ABSTRACT
Poetry, for those who hold the belief, is, indeed, itself and not another thing, and in no earlier time has the fabric of literature- the structure and texture of unique, autonomous wholes- assumed such importance for criticism as it does today. The language of poetry, unlike the language of science, is to be considered not epistemologically, but symbolically. Feeling that poetry, when identified only by its capacity to tease dormant affective states into unusual activity, becomes somewhat disreputable, John Crowe Ransom finds a more promising differentia in the kind of structure exemplified by a poem. In brief, the medium of poetry is living language. The idea of poetry as the supreme form of emotive language commits one to certain views about the psychology of reading. Mrs Hungerland's theory of poetry rests upon a belief that the way to a poem is through its language.
