Things Merely Are
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Review
'Testimony to a remarkable engagement between a philosopher and a poet ... it is written both with a beautiful, poised lucidity and calm, candid passion.' - "Steven Connor, Birkbeck College, London" 'What emerges is a refreshed appreciation of Steven's philosophical interest and so of how philosophy and literature can interact. The writing is characteristically engaging and stimulating, clear and succinct.' - "Sebastian Gardner, University College London" 'Critchley writes with brilliant wit, clarity, penetration, and a disarming modesty ... altogether it is a terrific book.' - "J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine"
Product Description
This book is an invitation to read poetry. Simon Critchley argues that poetry enlarges life with a range of observation, power of expression and attention to language that eclipses any other medium. In a rich engagement with the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Critchley reveals that poetry also contains deep and important philosophical insight. Above all, he agues for a 'poetic epistemology' that enables us to think afresh the philosophical problem of the relation between mind and world, and ultimately to cast the problem away.
Drawing astutely on Kant, the German and English Romantics and Heidegger, Critchley argues that through its descriptions of particular things and their stubborn plainness - whether water, guitars, trees, or cats - poetry evokes the 'mereness' of things. It is this experience, he shows, that provokes the mood of calm and releases the imaginative insight we need to press back against the pressure of reality. Critchley also argues that this calm defines the cinematic eye of Terrence Malick, whose work is discussed at the end of the book.
Drawing astutely on Kant, the German and English Romantics and Heidegger, Critchley argues that through its descriptions of particular things and their stubborn plainness - whether water, guitars, trees, or cats - poetry evokes the 'mereness' of things. It is this experience, he shows, that provokes the mood of calm and releases the imaginative insight we need to press back against the pressure of reality. Critchley also argues that this calm defines the cinematic eye of Terrence Malick, whose work is discussed at the end of the book.
Inside This Book
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
An epistemologist, an ontologist and a phenomenologist walked into this bar, (Blimey it hurt!). No seriously, they walk in to this bar and talk about Wallace Steven's poetry and representations of reality. Fifteen pints later this is the outline of their conversation overheard by the very talented Simon Critchley. Not one for just before bed!
Starting poems for Stevens? Try 'The Emperor of Ice Cream'/ The Idea of Order at Key West/The Snow Man. It's good stuff, press-ups for the mind and a tonic for the soul!
Starting poems for Stevens? Try 'The Emperor of Ice Cream'/ The Idea of Order at Key West/The Snow Man. It's good stuff, press-ups for the mind and a tonic for the soul!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
25 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Someone Grew An Epistemology/Pineapple Artichoke!
4 April 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The rationale for this Amazon review stems from the fact that Amazon recommended "Things Merely Are" by Simon Critchley and I bit. But it turned out that this short volume is well-written, even lucid,[his choice of audience extends beyond the academy]and focuses on the inverse relationship of imagination and reality as found in "The Snowman":"Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." Critchley has a strong reading of Stevens and develops a theory of how poetry works which has a clarity unknown to H Bloom in "The Poems of Our Climate." "Things Merely Are" is a from my perspective a welcome addition to the conversation about Stevens and is of the quality produced by Helen Vendler.
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