Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Ideas of the Poem
- 1 Singularity
- 2 Genre
- 3 Poem/Song
- 4 Poem/Novel
- 5 Poem/Concept
- 6 The Poem in Translation
- Part II Forms of the Poem
- Part III The Poem in the World
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
5 - Poem/Concept
from Part I - Ideas of the Poem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 May 2024
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Ideas of the Poem
- 1 Singularity
- 2 Genre
- 3 Poem/Song
- 4 Poem/Novel
- 5 Poem/Concept
- 6 The Poem in Translation
- Part II Forms of the Poem
- Part III The Poem in the World
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Summary
This chapter first considers the conceptual complexities involved in any reference to “the poem.” The poem can, for instance, be defined as a particular instantiation of a universal, called “poetry,” or it can be defined in opposition to other kinds of literary genre, linguistic artefact, or linguistic performance, from verse treatise to political slogan. The term “poem” may also be normative as well as descriptive, a marker not only of genre but also of success. Finally, the poem has sometimes been conceived in opposition to conceptual thinking itself, from which perspective the discourse of poems differs radically from the discourse of ideas. Treating examples by W. S. Graham, Ben Jonson, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Wallace Stevens, this chapter argues that, given this situation, poems continually strive to overspill their concept, whether by achieving the status of The Poem or of Poetry Itself, by breaking out of the confines of “mere” poetry and becoming part of the fabric of reality, or by changing what “poems” can be and what “poem” can mean.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to the Poem , pp. 83 - 98Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024