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The editor's thesis, Leiden. / Added t.p. in Arabic. "Stellingen": 1 leaf inserted. Bibliography: p. 9-17 (3d group).

The editor's thesis, Leiden. / Added t.p. in Arabic. "Stellingen": 1 leaf inserted. Bibliography: p. 9-17 (3d group).

This thesis explores the concept of possibility in terms of an aesthetic theory applicable to poetry. The concept is widely used in different ways by different writers, but seldom dealt with analytically as is the intention here. Chapter I deals first with the empirical concomitants of the concept and their relation to notions of convention and stylistic transgression in poetry. The argument then proceeds to examine the philosophical ramifications of these relations in terms of Whitehead's views on aesthetic integrations. In substantiating these views ontologically, a theory of poetry as a form of contemplative thought emerges. Chapter II defines the ontological grounds of poetic possibility in a more rigorous manner utilizing distinctions basic to both the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and the theories of the so-called "structuralist" school. The relationship of poetry to "nature" and "culture" is of parmount importance in these speculations, and is defined in such a way as to reconcile processal and structural definitions of the poetic experience. The chapter resolves by relating the ontological ground of poetic possibility to notions of metaphor and ambiguity developed in the writings of Wallace Stevens and others. Chapter III explores the notion of poetic ambiguity further in terms of a theory of imagination which draws upon the theories of Stevens, Coleridge, and Heidegger. The linguistic consequences of this theory of imagination are discussed in terms of a practical demonstration, an explication of William Carlos Williams' “Nantucket". In this way, the argument establishes the metalinguistic grounds for defining and analyzing poetry. The chapter concludes, relating the metalinguistic grounds of poetry, as defined, to the notion of poetic possibility previously developed. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation argues that the coherent vision and single impulse which led to the major form of the Cantos also underlay Ezra Pound's seemingly disparite early experiments. In order to demonstrate that Pound's pre-occupation with major form provided a common denominator between his earliest, middle, and mature poetry, I have divided this study into three sections, which correspond to the three main stages of Pound's development. Part One: Instigation (1904-1911), demonstrates the two theories of perfect form that first attracted the young Pound, and documents his drive toward ever-subtler architectonic structures in his initial phase of development. Part Two: Experiment (1912-1919), re-defines the three qualities of rhythm, tone, texture, as they apply to Pound's experiments with major form. Part Three: Accomplishment (1920-1925), describes what stimulated Pound's theoretical breakthrough in 1922, and traces the expression of this theory through XVI Cantos, to show that this first installment of Pound's major poem fused his theory and practice of poetry. This achievement can only be properly appreciated properly, however, in the context of his earlier twenty-year experiment with other major forms. The Conclusion points out that the critical moment in the evolution of Pound's exploration of major forms occurred when he dropped his aspiration to write a purely personal document featuring "perfect" form, and became content to write a broader social "testament." Underneath the formal superstructures of his attempts at major form, Pound's holistic vision provided the base, or "unwobbling pivot", for his attempt to "show men the way to try" to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the patterned integrities of the "vital universe": stone, tree, and mind—alive. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Sorry Guard is a collection of poems with a critical introduction on poetic form. Form in poetry can be revealed vocally (how the poem sounds), temporally (how the poem makes use of time), and spatially (how the poem is visualized, both physically on the page due to typography and imagistically due to the shape and movement of its subject matter). In this preface, I will address these three aspects of form in relation to three distinct twentieth century poets: Robert Hass, W.S. Merwin, and W.H. Auden. I am most interested in how particular formal decisions shape meaning and value in poetry. My aesthetic approach here primarily dwells on what Helen Vendler calls, "the music of what happens." The urgency of Robert Hass's spoken word is important to me because I wish to make poems that should be spoken aloud and remembered. While W.S. Merwin's rejection of punctuation is not my own aesthetic outlook, I strive to achieve through close attention to temporal form the mythic voice of his poemsthe immediacy of his lines and images, especially in his second four books. And Auden's deft use of spatial form is only a small aspect of his remarkable verse. All three poets are concerned with the inadequacy and failure of language in its modern use, yet they write with a certain hopeas if potential power lies hidden in the words. Most of the poems in the dissertation concern failure. Speakers in the poems fail to prevent death or pain, and they fail to achieve an equally requited love. They fail to protect and to achieve oneness with their loved ones, and often they are left only with the consolation of imagination.

This thesis is composed of two parts: Hoard, a collection of poems, and Dark Lyrics: Studying the Subterranean Impulses of Contemporary Poetry, an inquiry into the metaphor of darkness in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century Anglophone poetry. Hoard includes four series of poems – ‘Red Boat’, ‘Hoxne’, ‘Quatrefoils’ and ‘White Swan’ – which use the Hoxne hoard as a metaphor for lost love. The second series is titled ‘Foundlings’, and is based on archival tokens from children who were abandoned to London’s Foundling Hospital in the mid-eighteenth century. The third series includes ‘Elegy’ and ‘Decorations’, and uses descriptions of the Staffordshire hoard along with eyewitness accounts of global conflict in the late-twentieth century to the present day. Dark Lyrics: Studying the Subterranean Impulses of Contemporary Poetry examines the theme of loss presented in the poems Hoard, progressing from orphans to silenced women to bereavement to war to ecological disaster. The book is a series of mediations of a central topic and includes close readings that show how an individual contemporary writer uses the topic within his or her work. Meditation One posits that forms of loss appear in poetry as metaphors of darkness, and proceeds historically through the work of Dante, Shakespeare and Elizabeth Bishop and Charles Wright; the chapter ends with a close reading of John Burnside’s prose poem ‘Annunciations’ (Common Knowledge). Meditation Two looks at the mythological uses of the concept of darkness, especially as it represents ego loss, and discusses Joan Retallack’s ‘Afterrimages’; the chapter closes with a discussion of Rusty Morrison’s Whethering and when the true keeps calm biding its story. Meditation Three looks at the emotions of lost love, both familial and romantic, and includes a discussion of Martha Nussbaum’s theory of emotions and ethics. The chapter includes close readings of Elizabeth Robinson’s The orphan and its relations and Susan Howe’s That This. Meditation Four discusses the pain caused by war and the form of my long poem ‘Decorations’; it includes an examination of Seamus Heaney’s North. The chapter concludes with an essay on Maxine Chernoff’s book Without. Meditation Five discusses objects and how they become a part of the body and therefore become a potential locus for both pain and loss; the chapter closes with a close reading of Brenda Coultas’ The Handmade Museum. The themes and ideas are reiterated in the Conclusion.