This study offers a comprehensive examination of the work of the young
poet and scholar, Veronica Forrest-Thomson (1947-1975) in the context of
a literary-critical revolution of the late sixties and seventies and
evaluates her work against contemporary debates in poetry and poetics.
Gareth Farmer explores Forrest-Thomson's relationship to the conflicting
models of literary criticism in the twentieth century such as the
close-reading models of F.R Leavis and William Empson, postructuralist
models, and the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Written by the leading
scholar on Forrest-Thomson's work, this study explores Forrest-Thomson's
published work as well as unpublished materials from the Veronica
Forrest-Thomson Archive. Drawing on close readings of Forrest-Thomson's
writings, this study argues that her work enables us reevaluate
literary-critical history and suggests new paradigms for the literary
aesthetics and poetics of the future.