Affirmation of Poetry

Judith Balso, Drew S. Burk

• Publisher: Univocal Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781937561819
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Since the times of Plato and Aristotle, the relation of poetry to philosophy has been controversial. For certain scholars, poetry should in no way be confused with philosophy. For others, poetry is at the heart of the possibility of thinking itself. In Affirmation of Poetry, Judith Balso defends the significance of poetry as a necessary practice for thinking. For Balso, if reading poetry properly has become an obscure task, poetry itself still carries with it a power of thinking: the efforts of the poets must continue. In analyzing the affirmation of thought found within the work of such poets as Osip Mandelstam, Wallace Stevens, Alberto Caeiro, and Giacomo Leopardi, Balso reestablishes poetry’s place as a site of thought.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Translator's Note
• Dedication
• "I read poets, I learn from poets"
• By way of a prologue
• I. Stevens: the illumination of seeming
• II. Caeiro: a desire for a "metaphysics without metaphysics" within poems
• III. What does Mandelstam Discuss with Dante?
• IV. Pasolini: no longer History, but a "memorable consciousness of sun"
• V. The "Misty" Poets: thinking while propped up against the empty sites of History and language.
• VI. Aygi: the poem of a world without particularities
• VII. Leopardi: the invention of the earth as the possible site of a collective without transcendence
• By way of a conclusion
• Afterward: questions of method
• List of the referenced poets and their works (in order of appearance)
• Judith Balso: studies on poems and poets