466:. Winters' belief that, run on whim and emotion, art would become directionless gains credibility from much of the poetry currently published. Under a banner of cultural pluralism, views are developing neither within the canon of a writer nor across canons, and, as with the weather in places, a reader has only to wait a few moments if he doesn't like what he now has.
501:, James, and Adams, for examples — and the tone of his essays sometimes reflects the irritation and strain of an essentially self-taught man, an artist of the first rank, who explored American literature before it became a specialized field of study. The concerns of these central essays are drawn out, as variations on some themes, in the subsequent essays on
239:
is complex and challenging. Winters presents an elaborate and unique classification system of structures and methods, with an assessment of each kind of structure or approach to help readers understand how poets write in the modern age. In the course of his discussion, Winters also lays out his moral
469:
Perhaps
Winters' most striking and durable achievement is his account of the morality of poetic meter (In Defense of Reason, pp. 103–52, The Function of Criticism, pp. 81–100). The identity of a poetic line or of a whole poem, its "soul," inheres not primarily in ideas or images but in the
425:
The irony is that his criticism could have been produced only in
America and nowhere else in the world; it is as distinct a product of American life, though in the opposite direction, as any number of items of our popular culture. In its wrongheadedness, idiosyncrasies, rancorous eccentricities, and
411:
also features
Winters' acerbic comments in opposition to, and sometimes strongly disapproving of, various writers and critics usually held in high esteem in modern literary culture. For such comments he has been often called "brutal," which, however, appears to be an exaggeration. Winters wrote like
433:
but rejects their evaluation of major trends in 20th-century poetry, in particular their high evaluation of Eliot's work. Winters often enough seems dogmatic and limited in his evaluations, but his analyses of poems are always perceptive and his theories, if not acceptable, have the virtue of being
342:) that emphasizes ideas and concepts. Across this collection he also reveals his growing penchant for rating individual works of literature and for the centrality of literary evaluation to criticism, as well as his nascent interest in revising the canon of literature to conform to his ideas of
473:
Of , Yvor
Winters, perhaps, has fallen furthest. This is a great shame, for it is just Winters’s brand of seriousness and his emphasis on logic and reason in poetry that contemporary verse sorely wants. The current neglect may have as much to do with the notorious critic’s crabbed, sometimes
377:, he gives a trenchant, painstakingly logical, step-by-step summary of the criteria he uses in evaluating poems and assessing their greatness, particularly precise diction that subordinates emotion to conceptual content and rational structure.
400:
Yvor
Winters' memorable prose is highly polished, formal, and exacting. He was a fine stylist and a strikingly scrupulous interpreter of literary artworks. He was often and sometimes still is mistakenly considered one of the
437:
Still there is no question of the soundness of many of
Winters' judgments or the rightness of his desire that art be moral. The views have influenced various excellent writers and critics. Among them stand
405:
because of his many careful readings of individual works of poetry, fiction, and drama. But, unlike the New
Critics, his close reading was performed in the service of his moral theory of literature.
470:
way it moves. Rhythm sounds at once in the "sensual ear" and in the "mind's ear" and in itself constitutes a mode of consciousness that facilitates certain mental operations and precludes others.
388:. ("The Bridge" referred to is a famous poem by Hart Crane, with whom Winters briefly corresponded about poetry shortly before Crane's death in 1932.) The essay considers Crane as a disciple of
353:
The three general essays in critical theory mentioned in the introduction are crucial to understanding
Winters' general theory of literature and his misgivings about and opposition to
384:, Winters examines the literary and psychological dangers facing poets who push Romantic ideas to what Winters believed to be their logical limits, one of whom was, in his judgment,
474:
contradictory and dogmatic style. Winters’s stern call for a "moral poetry" was provocative, while his more cracked judgments earned him the opprobrium of many who, like
493:, whose great history Winters champions as a major work in our literature. Very few critics have Winters' ability to vivify in prose the range of their reading — all of
489:
shows a comparable power for summoning up characteristic particulars that suggest qualities of the whole work, as does the marvelous evocation of the psychology of
426:
provincialism, it takes its place in the long line of that pathetic and peculiarly
American phenomenon: the wandering off of superior gifts into private byways.
680:
373:
theories, which he holds to be the three main critical strands of thought in western literary criticism. In the "Preliminary
Problems" essay, found in
350:, frequently in these writings, and elsewhere, to refer to artworks that he judges to be nearly perfect literary achievements of one kind or another.)
142:. First published in 1947, the book is known for its meticulous study of metrical verse and for its examples of Winters' system of ethical criticism.
