Description: Adams returns to the idea that poetry is challenging--not just in the sense of "difficult," but in that it continually "challenges us to confront and pass through offense to active mental involvement." The book ranges across the landscape of traditional literary criticism, from Plato and Aristotle to Blake, Yeats, and Seamus Heaney, ending on a light note to examine the "great bad poetry" of William McGonnagall. It contains insights for the fields of intellectual history and the philosophy of aesthetics as well as literary criticism. Adams is professor emeritus of comparative literature, University of Washington.
Review Quotes:
"Adams continues to transmit the explosiveness and idiosyncrasy of the literary and philosophical works he loves most. With undeniable passion and intellectual range, he situates these works historically and imagines them surging forth . . . to help us tolerate a culture of bottom lines and effective communication."
--Benjamine Lee "Modern Philology"