Though some of the cultural changes responsible for this retreat were beyond the control of poets—"a society in which many people find their chief security and sense of meaning through the possession of certain objects will produce great advertising, not great poetry"—Clausen finds in this situation evidence of an abdication among artists. Because modernist poets and their successors abandoned some indispensable principles, he believes, serious contemporary poetry now has virtually no audience outside of English departments. Yet the need for poetry "is not less in an era like ours," and "the opportunities that the end of the twentieth century offers to poetry will not become fully apparent unless and until poets take advantage of them."
Though some of the cultural changes responsible for this retreat were beyond the control of poets—"a society in which many people find their chief security and sense of meaning through the possession of certain objects will produce great advertising, not great poetry"—Clausen finds in this situation evidence of an abdication among artists. Because modernist poets and their successors abandoned some indispensable principles, he believes, serious contemporary poetry now has virtually no audience outside of English departments. Yet the need for poetry "is not less in an era like ours," and "the opportunities that the end of the twentieth century offers to poetry will not become fully apparent unless and until poets take advantage of them."
The Place of Poetry: Two Centuries of an Art in Crisis
160The Place of Poetry: Two Centuries of an Art in Crisis
160Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780813151700 |
---|---|
Publisher: | University Press of Kentucky |
Publication date: | 07/15/2014 |
Pages: | 160 |
Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |