The language(s) of poetry

by James Olney

In this clear, succinct, and engaging book, noted critic James Olney explores the work of three seemingly disparate precursors of modernism - Whitman, Dickinson, and Hopkins - and establishes a set of criteria by which any reader might judge and better appreciate a poem. Considering the language of the poets' times, their unique ways with language, and what he calls the "nearly ahistorical language" of poetry, Olney arrives at three properties that form a kind of common ground in poetry, regardless of the cultural context or the era in which the poem was written. These properties are a heightened rhythmization of language, an elevated figurativity of language, and a highly personal, distinctive eccentricity that shapes both the poetic vision and the technical means used to express it. In three chapters, each focusing on one of these properties, Olney shows how the poets shaped these elements in their own distinctive ways.^ "Dickinsonian" verse, he notes, displays a metrical regularity