Is Poetry Song?

The fact that poetry originated as song is referenced often and for many reasons. Some poets use this fact as an affirmation, as if it automatically makes their writing more profound or magical. “Can’t you see what I’m doing is not mere words on paper? I am weaving the Song of the Universe!” Sometimes it is brought up by people who find poetry difficult, boring, or static. From their perspective, poetry on the page is at best a helpful form of record-keeping, but ultimately an aberration when it replaces the sung or spoken word.

The right way of understanding the relationship between poetry and song is not difficult to discern. First of all, music is clearly the more fundamental art. Arguably it is the most fundamental art. All children sing. Infants have some understanding of rhythm even in the womb. A culture without music would be unnatural, a thing much worse than an illiterate civilization. Poetry is an art necessary for any fully literate people, but is secondary relative to music. I certainly have no desire to encourage illiteracy, but it would not be an assault on human nature to lose writing.

What we call poetry, arguably, was originally just lyrics written down. This origin story does not define poetry completely, but it does help us to differentiate poetry from other genres of writing. In the case of rhymed and metered poems, whether it is the normal English method of counting feet or a looser structure such as I use, there is obviously a connection to sound and rhythm more fundamental than in a work of prose. The connection to rhythm becomes more obscure in the case of free verse, but the heightened awareness of the sound of language generally remains. Thus poetry is more connected to song and speech than other forms of writing. This does not, however, mean that a written poem is a mere imitation of something that properly should be recited or sung. I give two reasons. The first is the manner of reception. A song or a recitation is always a public event, even if it’s a small public. The reading of a poem is private. Even if it is not done in physical seclusion, it is an event that takes place primarily in the mind. It may enter the mind through the eyes by reading, but it is not aimed at ocular stimulation. While retaining some significant connection to song through its heightened awareness of sound, poetry has also evolved its own use of language in a way appropriate for private meditation. Despite its being a rather poor definition, Wordsworth’s famous line about recollection is a wonderful recognition of this point. The second reason is connected to the first. Because poetry is primarily an event in the mind, and not a stimulation of the senses like other arts, its use of language also tends to be far more intricate than song. Many older forms of song, Scottish ballads for example, are more poetical than most modern music. Even so, I do not think any song tradition quite approaches the intricate language games we find in more sophisticated poetry. Poetry is connected to song not only historically but formally and can be distinguished from other literary genres by this connection, but it also has its own principles which distinguish it from song.

Lastly, I would like to point out that these distinctions rest on a continuum rather than in perfectly arranged categories. The deep musicality of a poet like Dylan Thomas begs to be read out loud, but the effect of a writer like Rilke is perhaps best understood in silent recollection, even physical solitude.

[A note about the above comment about music being the more fundamental art: Our own culture is more musical than any other in the sense that we are being almost constantly bombarded with music at work, at stores, on television, and elsewhere. Because it is through recordings the average person is actually much less musical than he would be in a more primitive situation. We are more saturated with music and less connected to it than ever before.]

Pope Blames Moral and Aesthetic Degeneracy on Liberal Priests

"Then unbelieving priests reform'd the nation,
And taught more pleasant methods of salvation;
Where Heaven's free subjects might their rights dispute,
Lest God Himself should seem too absolute:
Pulpits their sacred satire learn'd to spare,
And vice admired to find a flatterer there!
Encouraged thus, Wit's Titans braved the skies,
And the press groan'd with licensed blasphemies.
These monsters, critics! with your darts engage,
Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage!"

-Alexander Pope, from Part II of the Essay on Criticism

In this passage Pope is reminding critics to be unafraid to attack poetry full of monstrous vice. This point is well worth remembering. Criticism of any art cannot limit itself to stylistic analysis, but must also take into account the likely effects on the observer and on society. Art should not be reduced to its barest moral meaning, and criticism therefore must do much illuminate the purely aesthetic, but this can never be separated from concerns about truth and goodness.

What's particularly interesting about this passage is the suggestion that degeneracy in art follows "unbelieving priests" failure to condemn vice out of a desire to make the work of salvation "pleasant" and a fear that "God Himself should seem to absolute." If we want to beautify our civilization we cannot simply love pretty things but must learn not to spare that "sacred satire," and to pray that our priests will not spare it either.

The Poet and the Philosopher

I missed the weekend by a couple days, but now I'm back with another post discussing the nature of poetry. This is going to be somewhat briefer because I'm still in the middle of editing two books, and preparing to host a young adult philosophy discussion on Thursday.

In the essay The Vocation of Poetry that appears in my book I have a section that differentiates poetry from other arts through its affinity with philosophy. This post will be a summary of that argument.

