Oct 15, 2024
Oct 15, 2024
No Definite Definition of Poetry:
Poetry is multisided and multifaceted with its infinite characteristics to reflect a definite goal like the flower of infinite petals to spread the definite perfume. It is the queen of all genres as it is not just like a novel, short story, essay, drama or anything else as it includes all the merits of every genre else. It is everything to be beyond the defining parameters.
If it is defined in a specific way, it is not poetry since it marks unlimited rich variety.
It is indefinable as it is inadequately definable in the way the ocean with its infinite shores in all directions is invisible to the physical eye. It is not confined to any age, any nation, any region, any faith or any sect or any class or any person. It surpasses the boundaries of time and space. Right from the dawn of civilization, it has been so variously defined by poets and critics. All look and aim at one goal, the sole goal of poetry. It has the definite goal, for the poet has the specific purpose of communication with a profound feeling to have its indelible impact and inerasable imprint on its audience for a reform or good change. A poet aims at a definite message through a poem for the choice of readers as Rabindranath Tagore delineates the Divine infinite gifts that are offered for the welfare of man but they run back to Him without becoming less or diminished as delineated in his poem, ‘Thy Gifts’ and rightly puts it,
From the words of the poet men take
what meanings please them; yet their last
meaning points to thee.” – Gitanjali, Poem: 75
Poetry is the result of imagination from the mind of a poet when he beholds the sight of beautiful daffodils or the dance of a peacock, a scene of bloodshed or injustice; or listens to the song of a nightingale that recalls something delightful or sorrowful to his heart; the wreck of a ship, or any other moving incident. The imagination gets transformed into a poem. It rises from the mind to be appealing to the heart of a reader. The poet is the creator of a poem like deity and the reader is like the devotee in the process of reading like that of devotion or adoration. Milton has the specific purpose of the definite goal, the ultimate meaning of poetry, the liberty of the soul before God, the attitude of the Task-Master as he presents in the poem, ‘On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-three’,
“As ever in my great Task-master’s eye.” – The siren’s Song, 7
Poets have different modes of expressions to vary one from the other but all their poems—long or short, aim at the sole goal of poetry. Their reflections are various but their expressions flow from the sole channel of poetry for the definite goal.
Life and Poetry:
Life is also defined in different ways but not in a definite way. Poetry and life are therefore beyond the scope of their definitions. Life has all joys and sorrows, ebbs and tides, ups and downs, tears and smiles, etc., to be away from boundaries of its definite definition. Poetry is the most befitting medium for the portrayal of life. All ideas, fancies, feelings, etc. are born at the sight of ground realities and bitter facts underlying life to be transformed and transmuted into beautiful poetry. It is the stethoscope to hear the heartthrobs of the poet or the lens through which we watch the picture of life. Different feelings of life are only expressed effectively through the medium of poetry. So life has infinite definitions to define insufficiently. The concept of life is much more applicable to poetry, which is the most suitable genre to reflect the kaleidoscopic feelings of humans i.e. the moving picture of life in fleeing time viewed through the lens of poetry. Poetry offers a genuine expression for tears and smiles. The heart with overwhelming joy knows how to reflect photographically in the hues of poetry. The soul with woes and throes, that is pretty aware of tears, needs the medium of poetry for its expression in snapshot details. Anger coming from the heart of a person, deprived of deserving privileges and suitable opportunities vested in the hands of the selfish to offer, erupts from the heart like lava from a burning volcano. Parching throats and deepening hungers; deprivations and discriminations; etc. have their expression from aching hearts and crying souls of creative minds. Joys are also expressed in equal spirits through the medium of poetry as beautifully and delightfully as the flower blossoms. It subsumes all kinds of feelings, emotions, experiences, dreams, thoughts, etc. that have a suitable expression through it. All these are viewed, felt, heard or fully experienced in the kaleidoscope of poetry to mirror the cross-section of life in snapshot details.
Poetry, Poetic Process in the Mind of a Poet:
Poetry springs from imagination. In the mind of a poet, imagination gets transformed and transmuted into a poem in the poetic process as the coarse caterpillar transforms itself into a pretty butterfly in the natural process. Imagination born in the mind of a poet finds an expression in the form of a poem with technical brilliance and artistic excellence to be appealing to the senses, offering pleasure teaching morals. Imagination is a rough or unpolished sketch to be painted aesthetically with a rich variety of hues of views to bloom into a beautiful poem. It may be coarse, rough or distorted but shapes itself into a beautiful poem in the mind of a poet for the pleasure of both the reader and the poet himself to fulfill his sole poetic objective. It rises from the mind of a poet in the spirit of poetry to be appealing to the heart of the reader in respect of aesthetic enjoyment and enlightenment.