219:, which emphasize the emotions and personal expression. As is explained in these essays, Winters considered the moderns the literary descendants of
657:
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more often in their compositions. He also argued that poems should have rational structures and favor discursive language rather than the loose,
27:
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Revolution and Convention in Modern Poetry: studies in Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Yvor Winters
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The collection is so diverse that it is difficult to characterize in summary. Winters was opposed to the ascendant
181:. The book also contains three general essays that are crucial to understanding Winters as a critic and poet: the
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967:
357:. In the "Foreword," Winters gives a lengthy and learned summation of his theory of poetry, which he calls the
315:(favorable, with qualifications). In addition, this section contains an essay on American critic and poet
319:
that serves as Winters' defense of his own critical concepts, which Ransom had judged to be wrongheaded.
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to the whole collection, "Preliminary Problems," which is in effect the introduction to
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most other hard-hitting critics who waged battle in the critical wars surrounding the
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482:(1947), saw Winters as "an excessively irritating and bad critic of some importance."
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offers erudite short studies and appraisals of the writing careers, work by work, of
129:
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theory of literature. Winters contrasts this theory with his explications of the
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Trimpi, Helen Pinkerton (1999). "Introduction". In R.L. Barth (ed.).
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Maule's Curse: Seven Studies in the History of American Obscurantism
163:
Maule's Curse: Seven Studies in the History of American Obscurantism
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237:
Primitivism and Decadence: A Study of American Experimental Poetry
151:
Primitivism and Decadence: A Study of American Experimental Poetry
634:
Barrett, William (Autumn 1947). "The Temptations of Saint Yvor".
326:, as he understood it. He strove to foster a particular kind of
286:
132:
196:
Though he started his poetic career in the early 1920s as a
771:
In Defense of Winters: The poetry and prose of Yvor Winters
334:, his own brand of stately, polished, rational, discursive
177:, is a study of several prominent writers associated with
870:
Stanford, Donald E. (Winter 1981). "Yvor Winters Issue".
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The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism
346:, or near perfection in poetry. (Winters uses the term,
282:(favorable, with qualifications), and the little-known
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Wisdom and Wilderness: The achievement of Yvor Winters
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theory of literature, along with his close study of
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817:Yvor Winters, An Annotated Bibliography, 1919-1982
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380:In the concluding "Bridge" essay, also found in
203:, by late in that decade Winters had become a
207:, of a sort. He argued that poets should use
193:, or 'What Are We to Do with Professor X?'".
149:that Winters had written earlier. The first,
8:
189:, and "The Significance of 'The Bridge,' by
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145:The collection consists of three books of
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681:"Yvor Winters and 'In Defense of Reason'"
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624:New Criterion, Vol. 15, June 1997, p. 27
244:and his unusual and difficult theory of
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840:The Complex of Yvor Winters' Criticism
157:on the classification and analysis of
215:structures and styles favored by the
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655:Unattributed (Dec 1951). "Reviews".
509:, works of great rigor and insight.
416:in the middle of the 20th century.
887:The Selected Poems of Yvor Winters
299:The third work in the collection,
278:(favorable, with qualifications),
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292:(favorable), who was a friend of
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338:(as well as controlled, stately
173:of the 19th century. The third,
165:, is a study of seven prominent
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615:Yvor Winters: Bibliography 1-5
231:The study of the structure of
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775:University of Wisconsin Press
597:Yvor Winters: Bibliography 40
588:Revolution and Convention 202
535:Revolution and Convention 203
324:Romantic theory of literature
853:University of Delaware Press
847:Stanford, Donald E. (1983).
958:Books of literary criticism
838:Sexton, Richard J. (1973).
798:University of Georgia Press
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963:American non-fiction books
918:. The Swallow Press &
815:Powell, Grosvenor (1983).
565:. The Swallow Press &
307:(moderately unfavorable),
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16:1947 work by Yvor Winters
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266:(moderately favorable),
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274:(sharply unfavorable),
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175:The Anatomy of Nonsense
912:Winters, Yvor (1947).
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270:(strongly favorable),
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920:W. Morrow and Company
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260:James Fenimore Cooper
155:doctoral dissertation
86:Ohio University Press
20:In Defense of Reason
934:In Defense Of Reason
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842:. The Hague: Mouton.
792:Davis, Dick (1983).
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753:In Defense of Reason
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344:classical greatness
311:(unfavorable), and
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264:Nathaniel Hawthorne
126:literary criticisms
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973:Books about poetry
819:. Metuchen, N.J.:
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284:American
183:Foreword
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171:poets
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