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Poetry
- A Very Short Introduction
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's summary
Poetry, arguably, has a greater range of conceptual meaning than perhaps any other term in English. At the most basic level everyone can recognize it - it is a kind of literature that uses special linguistic devices of organization and expression for aesthetic effect.
However, far grander claims have been made for poetry than this - such as Shelley's that the poets "are the unacknowledged legislators of the world," and that poetry is "a higher truth."
In this Very Short Introduction, Bernard O'Donoghue provides a fascinating look at the many different forms of writing which have been called "poetry" - from the Greeks to the present day. As well as questioning what poetry is, he asks what poetry is for, and considers contemporary debates on its value. Is there a universality to poetry? And does it have a duty of public utility and responsibility?
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The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
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Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
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The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
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The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
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What Are We Doing Here?
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- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
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Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.
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Unpersuasive and a bit repetitive
- By Adam Shields on 03-07-18
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The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis
- How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind
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C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?
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Excellent
- By andrew wilson smith on 03-08-22
By: Jason M Baxter
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Irrational Man
- A Study in Existential Philosophy
- By: William Barrett
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Widely recognized as the finest definition of existentialist philosophy ever written, this book introduced existentialism to America in 1958. Irrational Man begins by discussing the roots of existentialism in the art and thinking of Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Baudelaire, Blake, Dostoevski, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce, and Beckett. The heart of the book explains the views of the foremost existentialists - Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. The result is a marvelously lucid definition of existentialism and a brilliant interpretation of its impact.
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heady
- By A. Antine on 07-28-22
By: William Barrett
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Aristotle's Poetics
- By: Aristotle
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definitions and analyses of tragedy and comedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age, when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history. Like so many other works by Aristotle, the Poetics has dominated the way we have thought about all forms of dramatic performance in Europe and America ever since.
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Skips a few sections
- By Dave Wilson on 03-16-19
By: Aristotle
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The Romantic Manifesto
- A Philosophy of Literature
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
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In this beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned collection of essays, Ayn Rand throws new light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life. Once again, she demonstrates her bold originality and her refusal to let conventional ideas define her sense of the truth. Rand eloquently asserts that one cannot create art without infusing it with one's own value judgments and personal philosophy - even an attempt to withhold moral overtones only results in a deterministic or naturalistic message.
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Essential AYN
- By Mica on 07-15-08
By: Ayn Rand
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The Art Instinct
- Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
- By: Denis Dutton
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- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
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The Art Instinct combines two of the most fascinating and contentious disciplines, art and evolutionary science, in a provocative new work that will revolutionize the way art itself is perceived. Aesthetic taste, argues Denis Dutton, is an evolutionary trait, and is shaped by natural selection. It's not, as almost all contemporary art criticism and academic theory would have it, "socially constructed".
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A breath of fresh air!
- By Michael on 02-19-14
By: Denis Dutton
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The History of Philosophy
- By: A. C. Grayling
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 28 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of philosophy is an epic tale, spanning civilizations and continents. It explores some of the most creative minds in history. But not since the long-popular classic by Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, published in 1945, has there been a comprehensive and entertaining single-volume history of this great, intellectual, world-shaping journey.
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A much needed update to Bertrand Russell's classic
- By Michael on 06-27-20
By: A. C. Grayling
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What listeners say about Poetry
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Earth Lover
- 07-24-20
Excellent Reflections on Poetry
This book could be much longer. But then it wouldn't be "very short." In any case, it's very engaging and thought-provoking.
This is not a history of poetry, and contains few extended samples, It focuses on lit-crit topics such as:
- What is Poetry - what makes something a poem?
- How does it function? What is it "good for"?
- Are there rules? Are they only made to be broken? Are there special "poetic" uses of language?
- What does it mean to be "true to nature"?
I will return to this book for the questions and thoughts it provokes.
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- Drone Boy
- 09-03-22
Great Primer for Poetry Students
Bernard O'Donoghue's "Introduction to Poetry" is currently the best short introduction to how to think about and why we should read poetry on audible. Rather than being a history of poetry like John Carey's "A Little History of Poetry" and Peter Whitfield's "A History of English Poetry," which focus on the who,what,when, and where of poetry, this book is a thematic introduction into the why and how of poetry. It is not a formal overview, so do not expect to learn what a villanelle is from this book. But do expect to get a good understanding of how poetry has been thought about, particularly over the course the the 20th century, from this book. The discourse is oriented around questions like what is poetry's social value, should it have one, are poets born or made, how poetry can or cannot be defined, and why does nobody read poetry anymore?
The author is authoritative, admittedly androcentric, and openly snobby (he often stops mid-sentence to ponder if the audience will be able to understand his high-powered intellect), and Roger Clark does a good job in capturing the disinterested elitist tone of the Oxford drone. The length makes the book digestible in one sitting, while doing your hobby, or out on an long walk. A great primer for students about to study poetry.
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- David A. Hippchen
- 12-29-20
Not an intro to poetry, perhaps a history?
Snooty nonsensical ramblings hour after hour, not an introduction to poetry but rather a brief history of a series of quotes about poetey. Waste of time and money.
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