On the Laws of the Poetic Art - by Anthony Hecht (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A magisterial exploration of poetry's place in the fine arts by one of the twentieth century's leading poets

In this book, eminent poet Anthony Hecht explores the art of poetry and its relationship to the other fine arts. While the problems he treats entail both philosophic and theoretical discussion, he never allows abstract speculation to overshadow his delight in the written texts that he introduces, or in the specific examples of painting and music to which he refers. After discussing literature's links with painting and music, Hecht investigates the theme of paradise and wilderness, especially in Shakespeare's The Tempest. He then turns to the question of public and private art, exploring the ways in which all the arts participate in balances between private and public modes of discourse, and between an exclusive or elitist role and the openly political. Beginning with a discussion of architecture as an illustration of a more general theme of discord and balance, the penultimate lecture probes the inner contradictions of works of art and our reactions to them, while the final piece concerns art and morality.

Review Quotes

"This book is full of fruitful and fascinating suggestions about our commerce with the variety of art, and the many worlds it inhabits."---John Bayley, The Times

"Winner of the 1997 Tanning Prize for Lifetime Achievement, Academy of American Poets"

About the Author

Anthony Hecht (1923-2004) was the John H. Deane Professor of Poetry and Rhetoric at the University of Rochester, and taught at Georgetown, Harvard, and Yale Universities. His books of poems include A Summoning of Stones, Millions of Strange Shadows, The Venetian Vespers, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hard Hours.