Language, Truth, and Poetry: Notes Towards a Philosophy of Literature

by Graham Dunstan Martin

354p green hardback with dustjacket, from a Cambridge college library, front endpaper removed, clean copy

362 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

Graham Dunstan Martin (Leeds, Reino Unido, 21 de octubre de 1932). Es un escritor, filólogo y profesor universitario británico. Se licenció en la Universidad de Oxford en Filología Francesa, y tras varios años dando clases en colegios, comenzó a enseñar poesía, literatura y filosofía en la Universidad de Edimburgo, donde permaneció desde 1965 y hasta su jubilación en el año 2000.

Su obra es conocida por públicos muy diversos, puesto que ha escrito novelas de fantasía tanto para niños como para adultos, además de haber realizado trabajos de crítica literaria, algunos ensayos filosóficos y traducciones profesionales de poesía francesa.

Reviews

[Frederick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, written by Graham Dunstan Martin, was assigned to my Semiotics class in my junior year of college. There were five of us in the class, not counting our professor, an eloquent man in his eighties. The professor's name was Rodolfe Louis Hebert, the college was Roger Williams College (which since has become a University, thanks to its magnificent Architecture department) and we didn't understand the book. It's the only book I've ever highlighted. I did this at the strong suggestion of Dr. Hebert, who felt we should mark the passages we felt needed explanation. I marked half the book in green magic marker. I didn't read the rest.
I relate all this because Dr. Hebert had had to drive to New York City, a good four hours away from our Bristol, Rhode Island greensward, to obtain our books. He'd ordered them from our college bookstore and the delays were a source of anxiety for the octogenarian. He'd had a tough year before. Some Quislings from his Introduction to Philosophy course had reported to the dean that he'd given a pop quiz. This quiz, which had no affect on the grades he was going to give the urchins at semester's end (which, as every semester, were uniformly high) was the cause of an instance of reprimand from the administration. Roger Williams College had lured Rodolfe Hebert from a far more prestigious institution and this was his punishment for being the don they'd desired. I took a Latin course from him as well, which had the same five students as the Semiotics course. None of us had been among the revolutionary band who'd exposed him as a giver of quizzes. My memories of LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND POETRY have to do not with the semiotics which it discussed and which I didn't and still don't understand, but with Rodolfe Louis Hebert, the snow-haired, portly man in the final season of his life, driving through a New England winter to obtain a book for five misfit students who worshipped him but couldn't compete with his intellect.