The form of love : poetry's quarrel with philosophy

"Can poetry articulate something about love that philosophy cannot? The Form of Love argues that it can. In close readings of seven "metaphysical" poems, the book shows how poets of the early modern period and beyond use poetic form to turn philosophy to other ends, in order not to represent the truth about love but to create a virtual experience of love, in all its guises. The Form of Love shows how verse creates love that can't exist without poetry's specific affordances, and how poems can, in their impossibility, prompt love's radical re-imagining. Like the philosophies on which they draw, metaphysical poems imagine love as an intense form of non-sovereignty, of giving up control. They even imagine love as a liberating bondage-to a friend, a beloved, a saint, a God, or a garden. Yet these poems create strange, striking versions of such love, made in, rather than through, the devices, structures, and forces where love appears. Tracing how poems think, Kuzner argues, requires an intimate form of reading: close-even too close-attention to and thinking with the text. Showing how poetry thinks of love otherwise than other fields, the book reveals how poetry and philosophy can nevertheless enter into a relation that is itself like love"-- Provided by publisher Can poetry, even a deeply philosophical poetry, articulate something about love that philosophy itself cannot? The Form of Love argues that it can. In close readings of seven “metaphysical” poems, this book shows how figures ranging from John Donne to Emily Dickinson use poetic form to turn philosophy to new ends, transforming its concern to know truth about love into concern to create virtual experiences of love. These poems create strange loves made in, rather than through, the forms—the devices, structures and forces particular to verse—where they appear. Tracing how poems think, this book argues, requires an intimate form of reading: close—from one perspective, even too close—attention to and thinking with the text. In The Form of Love, Kuzner reads as closely as possible in order to consider as seriously as possible how poetry thinks of love otherwise than other fields: how poems do not complete philosophy or compete with it, and how poetry and philosophy instead can enter into a relation that is itself like love. The Form of Love explores what poetry can articulate about love that philosophy cannot. Reading seven poems, this book shows how figures ranging from Donne to Dickinson use poetic form to transform philosophy's concern to convey truth about love into the concern to create a virtual experience of love.