A Newly Rewritten and Extended Version of the Author’s Most Important Critical Study
By Regi Siriwardena
1999

This monograph is a new and extended version of a study first published by the author nearly ten years ago. In it, Regi Siriwardena dissents from some of the critical assumptions about poetry that have been most influential in the twentieth century. Drawing on both English and Russian poets, he shows that great poetry doesn’t necessarily require metaphorical richness and complexity. It can be found in some of the highest achievements of poetic expression in language that combines clarity, brevity and luminous simplicity – language that to the superficial reader may appear not to be poetic at all.

This study is the fruit of a lifetime’s devotion to poetry by the author as teacher, critic, translator and poet.