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Unread 08-28-2008, 09:41 AM
Mike Todd Mike Todd is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Scotland
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There are at least two kinds of philosophical poem. The first kind advances a particular philosophy or ideal. The second expresses a love of wisdom. Some poems do both. The metaphysical sense, the sense of essence—that which Stevens labels "incandescence of the intelligence"—is impossible, I think, without philosophía, without the expression of love.

Stevens is a great poet, but I often think the philosophy in his poems expresses not so much a love of wisdom as a lust—a barely contained craving for psychical beauty. There is a sense in which the sometimes genteel surfaces of his poems really are surfaces only.

One of the high points of philosophical poetry for me is Frost's My November Guest. Having once read it immediately after finishing Boethius' Consolation, I have never been able to read it since without being moved to tears.
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