Poetry, a Must for Themes Infinite
Poetry is the most essential medium or spectrum from the poetic genius for the description or expression of infinite themes significantly certain emotive subjects like love, devotion to God (bhakti) for salvation, nature, beauty, sex, marriage, grief on human loss and preeminently life with its kaleidoscopic facets. As a man of insight, he can express the deepest expression of love for all as expressed rightly and realistically by Robert Frost in ‘Birches’, ‘Earth is the right place for love.’
There are many kinds of love: love for the lover or the beloved, love for God, love for mother or father, love for the teacher, love for the nation, love for a friend, love for nature, etc. welcome poetry for their exquisite and appropriate expression as it abides and arises from the deep heart to attain the status of true love. Fancy is modified by the degree or profundity of love in the mind of the poet. Love for the lover or the beloved is expressed most effectively and preferably in the language of poetry. The life of man, interrelated with true love as described by Shakespeare,
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove--
… … … … …
Love’s not Time’s fool, – True Love’, 12
John Donne defines the immortal love of the lovers that is their right goal of love transcending the barriers of physical love in the poem:
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken; none can die – ‘The Good Morrow’
True love is not just love to fade away. It survives eternally in time despite its disruptive and destructive powers. Philip Larkin photographically expresses the view: What will survive of us is love’.
True love in its voyage culminates in sacred marriage that bestows on the lovers love and life for each other. The bride and the bridegroom are compared with the most ideal couples like Sita and Sri Rama in the wedding song, sung on the lutes; holy spells, chanted in the nuptial ceremony for their happy married life. Sarojini Naidu, in ‘Bangle Sellers’ presents the snapshot details of marriage in the Indian context:
Tinkling, luminous, tender, and clear,
The bridal laughter and bridal tear’ – ‘Bangle Sellers’,
Marriage as depicted in Epithalamion by Edmund Spencer in the words Edmund is the most sacred one and the happiest one for the wedding couple, especially for the bride from the western concept:
Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks
How the red roses flush up in her cheeks.
And the pure snow with goodly vermeil stain, – ‘A Wedding Song’
Love for God, the supreme power is the most predominant and significant of all the emotions of man as He offers all necessary for life and all His offerings will go back to Him. This is the Divine process for the life of man. Devotion to God for salvation is the manifold aspect to gush in the stream of poetry as Rabindranath Tagore propounds his divine philosophy in Gitanjali:
THY gifts to us mortals fulfill all our needs
and yet run back to thee undiminished. – ‘Thy Gifts’, Poem: 75
God is referred to as Almighty with the invincible spirit to offer the gifts to mortals for the fulfillment of needs of man. John Milton in The Paradise Lost expresses his deep devotion to and adoration for God and His interest ‘to justify the ways of God to man’ is most welcome for the welfare of man.
Love for mother or father is delineated in the most befitting way, parents are living gods, and it is an undeniable fact. They give life to their children and bring them up with a lot of care. Their children attach the sense of divinity to them; ‘Matrudevobhavah; pitru devobhavah’
Love for the teacher is appreciable because he sacrifices his life for his pupils for their all-round development. He is also called God for the enlightenment of his pupils and disciples. He is treated the divine on earth and celebrated in grandeur: ‘Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnuh Guru Devo Maheshwarah, guru sakshatparam brahma tasmaisri gurave namah.’
Love for the nation needs poetry sung in patriotic songs with poetic splendor. Our national anthem or any patriotic song finds the best place in poetry. They arouse the sense of patriotism in a man of love for the nation. The army marches forward in the spirit of patriotic songs. The soldier in love for the nation never minds the sacrifice of his life for the sake of the nation. R. W, Emerson applauds the patriots for their braveness and readiness for sacrifice:
They build a nation’s pillars deep
And lift them to the sky. – ‘Nation’s Strength’
The sense of friendship needs poetry for its best expression. It is the friend who is ready to sacrifice his life for his friend as a friend in need is a friend indeed. A real friend will be with us to share joys and sorrows; defeats and victories. Hamlet, the central character of Hamlet faces the problem of delay in taking revenge against Claudius, the murderer of his father for he has no proof of the heinous crime to convince all. He wishes his vengeance to be treated as suitable and justifiable. He does not want his wife, Ophelia or anyone related; but a friend i.e. his friend Horatio to live
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story. – Hamlet. Act: Five, Scene: two
Man has love for nature with infinite beauties. Nature bestows on man inspiration and exhilaration. The gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, glittering rainbows, the dance of the peacock, the songs of different singing and enchanting birds, high tree-worn hills and deep verdant vales, gurgling rivers, the cool shade of trees, the sights of enchanting flowers, the blowing of breeze, moonlit nights, etc elate and delight him. As a result, he bestows on nature love and divinity. Like that, man presents love in different aspects and expresses it to the core through the most befitting genre, poetry. Nature has its predominant role and various functions in poetry as it is not there without nature’s involvement with man.
