Lyric, Language, Culture
Lyric, Language, Culture

Summary/Abstract: One of the most striking changes in the critical scene in recent years is the decline in the importance of lyric poetry. Poetry was once central to literary experience and the consideration of the nature of lyric or of poetic language was once central to critical theory: for the Russian formalists and theorists such as Roman Jakobson who linked Russian formalism and French structuralism. This is no longer the case today; when literature is important for theory, it comes in the guise of narrative. Why should this be? The obvious answer might be that not enough people read poetry, but such empirical matters never stopped theory before. Who reads Lacan except theorists? The simple answer might be that in an age of critical demystification, poetry seems embarrassing

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