Home Literary Studies Philosophy and the Lyric
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Philosophy and the Lyric

  • EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: March 10, 2017
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

The paper surveys and comments on some of the issues that arise about the lyric in philosophical, principally analytical, aesthetics. In brief these are: definition, expression, paraphrase, form-content unity, experience, and truth and profundity. The paper shows in each case why these issues are important from the perspective of analytical philosophy but also why lyric poetry is not always an easy subject matter to accommodate to standard analytical presuppositions. It might be thought that theories of meaning within philosophy of language (be it semantics, speech act theory or truth-conditions) should be applicable to a full range of linguistic usage. But lyric poetry confounds that expectation and yields a context where familiar models of meaning and communication can seem inadequate. Yet analytical philosophers should not simply dismiss poetry as somehow exceptional or aberrant but would gain from looking afresh at basic assumptions to see how their views about language might be broadened and modified.

References

Attridge, Derek, The Work of Literature, Oxford 2015.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733195.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Austin, J.L., How To Do Things With Words, Oxford 1962.Search in Google Scholar

Austin, J.L., Performative Utterances, in: J.O. Urmson/G.J. Warnock (eds.), J.L. Austin: Philosophical Papers [1961], Oxford 31979, 233–252.10.1093/019283021X.003.0010Search in Google Scholar

Beardsley, Monroe C., The Possibility of Criticism, Detroit, MI 1970.Search in Google Scholar

Beardsley, Monroe C., Aesthetics. Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism [1958], Indianapolis, IN ²1981.10.5040/9781350928565Search in Google Scholar

Bradley, A.C., Oxford Lectures on Poetry, London 1926.Search in Google Scholar

Brontë, Emily, Remembrance, in: Margaret Ferguson/Mary Jo Salter/Jon Stallworthy (eds.), Norton Anthology of Poetry, New York 2005, 1047.Search in Google Scholar

Brooks, Cleanth, The Heresy of Paraphrase [1947], in: C.B., The Well Wrought Urn. Studies in the Structure of Poetry, London 1968, 192–214.Search in Google Scholar

Culler, Jonathan, Theory of the Lyric, Cambridge, MA 2015.10.4159/9780674425781Search in Google Scholar

Dickinson, Emily, »My river runs to thee«, in: E.D., The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. by Thomas H. Johnson, Boston 1924, 162.Search in Google Scholar

De Gaynesford, Maximilian, The Seriousness of Poetry, Essays in Criticism 59 (2009), 1–21 (de Gaynesford 2009a).10.1093/escrit/cgn025Search in Google Scholar

De Gaynesford, Maximilian, Incense and Insensibility: Austin on the ›Non-seriousness‹ of Poetry, Ratio 22 (2009), 464–485 (de Gaynesford 2009b).10.1111/j.1467-9329.2009.00445.xSearch in Google Scholar

De Gaynesford, Maximilian, Speech Acts and Poetry, Analysis 70 (2010), 1–3.10.1093/analys/anq077Search in Google Scholar

De Gaynesford, Maximilian, How Not to Do Things With Words: J. L. Austin on Poetry, British Journal of Aesthetics 51 (2011), 31–49.10.1093/aesthj/ayq045Search in Google Scholar

Eagleton, Terry, How to Read a Poem, Malden, MA 2007.Search in Google Scholar

Eliot, T.S., The Music of Poetry [1942], in: T.S.E., Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot, ed. by Frank Kermode, London 1975, 107–114.Search in Google Scholar

Gibson, John (ed.), The Philosophy of Poetry, Oxford 2015.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603671.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Hopkins, Gerard Manley, »Let me be Thee as the circling bird«, in: G.M.H., The Major Works, ed. by Catherine Phillips, Oxford 1986, 75.Search in Google Scholar

Hulatt, Owen, The Problem of Modernism and Critical Refusal: Bradley and Lamarque on Form/Content Unity, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74 (2016), 47–59.10.1111/jaac.12234Search in Google Scholar

Kivy, Peter, On the Unity of Form and Content, in: P.K., Philosophies of Arts. An Essay in Differences, Cambridge 1997, 84–119.Search in Google Scholar

Kivy, Peter, Paraphrasing Poetry (for Profit and Pleasure), Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69 (2011), 367–377.10.1111/j.1540-6245.2011.01481.xSearch in Google Scholar

Lamarque, Peter, The Elusiveness of Poetic Meaning, Ratio 22 (2009), 398–420 (Lamarque 2009a).10.1111/j.1467-9329.2009.00442.xSearch in Google Scholar

Lamarque, Peter, Poetry and Abstract Thought, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 33 (2009b), 37–52 (Lamarque 2009b).10.1111/j.1475-4975.2009.00183.xSearch in Google Scholar

Lamarque, Peter, The Philosophy of Literature, Oxford 2009 (Lamarque 2009c).Search in Google Scholar

Lamarque, Peter, Semantic Finegrainedness and Poetic Value, in: John Gibson (ed.), The Philosophy of Poetry, Oxford 2015, 18–36.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603671.003.0002Search in Google Scholar

Lamarque, Peter/Stein Haugom Olsen, Truth, Fiction, and Literature, Oxford 1994.Search in Google Scholar

Larkin, Philip, Dockery and Son, in: P.L., Collected Poems, ed. by Anthony Thwaite, London 2003, 152.Search in Google Scholar

Leavis, F.R., Reality and Sincerity, Scrutiny 29 (1952/53), 90–98.Search in Google Scholar

Leighton, Angela, About About: On Poetry and Paraphrase, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 33 (2009), 167–176.10.1111/j.1475-4975.2009.00189.xSearch in Google Scholar

Lepore, Ernie, The Heresy of Paraphrase: When the Medium Really is the Message, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 33 (2009), 177–197.10.1111/j.1475-4975.2009.00190.xSearch in Google Scholar

McGregor, Rafe, Poetic Thickness, British Journal of Aesthetics 54 (2014), 49–64.10.1093/aesthj/ayt048Search in Google Scholar

Ribeiro, A.C., Intending to Repeat: A Definition of Poetry, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (2007), 189–201.10.1111/j.1540-594X.2007.00249.xSearch in Google Scholar

Robinson, Jenefer, Deeper than Reason. Emotion and Its Role in Literature, Music, and Art, Oxford 2005.10.1093/0199263655.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Yeats, W.B., Sailing to Byzantium, in: W.B.Y., The Collected Poems, Ware 2000, 163.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2017-3-10
Published in Print: 2017-3-1

©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 19.3.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jlt-2017-0007/html
Scroll to top button