• Poetry is uniue among the arts because it does not work directly on the senses (supposing we're talking about printed poetry or poetry read in a normal voice, rather than a sung ballad). Flute-playing, architecture, painting, and baking all achieve their effects through a specific sense which they exploit. Poetry may be received either through the eyes by reading or the ears by being read to, but it does not have its full poetic effect until the imagination re-presents the images in the mind. Thus poetry is in a sense the most intellectual of the arts.
• Poetry also is a more intellectual art because it can use abstract language directly. A figure representing Justice may appear in a painting, but a poet may write an ode to Justice directly. By saying poetry is the more intellectual art I do not mean to depreciate any other medium. On some level is is to the disadvantage of poetry, because it makes it less visceral, less immediate in its effect.
• Because poetry is the more intellectual art, it is closer to philosophy.
• Because poetry is an art that by its nature is close to philosophy, it forms something of a bridge between the mind and the heart. In my essay I also describe it as "the mode of expression in which the inner unity of beauty and truth is made manifest."
• The poet and the philosopher should not try to do each other's jobs. The result turns out to be bad. We ruin poetry on the one hand by reducing it to versified philosophy, and philosophy on the other hand by undermining its need for systematic analysis. They compliment each other, but still have different ends as well as means.

I'll close this with a quotation from The Man Who was Thursday, "if the Secretary stood for the philosopher who loves the original formless light, Syme was a type of the poet who seeks always to make the light in special shapes, to split it up into sun and star. The philosopher may sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the finite. For him the great moment is not the creation of light, but the creation of the sun and moon." In my essay I discuss why this is not quite accurate, but it remains a lovely meditation and a reasonable summary.

Tennyson on the overdone Love of Letters

I should hopefully be able to get back to longer posts on literary ideals this weekend. I'll be busy arranging a presentation on scholastic psychology for a young adult group next week, as well as working on poetry, but I should have time to write another post. In the meantime, I want to share this clever little poem by Tennyson titled 'Poets and their Bibliographies':

Old poets fostered under friendlier skies,
Old Virgil who would write ten lines, they say,
At dawn, and lavish all the golden day
To make them wealthier in his reader's eyes;
And you, old popular Horace, you the wise
Adviser of the nine-years-ponder'd lay,
And you, that wear a wreath of sweeter bay,
Catullus, whose dead songster never dies;
If, glancing downward on the kindly sphere
That once had roll'd you round and round the sun,
You see your Art still shrined in human shelves,
You should be jubilant that you flourished here
Before the Love of Letters, overdone,
Had swampt the sacred poets with themselves.

If I have a problem with this poem, it is only that it turns poetry into something of a religion. In the essay "Christianity and Literature" printed in The Seeing Eye C.S. Lewis points out that there is a common tendency in our history to make a religion out of poetry in absence of true religion. The other side of this is that true religion on the one hand exalts poetry by declaring the Beautiful to be a true object of love ultimately suggesting Divine Beauty, and on the other hand lowers poetry to the level of a human craft by putting the burden of revealing truth and mystery elsewhere. That is to say, it puts poetry in its proper perspective.

Beyond that, I find this to be a delightful little meditation. The body of it is a somewhat run-of-the-mill restatement of the old (and still useful) norm of reverence for ancient authors, but what makes it very interesting to me is the sudden criticism of "Love of Letters, overdone," in the last two lines. I occasionally hear poetry defined in terms of a love of language, a concentration on the sound of words. This is true enough, but becomes very problematic once the love of the sound of language is put in opposition to the content of language. Certainly the form and content together form the meaning, and to love both is a true love of language. I do not know exactly what Tennyson means by "Love of Letters, overdone," but interpreting it as a self-absorbed estheticism certainly explains how it could "swampt the sacred poets with themselves." Another possibility would be that he's referring to excessive criticism at the expense of creative activity, by which process an exaggerated love of letters buries poetry in writings about poetry (I will address this problem in a later post asking whether or not poets ought to be educated). I will not claim to know exactly what Tennyson is getting at, but self-indulgent estheticism was certainly a concern of his. He makes this point brilliantly in the narrative poem 'The Palace of Art,' in which the palace crumbles after separating Beauty from Truth. On the other hand, the reference to "bibliographies" in the title suggests that he may be thinking of excessive learning about poetry by poets who should be sticking to the classics. All of these possibilities can certainly be claimed to be matters of concern for Tennyson, regardless of the exact intention of this poem.

Lastly, I think the description of Virgil is quite a lovely account of the importance of reverence for nature in forming one's talents (I would extend this to all talents, though only poetic gifts are referenced in the poem). Compare Virgil writing just ten lines in the morning to the frantic typing of Kerouac or other peddlers of unedited garbage.

