ABSTRACT
Any theory of poetry inevitably, though not always explicitly, presupposes a theory of language. Although the making of distinctions, definitions, and classifications will occupy a good deal of the discussion throughout, it should become clear that the author ultimate interest is not in taxonomy but in poetry as an artform. The point requires emphasis because it reflects a fundamental distinction that may be drawn between natural utterances and certain other linguistic structures which are not historical events and which can be both defined and described independently of any particular instance of occurrence. Moreover, it is unlikely that any two natural utterances would be even formally identical if one extends attention to the more subtle aspects of their linguistic form. The conception of poetry as mimetic is, of course, quite ancient, and modern theorists do continue to assert that literature is a representational art.
