Poetic Opacity: How to Paint Things with Words

This chapter offers a new framework for approaching the notions of linguistic density and compression so central to discussions of the nature of poetic language. For this chapter, semantic density and like features of poetic language turn out to be forms of poetic opacity. Indeed, the particular forms of opacity that poetry is apt to produce are the ‘the mark of the poetic’, its distinguishing feature and that upon which a definition, such as poetry will admit of, can be constructed. The chapter identifies various forms of poetic opacity and explains their interrelation and aesthetic significance. The chapter concludes by drawing a striking analogy between our experience of poetic opacity and Richard Wollheim’s notion of the ‘twofoldness’ of representational painting.