Poetic Truth

What is the nature of poetry? What are its core elements? How does it achieve its effects? What are its values and its significance? In this, his third book about poetry and poets, Robin Skelton searches for a personal answer to such questions, drawing on his experience as poet as well as critic and teacher.



His study draws on a close examination of poems from many different periods and styles. Poets quoted include Donne, Coleridge, Byron, Hopkins, Yeats, Hardy, Eliot and, among contemporary poets, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Tony Connor and Charles Madge. He also offers an appraisal of the work of critics and philosophers such as John Dewey, Susanne Langer, I A. Richards, and Nicolas Berdyaev.



This third book is a fitting complement to Professor Skelton’s previous volumes in the trilogy, The Practice of Poetry and The Poet’s Calling. It will prove of great interest not only to students and teachers of literature, but also to everyone who shares his concern for poetry.