Barfield discusses poetry’s meaning in terms of both his personal experience and objective standards of criticism.
Poetic Diction, first published in 1928, begins by asking why we call a given grouping of words “poetry” and why these arouse “aesthetic imagination” and produce pleasure in a receptive reader. Returning always to this personal experience of poetry, Owen Barfield at the same time seeks objective standards of criticism and a theory of poetic diction in broader philosophical considerations on the relation of world and thought. His profound musings explore concerns fundamental to the understanding and appreciation of poetry, including the nature of metaphor, poetic effect, the difference between verse and prose, and the essence of meaning.
CONTRIBUTOR: Howard Nemerov.
“This extraordinary study stands virtually alone in focusing on the mysterious area in poetry between word and meaning. Only the most sensitive and learned guides coule lead us through this terra incognita. Barfield is such a guide … The book has already become a classic.”—G. B. Tennyson
“Among the few poets and teachers of my acquaintance who know Poetic Diction, it has been valued not only as a secret book, but nearly as a sacred one.”—Howard Nemerov
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Books for College Libraries 1988
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OWEN BARFIELD, whom C. S. Lewis called the “wisest and best of my unofficial teachers,” is a philosopher and author of many books, including Saving the Appearances, Unancestral Voice, The Rediscovery of Meaning and Other Essays, Owen Barnfield on C. S. Lewis, and History, Guilt, and Habit. Born in 1898, he lives in East Sussex, England.
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