Considers W. K. Wimsatt's and M. C. Beardsley's denial that an author's intention has direct relevance to the criticism of his literary work. (SW)

Defninig rhetorical analysis as a means of studying writer/audience relationships allowing both intrinsic and extrinsic analysis, the author discusses the three sections of Levertov's poem, "From a Notebook: October '68--May '69." Section 1 is the speaker's personal comparison of her associations with life and death, comparison of…

Provides a stanza by stanza rhetorical analysis of Housman's To An Athlete Dying Young" to illustrate the use of rhetorical analysis as a basic tool in literary analysis. (AN)

Examines Roethke's commentary on his poem and looks for answers to such questions as: Is Roethke a reliable interpreter of his own poem? Where is the reader's understanding of the poem likely to differ from his and why? How do we reconcile these two viewpoints when they differ? (Author)

Extremists, whether formalists of the New Criticism or of the humanist-moralist tradition, are taken to task in this attempt to combine elements of both in a more pluralistic approach to literary criticism. An analysis of a Frost poem, "Stopping by Woods", is attempted as an illustration of a kind of criticism that seeks to clarify the parts of…

Presents the reactions of ten advanced students in a Colloquium for Psychoanalytic Criticism to Denise Levertov's "To the Snake." (DD)

Presents contrasting views of some French literary critics including Georges Poulet, Charles Mauron, Jean-Pierre Richard, Jean-Paul Weber, and Roland Barthes. Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) December 28, 1968 in New York, New York. (DS)

A manuscript dated 1651 and now housed at the National Library in Florence, Italy, suggests that the document may be the first Italian adaptation of the Spanish drama, "El burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra" ("The Deceiver of Seville"). The Spanish tragedy, written in 1630 by Gabriel Tellez, known as Tirso de Molina,…

Studies the formular style of word-end positions in Homer's two epics. Considers various viewpoints in light of Milman Parry's theory of oral verse composition. (DS)

A concept of the masses, or populace, conveyed a positive connotation in both Biblical and Renaissance literature. During Spain's Golden Age (seventeenth century) writers, especially didactic dramatists, tended to register negative and prejudiced attitudes toward the common folk and to regard them as "masa inculta" or uncultured masses. Primarily,…

This paper advises poetry readers to get rid of the inhibitions that the search for conventional meaning creates, by invoking the tenet that "a poem must not mean but be." The paper presents and analyzes several poems, maintaining that good poetry is an honest presentation of real experience that rarely offers information about any short-term…