Poetry and art, odd notes from Danny Langton’s class

3/7/2000 If poetry is a relationship between the subject and the poem, what is criticism? Did you get it right? A preoccupation with something in artistic puts poets on the defensive. Aristotle objected, although poems are imitations, that is, mimicry, it’s more than just history. However, if poetry is imitation, then what is it? A lie?A tiger is easier to grasp than a star. I miss the children I never had, especially the dumb one, said Aristotle. Cicero replied, the poet does not imitate nature. Stendhal interjected, a novel is a mirror riding along the highway. So, where does that put Baudelaire’s mirror of art. If art is the imitation of nature, then the primary way of looking at art is through nature. A syllogism. Is the goal of art truth? Is truth beauty? Art is about power. Literature has become an image rather than a meeting of the influence of art and thought.