Lending "A shape to Water": The Poetry of Anthony Hecht

Abstract

Elegance and style are the most commonly recognized hallmarks of Anthony Hecht’s poetry. This thesis argues that Hecht’s poetry offers more than those features. Elegance is balanced in equal measure by the subject matter of his poetic inquiries, which both enlighten and inform readers. This subsequent balance creates poems of considerable contemporary significance. These poems ask questions that reshape our understanding of theodicy. Hecht’s writing allows us the possibility of hope not in finding answers, but in the continued determination to search for them. He is a poet who (within his own writing style) innovates: revivifying dramatic monologues that deploy imagined characters who explor..