Original scientific paper
Reconciling Poetry and Philosophy: Evaluating Maximilian De Gaynesford’s Proposal
Iris Vidmar
; University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Martina Blečić
orcid.org/0000-0002-1124-6490
; University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
Poetry and philosophy have had a long and convoluted relation, characterized often by mutual antipathy and rarely by mutual acknowledgment and respect. Plato was one infl uential philosopher who trashed poetry’s capacities to trade in the domain of truth and knowledge, but it was J. L. Austin who blew the fi nal whistle by dismissing it as non-serious. And while for many poets that was an invitation to dismiss Austin, for many philosophers that was a confirmation of the overall discomfort they had already felt with respect to poetry. Just how wrong both parties were in this standoff is revealed in the latest book by Maximilian De Gaynesford, The Rift in the Lute: Attuning Poetry and Philosophy, which calls for a dismissal of the separation of the two and for their mutual cooperation. In this paper, we look at De Gaynesford’s proposal, mostly praising its strong points and occasionally raising doubts regarding its success.
Keywords
J. L. Austin; philosophy; poetry; Maximilian De Gaynesford
Hrčak ID:
253578
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2018.
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