Like the humans, the objects of nature are to respond to the feelings of a lover or partner. Deer, creepers and other objects exhibit human feelings, and the cloud carries a message as described by Kalidasa in his Raghuvamsa, Meghasandesha and Shakuntalam in the way there is no nature without man as the poetry of Wordsworth and Robert Frost delineate nature with a man in it. For him, natural objects share the tears and smiles of human beings.
The beauty of a woman is described in comparison with natural objects: lotus-eyes, wasp-waist, moon-face, creamy breast, black bee-hair, deer-eyes, lion-courage, cuckoo-voice, peacock-dance, swan-pace, etc. It serves as a source for inspiration and an oasis for satisfaction both for the creative genius and the avid reader.
The life of man as a dutiful human being and the beauty of nature are interrelated. Man is related to nature as he is a part of nature. He lives amidst nature with his concern with nature. Life as a whole is concerned with obligations and promises that Robert Frost portrays in his poem,
Woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And mile to go before I sleep. – ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ 10
Though Frost has fascination to enjoy the sense of beauty in woods, he sacrifices his desire of beauty for the sense of duty that is paramount in life. He has momentary contact with nature to get rejuvenated by the beauty in the woods covered with pure white snow, glittering in the rays of the setting sun. As a result, he can escape from monotony and have relief from daily routine. Life is also studied in terms of its mortality on one side and its futility on the other in the reign of time as described by Philip Larkin.
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days? – “Days” 27
Life flows through the stages: childhood, youth, manhood, old age, decrepit old age and death; to be ephemeral and mortal. Among all the stages of man childhood is enjoyable and memorable. The beauty of joys lies at the core of innocence. Man recalls his memories connected to his childhood. A famous Hindi Poet, Subadra Kumari Chauhan recalls her childhood as her boon by calling it (in my translation):
Come to my mind again and again, my sweet memories of childhood.
In the same way, youth is the most significant stage and the spring of the annual seasons. John Keats refers to youth in comparison with spring:
He has his lusty spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span; – ‘Human Seasons’
Youth is like spring in the words of George Herbert: ‘Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses.’ It fades away in the reign of time as is microscopically stated in Milton’s words:
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing … – ‘On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-three’
Middle age of man passes in the performance of responsibilities amid the recalls and recurs of his youth. Though man does not welcome old age, it falls on him with ills. Shakespeare describes the seven stages of man to depict decrepit old age of man’s life:
Is second childishness and mere oblivion
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything – ‘The Seven Ages of Man’
In the endless movement of time, all expectations and desires in life are shattered to turn futile also. The expectations about the future seen from childhood remain unfulfilled to turn life dry and desolate. He turns to realize his ‘bad habits of expectancy’ about the future in the words of Larkin in ‘Next, Please’. As a result, he feels that life is not a bed of roses, for it is full of ups and downs, ebbs and tides and so on. Grief is the most moving expression to find poetry, the most suitable medium. It is also born of tensions. Similarly, we can add innumerable themes related to life to be embedded in poetry.
Poetry always offers a seat for a concept by its side to be always grouped together and complementary to each other. Poetry and love; poetry and marriage; poetry and sex; poetry and beauty; poetry and life; poetry and war; poetry and music; poetry and tears; poetry and smiles, poetry and society, poetry and philosophy, poetry and ethics; and so on are to display poetic variety, thematic multiplicity, artistic beauty with linguistic simplicity and communicative lucidity.
