Many poems speak to a “you” who is not you the reader. And when a poem addresses an inanimate object – like an urn or even a bar of soap – it’s especially clear that readers aren’t being addressed directly. But Jonathan Culler argues that these poems do address their readers, it’s just indirect. Poems that address goddesses, fictional characters and even inanimate objects allow readers to relate to the “you” and the “I” of a poem in complex, fluid and surprising ways.
Tag: Keats
When we think about the generation before us, we might feel that their cultural touchstones aren’t relevant today. But Tom Mole argues that the literature of the past only survives because the next generation find new ways to make it relevant. In the Victorian era, new illustrations for the previous generation’s poetry helped update the image of writers like Byron and Wordsworth in ways they couldn’t even have imagined.