Abstract

This dissertation examines the influence of Owen Barfield's philosophy of objective idealism, developed in response to nineteenth century positivism, on the poetry of Howard Nemerov. Chapters 1 and 2 explore the ramifications of objective idealism, examining the ways in which Nemerov's poetry incorporates its concepts, particularly, the "mindfulness of nature" and the polarity of mind and nature. Chapter 3, based on Barfield's Poetic Diction and History in English Words, examines Nemerov's use of a poetic diction which highlights the multivalence of language as a means of refuting linguistic positivism. Chapter 4 concerns Nemerov's poems based on modern physics, wherein he suggests that its resemblances to Romanticism constitute a rich alternative to the scientific materialism of Newtonian physics. Objective idealism ultimately provides, for Nemerov and for other New Formalist poets, a means of overcoming the sense of isolation that now pervades much of post-modern poetry