A Defense of Poetry

by Fry, Paul H.

• ISBN13: 9780804725316
• ISBN10: 0804725314
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-05-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

This book argues that literaturecanbe definedpragmatist and historicist arguments notwithstandingand that in its definition its unique value can be discovered. The author identifies literature ontologically as a sign of the preconceptual, as the "ostensive moment" that discloses neither the purpose nor the structure of existence but existence itself, revealed in its nonhuman register.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Non-construction: History, Structure, and the Ostensive Moment in Literature	p. 11
One Last Theme: Literature as Insignificance	p. 31
The Hum of Literature: Ostension in Language	p. 50
The Torturer's Horse: What Poems See in Pictures	p. 70
Clearings in the Way: Non-epiphany in Wordsworth	p. 91
Nil Reconsidered: Criticism, Actuality, and "To Autumn"	p. 108
Possession of the Sublime, Repression of Insignificance	p. 133
The Absent Dead: Wordsworth, Byron, and the Epitaph	p. 159
Disposing of the Body: The Common Sense of the Romantic Moment of Dying	p. 181
Conclusion: The Ethics of Suspending Knowledge	p. 201
Notes	p. 215
Index	p. 247
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