The Poetry of Search and the Poetry of Statement: On Dante and Other Writers

by Dorothy L. Sayers

Introducing the Dante Papers Introductory Papers on Dante Further Papers on Dante The Poetry of Search and the Poetry of Statement The Poetry of Search, with which the book opens, puts forward the suggestion that controversy about what kind of thing poetry ought to be has tended to overlook the fact that there are two kinds of poetry, corresponding roughly to the categories of Romantic and Classical but which she prefers to describe as the Poetry of Search and the Poetry of Statement. The poet of search writes to find out what he feels-Keats is an example-and the poet of statement writes to tell what he knows-and here Dante is the master. Dante the Maker, which follows, discusses two examples of this method as poet of First, how the whole of the Paradiso is built like a bridge between the first and the last terrains, and how roads from all the other parts of the poem run together to one point from which to pass over that bridge; secondly, how from a single unadorned statement in the seventh canto the reader who shares Dante's background may construct a whole labyrinth of associated imagery, turning and returning perpetually upon the central affirmation of fact in which a whole complex of meanings lies implicit.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Essays, Nonfiction

290 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

The detective stories of well-known British writer Dorothy Leigh Sayers mostly feature the amateur investigator Lord Peter Wimsey; she also translated the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri.

This renowned author and Christian humanist studied classical and modern languages.

Her best known mysteries, a series of short novels, set between World War I and World War II, feature an English aristocrat and amateur sleuth. She is also known for her plays and essays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy...

Reviews

[Lisa Brantly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed these essays. I read it straight through instead of committing to one essay a day. (Read it instead of this month's bookclub selection - which I'm also enjoying!)

[Gina Dalfonzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sayers is brilliant as always. This collection includes the well-known essay "The Lost Tools of Learning," along with one that should be better known, "The Faust Legend and the Idea of the Devil" -- one of the best essays I've ever read by any author on any subject.