structure, its vocabulary, its perplexities – and some critical reactions. It also determines what the purpose of the poem isn’t as well as establishing its rationale and intent.

This paper investigates the concepts of 'poets with history' and 'poets without history' as proposed by Marina Tsvetaeva, in the context of British contemporary poetry. Furthermore, it explores elements of poetic craft in Alice Oswald's 'Falling Awake' and Hollie McNish's 'Nobody Told Me.'

The untitled Song No. LXXIV from Tagore's Gitanjali, The day is no more, the shadow is upon the earth is one of the interlinked poems from the poetical series also called Song Offerings in its rendered version. The poem though from the same text or bunch of poems is a variation on the theme of devotion as for imagery and reflection, thought and content expressed in. Here suspense seems to be lurking in with regard to the journey of life and the evening descending and the poet has taken up the same despair to express it otherwise in a romantic vein of expression tending to the metaphysical. Such a despair is romantic. See you again is not the case.

New criticism has had a vital place within the scope of critical studies and mainly literary criticism. Having specific characteristics which will be later on mentioned in this paper, new criticism analyzes the text from a broad perspective of view by focusing on various aspects. Just as new criticism can be applied to many poetic or dramatic works, one of the poems that can be studied with the application of new criticism can be regarded as T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” which is modernist poem and has the characteristics of new criticism. The aim of this paper is to discuss the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot from the perspective of new criticism and focusing on specific references.

Poets have always been at the forefront for the agitation of change-postitve change-,and African poets have done no less.This paper tries to establish that African poets have been on the lead for the propelling of  solutions to societal and communal problems that have dominated their society.These poets have taken it upon themselves,the pain to believe that these problems exists,and the more tasking one of convincing others about the existence of such problem.For all poems that have existed in Africa,from praise poems to even love poems and romantic poems that talk of enviromental hazards,there has been a conviction by the poet before anything else,that such a problem exists.In relation to how the poet sees those problems,this paper establishes the different classes of believe that exists among the school of pioneer and even contemporary poets.

The dissertation studies the works of Jorge de Sena from the comparison of his poetry and his critical. The reading corpus is composed by Quatro sonetos a Afrodite Anadiómena, present in the book Metamorfoses, and by the essays contained in the books Dialéticas Teóricas da Literatura e Dialéticas Aplicadas da Literatura. From this comparison, searches to understand the poetic-critical function of Jorge de Sena works and its varied implications with the modernity literary.

The ‘Poetry Contest in Six Hundred Rounds’ (Roppyakuban uta’awase) (1193-94) is the largest extant Japanese poetry competition judged by a single judge, Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114-1204). Shunzei has been described as the greatest premodern critic of poetry, and  taken together his judgements  in Roppyakuban uta’awase form one of the largest and most detailed statements of critical appreciation of poetry of the time. The value of the competition is increased, however, by the existence of an extensive Chinjō (‘Appeal’) written by one of the participants, Kenshō (?1130-?1209), in which he provides detailed rebuttals of Shunzei’s negative judgements of many of his poems.

Shunzei’s judgements, and Kenshō’s appeals, are based upon differing assessments of the key criteria for uta’awase poetry: adherence to the essential meaning of the set topic, including use of appropriate diction; appropriate formality; and ease of aural apprehension. Consideration these debates, therefore, has much to tell us about the formation of formation of critical opinion, the weight given to different types of evidence, and how aesthetic value was assigned to individual poems.

This paper will consider a number contentious rounds in the competition: Spring II: 18 on Skylarks, Spring III: 22 on Frogs and Love IX: 19 on Love and Clothing. Shunzei, and the opposing team,  are highly critical of Kenshō’s poems in these rounds on the grounds of his understanding of diction, grasp of the topic and resulting lack of formality. Kenshō responds with detailed poetic and real-world evidence to negate these criticisms. Through the interplay between these opposing views we can see the assertion of differing visions of poetic value and quality – visions which would become increasingly entrenched as poetic opinion became increasingly polarised in the thirteenth century.

The first extant poetic treatise by Fujiwara Shunzei, Man’yōshū jidaikō, is one of the least researched late Heian Period texts. It seems, however, to be an important piece of non-Rokujō poetry criticism in regard to the Man’yōshū’s reception history because it deals with issues related to this collection’s compilation, which was a matter of contention during the early medieval era, in a manner at times quite different than that of other texts of poetry criticism in the late Heian Period. Furthermore, Man’yōshū jidaikō is the first extant text demonstrating that the Rokujō poets were not the only ones who possessed significant knowledge about Man’yōshū in the late Heian Period. By comparing Man’yōshū jidaikō to other late Heian poetic treatises dealing with Man’yōshū, we see that the first collection of Japanese poetry was a much more fluid, challenged and often reconsidered text in the early medieval era, and thus likely throughout history, than we may currently believe. Moreover, Man’yōshū jidaikō helps to argue that knowledge about Man’yōshū in the late Heian Period was not necessarily motivated only by one’s poetic affiliation but was in fact a part of already established poetic discourse. Man’yōshū jidaikō therefore provides a valuable example of how various opinions in regard to Man’yōshū were thus manifestations of different ways of participating in and interpreting such discourse.