James Longenbach: The Excess of Poetry (July 2010)

James Longenbach argues that excess is crucial to art, even to art that does not seem obviously excessive. Drawing on Keats’ idea of “fine excess,” Longenbach shows how Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” Pound’s Canto 74, and Dickinson’s “The vastest earthly Day” embody the tension between limit and excess, and enact the wish to exceed their own restraints.