Lectura de poesía en la educación literaria: apuntes de método

Abstract

This paper aims at a synthesis of a well tested way of reading poetry in the classroom. The American «New Critics» promoted the teaching of poetry and devised a successful handbook, Understanding Poetry by Brooks and Warren. Their method consisted in focusing specific aspects or particular poems, as well as considering series of texts in order to reveal structural principles of poetry such as the speaker-situation-hearer relationships, images, mood, etc. Although this method is often neglected in current surveys of literary education, it is so coherent and comprehensive that it may be easily updated, enriched and put to work according to the demands of the teaching of Spanish language and poetry.