The Three Voices of Poetry

Download or read book The Three Voices of Poetry written by Thomas Stearns Eliot and published by Cambridge [Eng.] : Published for the National Book League at the University Press. This book was released on 1954 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Of the three voices of poetry, here defined by T.S. Eliot, the first voice is that of the poet talking to himself, directly expressing his own thoughts. His first obligation is to achieve absolute clarity for himself, often through the most painful effort and at the cost of being termed consciously unintelligible. The second voice is that of the poet adressing an audience, offering a message, as in the poem intended to instruct or to persuade, or the poem written to amuse. The third voice is that of the poet when he is creating a character, as in a poetic drama. It is Mr Eliot's belief that in every poem, from the private meditation to the epic or the drama, more than one voice is to be heard; these he challenges us to distinguish"--Front jacket flap.