A Philosophical Happy Hour on the merits of immersion in the poetic arts.
Ποίησις: poiesis, the Greeks named it, the making of something which did not previously exist. The Greek conception extended far beyond the modern notion of “poetry”—but from the most ancient to the latest modern, every successful form of the “poietic” resounds by an inherent musicality. It belongs to the poetry to amplify, accentuate, and—by creative rearrangement—revealing what is through his making. This “revealing” does not mean that the good poet will give us a crystal clear poem; for very often, that which the poet reveals is, in its own nature, obscure. As such, it cannot be made clear, for it is in itself of an unclear being.
Obscured Meaning
And it is precisely this, the ability to reveal the unclear, that belongs to the poet in contradistinction to the philosopher. By the same relation, the philosopher draws closest to the poet in his metaphysics: the ineffable mystery of being, after all, can never be made fully clear by our intellects alone, even as the philosopher strives to grasp and relate it for what it is.
Thus it should produce no surprise that the philosopher, speculating upon the heights of wisdom, may at times wax poetic, nor that the poet may at times appear profoundly metaphysical.
Though their words, images, and meters may be moving of themselves, the meanings of a poet and his or her work may require great learning on our own part to discern. It is part of poetry’s beauty that such significance does not end with the poet’s intention but includes always something of the interpreter’s own insight; but—and this, perhaps paradoxically—neither does this interpretive openness of a poetic work entail that interpretation can contort the poem however it wishes. The poem does, of itself, have meaning, even if that meaning is not exhausted by the being of the poem alone.
Interpretation and Paradox
Broadly, we may distinguish poetry into the epic, the narrative, and the lyric, and the lyric can be divided into a great many forms: such as the sonnet, the ode, the elegy, and the satiric—to name but a few. The metrical and structural conventions within which these poems are written (from which free verse departs, but, if well-wrought, never ignores) themselves give important cues for interpretation and meaning. so too does a broad knowledge of literature, history, myth, and the use of metaphor.
Suggestively, Cleanth Brooks (a great literary critic of the 20th century) writes that:
Our prejudices force use to regard paradox as intellectual rather than emotional, clever rather than profound, rational rather than divinely irrational.
Cleanth Brooks 1947: The Well Wrought Urn, 3
Yet there is a sense in which paradox is the language appropriate and inevitable to poetry. It is the scientist whose truth requires a language purged of every trace of paradox; apparently the truth which the poet utters can be approached only in terms of paradox.
This notion—the centrality of paradox to poetic language—rouses our mind to considering the tension which seemingly informs all great poetry. Brooks uses many examples, including (at a little length), William Wordsworth’s “Composed upon Westminster Bridge”. It is a simple poem: 14 lines concerning how the city looks under early morning light. No great love; no majestic vista; no dramatic choice. Simply a common observation any one of us might make. Yet the poet shows us something nonetheless, some truth that might escape our eyes, unveiling it by the tension through which obscurity, drawn to tautness, blurs a little less.
Put otherwise: in any well-written poem, the scope and depth it conveys are harmonized in pulling the reader close enough to see truth. That scope may be as broad as Odysseus‘ journey or as narrow as Dickinson’s slant of light, and the depth may be as shallow as Wordsworth‘s Westminster or as deep as Milton‘s Pandaemonium.
Donne’s Lecture upon the Shadow
If we might suggest another poem, upon which to exercise our observation of paradox (one should really read the essay by Brooks!) and discovery of tension, consider this, from John Donne:
Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in love’s philosophy
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced;
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread;
And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow,
From us, and our cares; but, now, ’tis not so.
That love hath not attained the high‘st degree,
Which is still less diligent lest others see.
Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others; these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westwardly decline:
To me thou, falsely, thine,
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day,
But oh, love’s day is short, if love decay.
Love is a growing, or full constant light;
And his first minute, after noon, is night.
What do we see in these words? By what tension is our attention drawn taut?
A Happy Hour of Reading Poetry
Not that we will necessarily read much poetry during the hour(s), but we may think it through in conversation!
- Why do you read poetry?
- Why do you not read poetry?
- Which poems do you find most arresting for their tension? What paradoxes?
- Do we see anything interesting in Donne’s “Lecture upon the Shadow”? Anything informed by paradox or tension?
philosophical happy hour
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