Poetica
2 primary works
Book 2
'Most of what there is to learn about poetry has to be learnt in one's own language. But it is mostly learnt by reading and turning over poems in one's head, and little by deliberate criticism'. Peter Levi's essay - meditated, as he says in his preface, with passion and written with great excitement - is entertaining, stimulating and controversial. It is 'not a thesis but a consideration of some important themes which are inter-related'.
Book 19
Peter Levi's inaugural lecture as Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford discusses the lamentation of the dead in written and oral poetry from Homer and the Bible to recent times, by way of Shakespeare, Milton and the Serbian epics. He puts forward the view that "The Lament for Arthur O'Leary", composed by his widow Eileen O'Connell, is among the finest examples of the Lamentation of the dead, and the greatest poem written in these islands in the whole of the eighteenth century. The text of Peter Levi's lecture is followed by Eilis Dillon's translation of the poem.