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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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

A lengthy trio of university lectures amounts to an ars poetica, meditations that address her playwriting as well as her fiction.

From Washington Post • Sep. 8, 2020

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

The treatise of Horace is not in Aristotle's sense a poetic; it is an ars poetica.

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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