A factor analytic study designed to yield “points of view” or “idealized individuals” with respect to the evaluation of poetry. The poems used as stimuli were selected as representative of 11 poetic periods and were rated by 74 Ss on 15 evaluative semantic differential scales. An obverse factor analysis was completed which resulted in 49 bipolar factors. These factors were rotated orthogonally by the normal varimax method. Six of these rotated factors were determined to be significant and were then correlated with a number of outside variables to assist in their interpretation. This procedure resulted in the identification of four of these six factors. The identified factors which represented different points of view regarding the evaluation of poetry were labeled “familiarity,” “masculine uncooperativeness,” “extraversion,” and “sophistication.”
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