A Return to the Author: The Problematic of the Self in Lyric Poetry

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between life and poetry by examining the self in lyric poetry.  It presents the thesis that the “I” of poetry is not ontologically different from the “I” of the poet and so far as poetry can be seen as a discourse of reality ― constituted through fiction― the unfolds from the real subjectivity, actually lived, of the author.  The article also attempts to develop a theoretical approach to understanding poetry that goes beyond the classic division between fiction and nonfiction.