Poetry is not there without lovebirds since it is the most suitable expression of love. No other genre else reflects love so effectively as poetry. Love composed in Urdu gazals (couplets) finds a really delightful expression. For Larkin, ‘sex and poetry are very closely connected.’ This obscenity results in his preoccupation of poetry and sex in mind. For him, obscenity is a concomitant feature of poetry. Joseph Bristov makes clear the fact, ‘Instead of degrading Larkin’s work, obscenity here takes poetry on to an altogether higher plane’ (157). The use of coarse expressions and vulgar language become consistent to detest modern poetry. His poetic virtues like simplicity and accessibility and preeminently obscenity make him a greater public figure.
Poetry and society are very much interlinked as poetry has to reform society. The present day society in the words of Kamaladas is full of evils and perils which are not easy for us to list out for their multiplicity:
God is in his heaven and all
Is right with this stinking world. – ‘Fancy-Dress Show’
Poetry and philosophy go together to depict the transience of life and failures in life with the message for man not to feel sorry for life-flaws, and no laws in implementation. Man is in quest of the wealth of happiness but falls in miseries for his own faults and foibles; flaws and failings in performing right actions. The Gita advises man right actions to be done by him constantly without expecting good results. His wants are the root cause for his miseries. It is God, the unseen power to decide the result, the fruit of his actions. Man is free from miseries, when he works for work sake and thinks that work is worship and it is the philosophy of work and of life in the words of Veda Vyasa:
‘Karmanye vadikareste maphaleshu kadachana
ma karma phalaheturbhu matho sangotva karmani. – The Gita,
Poetry Knows No Boundaries:
Poetry is universal and philosophical rather than individual and historical as it originates from imagination to reflect higher truths and higher realities. It is not confined to any region, any age, any idea, any faith, or any ism or anything specific. It may be subjective or objective but aims at a definite goal. It is not outdated nor is it updated as it is universal in its exquisite expression of universal ideas and frank exposition of permanent values for universal appeal. It has the aesthetic goal of its own for the audiences for ever as Keats opines, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever’. The beauty of poetry is a glory forever as it is full of lessons on virtues and sermons on values for the reader. It is not confined to any ism which of course is not its criterion. It welcomes all facts of life in the fidelity of expressions. It is so powerful that it brings about not only enlightenment but also enjoyment for its audiences. It is the greatest medium of the poet who can look into all and have the knowledge of all whereas the sun cannot do so despite its light. These are the facts that leave it indefinable.
Poetry Is Unlike All Others:
Poetry in variety and diversity marks no exact or correct definition and no limit to its genuine expressions. Though it was, is or will be written all over the world, it is one but poets are many and poems are infinite with different forms and dictions to express different subjects. They have their own ways of feeling-expressions and word-utterances, but they abide by the laws of poetry which is the expression of emotions and passions by and large. It is not the rainbow that has only seven pretty colors to expose seven hues of expressions and exhibit its wonders to be a rare spectacle that falls inferior to that of poetry as it is the rainbow of infinite colors to express infinite ideas to be far greater for expressions. If I feel privilege to define it, I can define it as the rainbow of infinite colors; a bower of flowers with multi-petals and lots of varieties of fragrance or a multi-sided weapon to aim at different goals. It is words arranged in a systematic way to express the feelings of the poet to share his feelings with his audience and so on in the language of the reader. Though I have no full guts to define it, I, as a lover of poetry, define it from my point of view as follows:
“Every poet lets us listen to his heartthrobs for our heart-responses. It is his primary goal and bounden responsibility to describe events, incidents, experiences, dilemmas, problems, etc. that he glimpses and witnesses in life. Poetry is his medium and spectrum he expresses through, and weapon and organ he fights with for the aimed reforms and desired solutions. It rises from the reality and the actuality of life in the way the plant rises from the ground of truths to bloom the flowers of facts.” (54)
It is sometimes a source for pleasures, sometimes an avenue for fears but has the aesthetic goal of its own for the satisfaction of the reader. It has multisided functions for poetic effects. The key ones of poetry are bloom-like evolution and bomb-like revolution. We should all mind that poetry is therefore beyond the scope of defining it in an exact or correct manner. Different definitions in use, as poets and critics defined in the past, are defining now and will define in the future in different ways in different ages and places. Other genres have exact definitions and mark a clear-cut difference from poetry. The differences in poetry are so diverse and its definitions are so varied but it is a whole and the one to represent human emotions by means of thought-interpretations and truth-revelations in word-expressions and sound-modulations. It cannot be confined to limits: size, time, space, mood, or anything nor can it be defined in a way alone. The Paradise Lost and The Mahabharata are poems in narration that run to pages and pages to be bulky enough, but the people enjoyed then and even today are enjoying them. There is no size-limit and time-limit for a poem to be completed in one sitting as Edgar Allan Poe defined a piece of writing with a time-limit for the reader to complete. Poe means that it should be completed or enjoyed in a period as long as we are able to sit without moving, and we have patience. No limits are imposed to it as all valid and worthy are portrayed in it. So, it is not to record events like history to state what has happened. It is to reflect what ought to happen. It is not science to have a specific definition. It is not mathematics to say two plus two is four. Of course, sciences express realities as they are but it, in its modified fancy, expresses higher realities and broader outlooks for the enlightenment of the reader. So, it has a goal higher than sciences for they mark limits in all aspects.
