Philosophical poets

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A philosophical poet is a poetic writer who employs poetic devices to explore subjects common to the field of philosophy, esp. those revolving around language: e.g., philosophy of language, semiotics, phenomenology, hermeneutics, literary theory, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. [1] Philosophical poets, like mystics, anchor themselves, through an ideal, to the intelligible form of the object by juxtaposing its symbols and qualities. [2] [3] [4] They rely on intuition and the intersubjectivity of their senses to depict reality. [5] [4] Their writings address truth through figurative language (i.e. metaphor) in questions related to the meaning of life, the nature of being (ontology), theories of knowledge and knowing (epistemology), principles of beauty (aesthetics), first principles of things (metaphysics) or the existence of God. [6]

Contents

Overview

Some philosophical poets may make broad philosophical inquires and engage with diverse philosophical topics throughout their poetry, while others may concentrate within one branch of philosophical poetry. For example, Dante is considered by some to be both a philosophical poet, in a general sense, as well as a metaphysical poet. [7]

Although a group discussion may provide fruitful conditions for some to explore philosophical themes, poetry may be seen an alternative entry into philosophical thinking. [8] Children and young writers may find it easier to begin writing philosophical poetry if they start by using poetic styles other than rhyme, such as repetitive form, since rhyme can be distracting and may interfere with the free flow of their philosophical thoughts. [8] Most, but not all, philosophical poets do eventually develop one preferred form of philosophical verse when it comes to the style of their writing. [9] For example, Rumi and Hafiz often utilize the single verse form, while Dickinson usually adheres to the quatrain form. [10] Philosophical poets hail from both the Eastern and Western traditions.

