Reading book by Owen Barfield

                                     
                                         
Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning         
                                                
Since I haven't gotten very far into it, 
I can't say much yet; but I know it is a   
book I like.  The copy I have is of the          
second edition -- Copyright © 1964 by the
McGraw-Hill Book Company.  I have it on     
loan through a local library.  The first   
sentence of the "Preface to the Second       
Edition" reveals this book's basis:        
                                           
  The Preface to the first edition
  described briefly how this book    
  grew out of two empirical obser-   
  vations, first, that poetry reacts  
  on the meanings of the words it    
  employs, and, secondly, that there    
  appear to be two sorts of poetry.     
                                           
On page 34 is a longer passage I would        
like to shorten but deem it best not to.
                                             
  Apart from pleasurable entertainment  
  (which must never be forgotten), there   
  are two important functions which poetry  
  is there to perform.  One of them is the
  one I have stressed throughout this book,
  namely the making of meaning, which gives
  life to language and makes true knowledge
  possible.  And this it does inasmuch as    
  it is the vehicle of imagination.  The     
  other, lying much nearer the surface of  
  life, is to mirror, not necessarily by  
  approving, the characteristic response   
  of the age in which it is written.  Now
  it may happen, and it has been happening
  increasingly since the eighteenth century,
  that these two functions conflict.  They
  may even be diametrically opposed to one
  another.  For there may be an age of which
  the characteristic response is to deny     
  the validity of imagination.  And if that
  happens, a true and sensitive poet will  
  find himself in a dilemma.
                                                
Obviously, many changes have occurred since    
Barfield wrote his book, and while I have an
idea of where he would stand, I am going to  
defer that until I have read his entire book.   
                                                 
                                           
                                                 
                                               
                                               
bl00343