1. Toth thinks that there are two factors in poetic language, namely connotation and extension. Semantically speaking, the so-called de-symbolization is the dictionary meaning of words, while the connotation is the figurative meaning and emotional color of words.
2. Poetry is an aesthetic whole constructed by the interaction of connotation and extension, but these two factors are often in a contradictory tension, which is tension. Tension is the sign of a good poem. Connotation and extension are contradictory and unified, and complement each other. Extension will not obscure connotation, and the deepest connotation will not damage extension. The best tension poems are metaphysical poems.
3. The tension theory was later widely used by the new criticism in factors with unity of opposites, such as content and form, architecture and texture, rhythm and skill. And become a powerful means of intensive reading.