5. Poets and readers

Abstract

‘Poets and readers’ is concerned with the respective roles of poets and readers in the creation of meaning as well as the function of critics and readers: a function that has attained increasing prominence in the 20th century and since, with the emergence of theories of reader response and the reception of poetry. Is the term poet reserved for a kind of elect or is it a name anyone can aspire to? The whole question of authorship and authority is also considered: whether the poem generally—or ever—speaks in the voice of the poet, and how that voice may relate to its audience.