Poetry as Discourse

The study of poetry poses specific problems different from those of drama or the novel. A conception of discourse as a form determined at once by language, ideology and subjectivity makes it possible to analyse poetry as poetic discourse. This book sets out to read the English tradition - from Shakespeare to Eliot - as a single discourse, committed to certain assumptions about language, society and individuality, and denying others. A consistent basis for the canon is found in the formal qualities of poetry, and especially in the use of iambic pentameter and a poetic technique to give the effect of an individual voice ' really' speaking. Historical variations in the discourse are considered through analysis of poems by Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth, Eliot, and Pound. -- Back cover.