Poetry and Effects:
Poetry is the amalgamation of views to reflect the synthesis of inklings that occur and recur in the mind of a poet for a spontaneous expression. It is a solo or duet or chorus or something else of diverse rhythms to move the heart of a listener or reader and teach him or her higher truths. It is a multi-sided weapon for reform or correction. It is a garden with different kinds of flowers to offer perfumes in variety and cool shade for gaiety. It is lava to burn vices and a bullet to shoot the vicious enabling the virtuous to lull in the swing of peace. It is a vehicle for the poets for their aesthetic communication to the audience. It is glory never to diminish or vanish but to flourish and cherish as long as man lives in emotions, feelings, ideas, experiences, etc. It is not a series of ideas to be abstractive but to be constructive as it has powers to effect on the aimed lines. It is always alive and can at any cost survive in its glory and glitter, flair and fervor, lessons and sermons, sense and essence all concomitant to be important in the life of man.
Silent and Open Expressions:
A word articulated by mouth is the microcosm of expression through the macrocosm of poetry. It reveals an idea, advice, instruction or something else for the response of the listener’s mind. Poetry is therefore has a series of responses and reactions in the process of experiencing by listening or reading. In the same way by viewing and smelling, the human mind can have feelings in the form of responses at the sight or smell of a flower or any object of nature. The eyes also express different kinds of feelings by means of their contact. The raising of eyebrows reflects the sense of wonder. Gestures and postures have ideas to express and facts to confess. A hen expresses its fear or anxiety in protecting its chicks at the sight of a kite or an eagle. All these are silent poetic expressions of thoughts in mind for response. The flute or lute conveys a thought without a word. In the same way different tunes constitute music. It can therefore be conveyed by sound-utterances and facial expressions. The objective of poetry is the most effective silent or voiced expression of thoughts, emotions and so on in the form of word-clusters in rhythmic expressions, rather than a series of conversations or dialogues of the drama or the novel.
Main Types and Parts of Poetry:
Poetry mainly exhibits either of the two facets: subjective or personal to express the poet’s own experiences in odes, elegies, sonnets, etc. or objective or impersonal poetry to deal with the events taking place around, with less reference to his personal matters in the narratives like stories in verse, ballads, epics, idylls, pastorals, satires, etc. It has the two essential components: form and structure; content and sound which are complementary to each other as the one enriches the other. It employs the sound and the sense as the sound echoes the sense, for its chief objective is the aesthetic pleasure the reader loves most as his poetic goal.
Poetry, Prose and Drama:
Poetry, prose and drama are the three major forms of every literature. The drama employs dialogues in the poetry form as in William Shakespeare or those in prose as in George Bernard Shaw. The drama welcomes poetry to it for a greater effect. We, therefore, say that prose and poetry as the major forms of literature. They are interrelated for there are poetic drama, verse play and free verse in poetry to have all the characteristics of the three forms: poetry, prose and drama. It is more effective than the other forms as it has all their characteristics in it for its effective ways of expression to mark unique and distinctive in its stature. It is altogether for higher values. It is primarily connotative unlike prose and drama and is different from sciences that are denotative. So, it stands the crest of the major genres.
