Theory and Method

Lawrence Hart developed both a general theory of poetry—what it is, how it works, what it should be—and a specific curriculum covering certain essential skills.
 
Many kinds and levels of writing have been called poetry, from confessional jottings to metrical treatises on agriculture. Hart tried to reserve the word for language of bold originality and high subtlety, achieved by any means. “There would be a cut-off point,” he wrote, “below which intensity would become so faint that what was written would be classed merely as verse or as literary prose.” John Hart translates this standard into a question: Is the language so striking that we have a wish to learn it by heart? …