The Authentic Voice of Poetry

"These are essays in the critical understanding of poetry. Since poems are primarily viewed as objects of art, the chief method used in discussing them is the close analysis of the structure and text. Since poems also reflect the author's symbolic gestures and attitudes, the time and place, and the forces that usually form the emotional and ideational tensions, it is inevitable that this book should also deal with psychological, moral, religious, and sometimes political significances. As such these works become aids in the understanding of the human situation. There are discussions of poems from East and West. There are poems from Germany, France, England, South America and the United States. There are essays exploring the fundamental approaches to the writing of poetry : the metaphysical, the symbolist, the surrealist, etc. There is, finally, one whole section devoted to the more important poets of the Philippines, the object being to see our poetic accomplishment in the perspective of that from other countries." --page vii.