Poetry and Contemplation
A New Preface to Poetics

Originally published in 1937, this book by G. Rostrevor Hamilton examines the place of poetry in human life.

G. Rostrevor Hamilton (Author)

9781107418158, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 July 2014

174 pages
20.3 x 12.7 x 1 cm, 0.2 kg

The arts are often justified by those creating and experiencing them as having some kind of value beyond their mere being. Originally published in 1937, this book examines the place of poetry in human life. Hamilton argues that, rather than justifying poetry as a worthy mental exercise, the experience of poetry as a contemplative and conscious experience is sufficient reward and justification for its existence as an art form. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in poetry or the maxim 'ars gratia artis'.

Introduction
1. Poetic experience: the sphere of poetics
2. Distractions
3. Unconscious experience
4. The wholeness of experience
5. Wholeness and objective theories
6. The growth of experience
7. The continuity of experience
8. Analysis of experience
9. Contemplative experience: the aesthetic attitude
10. Objective experiences
11. Poetic and ordinary experience: the difference
12. Poetic and ordinary experience: the connection
13. Creation of experience: definition of a poet
14. Reality and facts of mind
15. Poetic emotions
16. The poet and society
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary theory [DSA]