Overcoming the Barbarism of Modern English

This is the first of many posts explaining in brief the theory of poetry proposed and practiced by Gravitas Press. In my book Poetry Against the World I take up the question of poetry as a vocation-- what it means for a person to be called to a life dedicated to poetry as opposed to simply being interested in it-- and along the way I do a good deal to define the purposes and ideals of poetry itself. I hope on this blog to consider some of these same questions in a more general way.

To begin with, let's talk a bit about the barbarism of modern English. Why is modern English barbarous? That's a question with too many answers. Regardless of the reasons, this barbarism is a manifest fact that cannot be explained away. Anyone who listens to the lyrical rhythms of middle English will quickly become aware of it. One need not be a linguist or a philologist to hear the difference. Thus it is not surprising that modern poets who are seeking a more lyrical expression-- as opposed to poets who want their writing to sound like everyday speech-- sometimes draw inspiration from older forms of our language, or from Scotch and Irish dialects.

This could be greatly expanded, but for now I'll list only a few of the many reasons for our modern linguistic barbarism:

1. Excessive Egalitarianism: When educated people, song writers, politicians or other public speakers, feel they must avoid an elevated style as to not sound too far above the common man, the language quickly sinks into the mud. Ideally high and low culture ought to remain distinct, but also influence and correct each other. High culture corrects and purifies what is vulgar and simplistic in folk traditions, whereas the earthiness of low culture helps to balance the superficiality that develops among people with an excess of leisure.
2. Little Use of Word Endings: Word endings matter less in English than in many other languages. In itself this is not much of a problem. There are many techniques such as alliteration and assonance that do not rely on word endings. It is, however, a problem for us because so many of the well-known verse forms do involve end rhyme.
3. Abbreviation and Acronym: Obviously there is some utility in shortening words or reducing common phrases. It is not an evil in itself, but has been taken to incredible extremes in our age of mass marketing and digital communication. Some ways of shortening words actually make language more lyrical, as when a poet replaces a syllable with an apostraphe to preserve a steady rhythm. Excessive shortening of words and phrases in modern English not only makes the language clunky, it also creates a mindset in which language is reduced to a practical tool for exchanging knowledge. Clearly language is such a tool, but the universal presence of poetry in all civilizations should make it obvious that language also has an important esthetic quality that ought to be cultivated. (By the way, though I do not normally recommend him, Heidegger has some brilliant meditation on this subject in his later essays.)

Now that the problem is more or less outlined, I will tell you the solution Sean and I, the main authors for Gravitas Press as of now, have arrived at. To overcome modern linguistic barbarism there must be a living connection to older use of English. When I say living connection I emphatically do not mean scholarly knowledge, but mean honest enjoyment of older works and an openness to influence. That being said, merely attempting to imitate the past is not enough. What worked in the past worked because of the way English was used in the past. It will not work today, at least not in exactly the same way. It is not that I would refuse to write a sonnet. I would gladly write one. The problem is that the sonnet and other set forms have not been received as a tradition, they have not been truly handed down to us. Furthermore, many young writers today find that older forms do not fit language as they have come to understand it. The solution I have found is what I call "ordered free verse." By that I mean poetry that could be called free verse in the sense that it follows no defined and consistent pattern, but which echoes the tones, rhythms, and expressions of an older lyricism. Rather than trying to write as if I live in a period other than my own I can begin with the obvious fact that I am alive today and allow my own modern English to search out patterns that fit it's own peculiar qualities. Thus my poetry in general would be categorized as free verse, but much of it can be scanned intelligibly, and makes use of rhyme and alliteration. I cannot say whether this will eventually evolve into definite poetic forms such as we had in the past, but it definitely seems to be a way forward that neither takes the deformity of modern English as normal nor holds too rigidly to older forms.

Beyond purely literary concerns, there is also a broad philosophical background to all of this. Language changes for countless reasons, but many of the changes in modern English are a result of our changed way of viewing the world. It is not a coincidence that the attitude which supposes language is a purely mechanical means of transmitting knowledge appears at the same time as mechanistic and utilitarian philosophies. It is not a coincidence that the desire of poets to write according to the laws of everyday speech appears in an age distrustful of all aristocratic institutions. Thus the true poet must be philosophically, and beyond that even religiously, anti-modern. A mere love for the sound of language is not enough.

I hope that is of some interest to someone somewhere. Soon I will have several follow up posts outlining other problems Gravitas Press has set out to overcome. I believe my next posts will be on the forgotten role of the poet as historian, and on the pros and cons of scholarly studies for the would-be poet.