Things Merely Are

"This book is an invitation to read poetry. Simon Critchley argues that poetry enlarges life with a range of observation, power of expression and attention to language that eclipses any other medium. In an extended engagement with the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Critchley reveals that poetry also contains deep and important philosophical insight. Above all, he argues for a 'poetic epistemology' that enables us to recast the philosophical problem of the relation between mind and world, or thought and things, in a way that allows us to cast the problem away.". "Drawing on Kant, the German and English Romantics and Heidegger, Critchley argues that, through its descriptions of particular things and their difficult plainness, poetry evokes the 'mereness' of things. Poetry brings us to the realization that things merely are, an experience that provokes a mood of calm, a calm that allows the imagination to press back against the pressure of reality. Critchley also argues that this calm defines the cinematic eye of Terrence Malick, whose work is discussed at the end of the book."--BOOK JACKET.