Steven R. Brown (Professor Emeriti, Program of Research, Measurement, and Statistics), authored a section of a book, "Poetry, Science, and a Science of Poetry: With an Illustration of Poetry and Aging", A Poetic Language of Aging, (London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic) Olga V. Lehmann and Oddgeir Synnes, (2023), ppgs. 155-173.
Abstract:
Q methodology is introduced as applicable for the systematic study of responses to poetry, and an illustration is provided of poetic appreciation by persons in their later years. A set of poems focused on the vicissitudes of ageing were presented to 28 participants who were instructed to rank-order the 20 poems from pleasing to unpleasing. The resulting 28x28 correlation matrix was then factor analyzed, resulting in four distinct themes. Factor I focused on togetherness and the satisfaction of growing old contentedly with someone else, and factor II focused both on poems that were self-affirming and hopeful and that were also of a conventional poetic form and mechanics. Factor III was bipolar, with preference for conventional metrics and rhyme schemes (similar to factor II) at one end and for free verse at the other. Con-cluding remarks include suggestions for additional research.