Notable Philosophical Poets

[26]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ DICKINSON, COLBY (2012). "The Poetic Atheology of Giorgio Agamben: Defining the Scission Between Poetry and Philosophy". Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal. 45 (1): 203–217. JSTOR   44029793 . Retrieved 2022-01-23. [T]he philosophical experience of language that seeks to understand the origins of language itself, and which proceeds from the opposite direction, provides a fitting complement to the poetic experience.
  2. ↑ Zink, Sidney (1945). "Poetry and Truth". The Philosophical Review. 54 (2): 132–154. doi:10.2307/2181532. JSTOR   2181532 . Retrieved 2022-01-23. Poetry, more specifically metaphor, discloses that it is possible to apply symbols to an object...as a predication or qualification of a particular object. ... to penetrate more and more deeply into its qualitative nature—to enrich contemplation. ... to juxtapose [objects]...to evoke the quality which they share. ... [T]he poem [is] an individual object of contemplation, not a set of general propositions claiming truth...[but] qualities which constitute and organize.
  3. ↑ Perricone, Christopher (1994). "Poetic Philosophy: The Santayana-Eliot Connection". Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. 30 (3): 637–665. JSTOR   40320489 . Retrieved 2022-01-23. [L]ike poetry, philosophy, too, must idealize, but it cannot idealize itself out of this world and remain philosophy; it is the poetic, the word, the bodily word which helps to maintain philosophy's human scale[.]
  4. 1 2 Cioran, E. M. (1956). The Temptation To Exist. Translated by Howard, Richard. Arcade Publishing. pp. 146, 152. ISBN   978-1-61145-738-4. [As opposed to poets and novelists,] the mystic, if he describes his inner torments, focuses his expectation on an object within which he manages to anchor himself. ... [the mystic] tends much more toward sensation than the poet, for it is by sensation that he verges upon God.
  5. ↑ PERRICONE, CHRISTOPHER (1996). "Poetic Philosophy: The Bergson-Whitman Connection". The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 10 (1): 41–61. JSTOR   25670170 . Retrieved 2022-01-23. Recall for Bergson that the intellect can deal only with the immobile, and its knowledge is incomplete. Intuition, however, grows out of instinct and sympathy, and the reason intuition is a knowledge that is absolute and complete is that it is a knowledge through and of the body[.]
  6. ↑ Zink, Sidney (1945). "Poetry and Truth". The Philosophical Review. 54 (2): 132–154. doi:10.2307/2181532. JSTOR   2181532 . Retrieved 2022-01-23. The categories of truth and existence are irrelevant to poetry. ... The poem does, nevertheless, contain certain features essential to truth ... [T]he poem can be described as true only metaphorically[.]
  7. ↑ Habib, Rafey (1999-06-28). The Early T. S. Eliot and Western Philosophy . Cambridge University Press. p.  26. ISBN   9780521624336. philosophical%20poet%20definition.
  8. 1 2 Worley, Peter (2012-09-27). The Philosophy Shop: Ideas, activities and questions to get people, young and old, thinking philosophically. Crown House Publishing. ISBN   9781781350614.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Two Philosophical Poets: On T. S. Eliot and Kay Ryan « Kenyon Review Blog". www.kenyonreview.org. 10 January 2012. Retrieved 2016-05-11.
  10. 1 2 3 "Two Philosophical Poets: On T. S. Eliot and Kay Ryan « Kenyon Review Blog". www.kenyonreview.org. 10 January 2012. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
  11. 1 2 3 Santayana, George (1910-01-01). Three philosophical poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe. Cambridge Harvard University.
  12. 1 2 Altieri, Charles (1992). "Contemporary Poetry as Philosophy: Subjective Agency in John Ashbery and C. K. Williams". Contemporary Literature. 33 (2): 214–242. doi:10.2307/1208669. ISSN   0010-7484. JSTOR   1208669.
  13. ↑ Lefebvre, Henri (2002) [1974]. The Production of Space. Translated by Nicholson-Smith, Donald. Blackwell Publishing. p. 121. ISBN   0-631-18177-6. The contents of the House have an almost ontological dignity in Bachelard: drawers, chests and cabinets are not far removed from their natural analogues, as received by the philosopher-poet ... The House is as much cosmic as it is human. ... The relationship between Home and Ego, meanwhile, borders on identity.
  14. 1 2 PERRICONE, CHRISTOPHER (1996). "Poetic Philosophy: The Bergson-Whitman Connection". The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 10 (1): 41–61. JSTOR   25670170 . Retrieved 2022-01-23.
  15. ↑ Fuller, David (2015-08-14). Blake's Heroic Argument. Routledge. ISBN   9781317381341.
  16. ↑ Woodruff, Bertram L. (1940). "The Poetic Philosophy of Countee Cullen". Phylon. 1 (3): 213–223. doi:10.2307/271989. JSTOR   271989 . Retrieved 2022-01-23.
  17. ↑ Britton, Celia (2013). "Philosophy, Poetics, Politics". Callaloo. 36 (4 ÉDOUARD GLISSANT: A Special Issue): 841–847. doi:10.1353/cal.2013.0197. JSTOR   24264941. S2CID   154550621 . Retrieved 2022-01-23.
  18. 1 2 Rank, Otto (1932). Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development. Translated by Atkinson, Charles Francis. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 375. ISBN   978-0-393-30574-6. [T]here are artists, especially among the poets, for whom not only is this self-representation the essence of their work, but who are conscious to a very considerable extent of the process and have studied it 'philosophically.' Goethe and Nietzsche are perhaps the most conspicuous examples of this type[.]
  19. ↑ Hoddinott, Alison. "Gwen Harwood and the philosophers". Southerly. 41 (3): 272–278. Retrieved 2019-06-18.
  20. ↑ Smith, Joseph H. (1981). Kierkegaard's Truth: The Disclosure of the Self. Psychiatry and the Humanities. Vol. 5. Yale University Press. p. XV. ISBN   0-300-02621-8. As a poet-philosopher Kierkegaard addressed himself to the intelligentsia of Denmark and the world[.]
  21. ↑ "The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam". Asia Society. Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  22. ↑ Adkins, Nelson F. (1924). "The Poetic Philosophy of William Vaughn Moody". Texas Review. 9 (2): 97–112. JSTOR   43465504 . Retrieved 2022-01-23.
  23. ↑ Britton, Celia (2013). "Philosophy, Poetics, Politics". Callaloo. 36 (4 ÉDOUARD GLISSANT: A Special Issue): 841–847. doi:10.1353/cal.2013.0197. JSTOR   24264941. S2CID   154550621 . Retrieved 2022-01-23. [Noudelmann] aligns Glissant rather with the marginal tradition of writers, from Lucretius to Nietzsche, who 'invented ways of writing/thinking which broke with the narrowly instrumental language of rational thought' (870).
  24. ↑ Javarek, Vera (1952). "Petar Petrović Njegoš (1813-51)". The Slavonic and East European Review. 30 (75): 514–530. ISSN   0037-6795. JSTOR   4204349.
  25. ↑ Seyed-Gohrab, Asghar (2020). "Rūmī's Antinomian Poetic Philosophy". Mawlana Rumi Review. 9 (1–2): 159–199. doi: 10.1163/25898566-00901009 . JSTOR   26949921. S2CID   213455036 . Retrieved 2022-01-23. As Rumi states, Sanai was his ears and Attar his eyes.
  26. ↑ "The Poetic Power of Ayn Rand's Anthem".
  27. ↑ Adkins, Nelson F. (1924). "The Poetic Philosophy of William Vaughn Moody". Texas Review. 9 (2): 97–112. JSTOR   43465504 . Retrieved 2022-01-23. [T]he poetic philosophy of Wordsworth[.]

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