The Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical
monographs about the importance of literature and of
reading in the wider world and about the state of
literary education inside schools and universities. The
category of 'the literary' has always been contentious.
What is clear, however, is how increasingly it is
dismissed or is unrecognised as a way of thinking or an
arena for thought. It is sceptically challenged from
within, for example, by the sometimes rival claims of
cultural history, contextualized explanation, or media
studies. It is shaken from without by even greater
pressures: by economic exigency and the severe social
attitudes that can follow from it; by technological
change that may leave the traditional forms of serious
human communication looking merely antiquated. For just
these reasons this is the right time for renewal, to
start reinvigorated work into the meaning and value of
literary reading. In this fascinating addition to the
Literary Agenda series, David Constantine argues that
poetry matters. It matters for individuals and for the
society they are members of. He asserts that poetry is
not for the few but for the many, and belongs and can
only thrive among them, speaks of and to their concerns.
Poetry considers both the writing and the reading of
poetry, which Constantine views as kindred activities.
He examines what goes into the writing of a poem and
considers what good there is in reading it. Constantine
also considers translation, arguing that great benefit
comes to the native language from dealings with the
foreign; also, that all reading is a form of translation
- of texts into the lives we lead. Altogether, Poetry is
an attempt, with many quotations, to show how poetry
works, what its responsibilities are, and how it may
help us in our real circumstances now.
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