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ars poetica

American  
[ahrz poh-et-i-kuh, ahrs] / ˌɑrz poʊˈɛt ɪ kə, ˌɑrs /

noun

  1. a treatise on the art of poetry or poetics.

  2. (initial capital letter, italics) a poem (c20 b.c.) by Horace, setting forth his precepts for the art of poetry.


ars poetica British  
/ ˈɑːz pəʊˈɛtɪkə /

noun

  1. the art of poetry

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

Their “transformed choir did not much resemble / The disorderly choir of ordinary things,” Milosz complains in “A Treatise on Poetry,” his 1957 sequence, which combines personal memoir with ethical reflection to create an ars poetica.

From The New Yorker May 22, 2017

Over his lifetime, Levine, who died at 87 in 2015, never lost that muscle memory, his ars poetica.

From Los Angeles Times Jan. 5, 2017

This is an ars poetica, of course, coming from a writer who appreciates the interdependency of fact and fiction.

From Slate Nov. 30, 2016

That’s a pretty apt ars poetica for this wry, unpretentious memoir.

From Washington Post Aug. 12, 2016

In structure, also, the ars poetica is not a critical analysis, but a text-book.

From Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism by Clark, Donald Lemen

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