poetics
Americannoun
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literary criticism treating of the nature and laws of poetry.
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the study of prosody.
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a treatise on poetry.
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(initial capital letter, italics) a treatise or collection of notes on aesthetics (4th century b.c.) by Aristotle.
noun
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the principles and forms of poetry or the study of these, esp as a form of literary criticism
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a treatise on poetry
Etymology
Origin of poetics
Explanation
The theory of literary techniques involved in composing verse and prose is known as poetics. If you study poetics in college, you'll read, talk, and think about a lot of literature. Poetics goes back to the Greek poietikos, "pertaining to poetry," or literally, "productive or creative." While poetry is evident in this word, you can use it to describe a deep study of any kind of literary work. When it's capitalized, Poetics usually refers to the title of a work by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, which is the earliest known Western work of literary theory.
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.
The combination of the Welshman’s grim poetics and the singer’s apocalyptic incantations gets the set off to a powerful start and signals something entirely new for the Charli XCX oeuvre.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026
Described in the wall text as a “living matryoshka doll,” the collection of eight pieces shown on one model distills the V&R poetics: a powerful idea, a performance-oriented presentation, a sense of wonder.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2025
Gurlesque poetics is characterized by a subversive blend of the grotesque and the feminine, mirroring the album's exploration of femininity through a lens of defiance and subversion.
From Salon ● Apr. 11, 2024
I feared that “The Mother” might repeat the mistake of “The Room,” the troupe’s staging of Pinter’s early one-act that only exposed an unbridgeable gulf in poetics.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2023
He does not show at breakfast or poetics or morning field exercises.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