Poets as Critics, Definitions and Subjects:
Through passing ages, poetry has been composed by different poets in different ages to mark infinite variety. When I talk of poetry, we talk of different isms: classicism, Puritanism, neo-classicism, metaphysics, romanticism, Victorianism, modernism, surrealism, post-modernism, realism, etc. as poetry in the ages has been found aiming at different trends. They have their own isms and unique ideas to be transformed and transmuted through the antenna of poetry. They have had different trends or approaches: general approach, sociological approach, psychological approach, formalist approach, archetypal approach, etc. to portray their emotions and passions. It employs words, diction, language, image, meter, tone, theme, etc. to enrich its expression. Their views on it are juxtaposed in the chronological order as follows:
In the days of the Anglo-Normans (1066-1350), literature was in the hands of the clergymen and nobles in the form of verses with the themes of religion, love, chivalry, the deeds of Alexander or the misdeeds of monks. The common people were illiterate, but they had only a few songs and ballads to learn and sing by word-of-mouth. The Norman’s Sir Gawain and Green Knight is a delightful romance with French and Saxon elements and meter and alliteration to reflect dramatic interests, vivid depictions and ethical purity. The age of Chaucer (1350-1400), Langland, Wyclif, Gower including Chaucer voiced their protest the evils in society to teach the sense of equality of men. Chaucer, the Father of English poetry, realistically portrays the characters of pilgrims of the society to mirror the age in The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. During the Revival of Learning (1400-1550) poetry was seen in amorous sonnets modeled after the Italians. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) of the Elizabethan Period (1550-1620) was the first poet to add rich sensitivity to beauty to the subject-matter of his poetry. A perfect melody, a rare sense of beauty and a splendid imagination together form his poem. The stanzas in the form of allegory in diversity named after him are in the portrayal of the subject not to amuse but to reform. He gave priority to imagination that creates dreams and fancies for his poetry, but not to observation. Shakespeare (1564-1616), a poet of impulse, wrote sonnets and poetic dramas. The sonnets are famous for direct and exquisite expression of the poet’s own deep personal feelings and subtle thoughts; but his dramas are impersonal to delineate the fears, loves, hates, jealousies and all evil natures in the men of his age. Metaphysical poets like John Donne (1731-1631) mark variety and novelty in language and style; subject matter and manner and so on to be fantastic and unconventional by the use of far-fetched images and conceits as a result of their higher leaning. John Milton (1608-1674), a poet of steadfast will and purpose, regards changing impulses as trivial ones in changing times. He uses ‘grand style’ to suit the epic with foreign expressions. He insists on the liberty of the individual soul in relation to God. John Dryden (1631-1700), as a poet, mirrors society in his satire, Absalom and Achitophel by employing heroic couplets. As a poet, Alexander Pope (1688- 1744) dominated his age. His poetry, with the exact word in the exact place and quotable maxims, reflects the spirit of his age. The Rape of the Lock, his famous mock-epic with a trivial subject, mirrors Queen Anne’s age to satirize the fashionable society with artificiality in heroic couplets in the mission to humanize his age. Later poets as precursors of romanticism have started to pen on nature as their subject. In Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1801), William Wordsworth (1770-1850) says, ‘Good poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ (4) and it ‘has its origin from emotions recollected in tranquility.’ (13) Its function is to give the reader pleasure. For Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772- 1834), a poem like ‘a prose composition’ with its same elements, ‘the best words in the best order’ offers pleasure since to do so is the end of poetry. P.B. Shelley (1792-1822) calls it, ‘a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted’. John Keats Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) presents the spirit of the Victorian age. W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) employs the evocative symbolic mode of expression in his poetry to deal with time that is cyclic, and history that repeats itself with differences. T.S Eliot (1888-1965) juxtaposes in his symbolic poetry the past and the present by means of allusions. The Waste Land represents the spiritual sterility of the modern age. For him, poetry must be at the levels of intellectuals though it might be obscure. The leftist or Marxist poets of the 1930’s wrote politically committed poetry. W.H. Auden (1907-1973), a versatile poet of multisided interests, deals with the power of psycho- analysis of inner secrets lurking in the human mind. He employs contemporary language with the rhythms of everyday speech and idioms to delineate the problems of his age. By the use of ‘you’, he invites the reader to experience it for the latter’s positive response. He calls poetry the game of knowledge. Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) belongs to the neo-romantic surrealistic poetry in the 1940’s to deal with dreams and hallucinations. For him ‘a good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him’. The Movement writers of the post-war period in mid-1950’s employ ‘we’ to share social differences and class distinctions with a lot of concern with the reader for universal spokesman ship in contrast with the leftist group of poets. Philip Larkin (1922-1996) of the group has a humanistic concern in recording the contemporary events, changes, dilemmas, uncertainties, etc. that take place around him and he expresses them in the language of a common man and his poetic rhetoric is founded on “common word usage” (82) as he states in his ‘Statement’. I totally agree to his comments on poetry:
“I write poems to preserve things I have seen/thought/felt (if I may say indicate a composite experience) both for myself and for others, though I feel that my prime responsibility in the experience itself which I am trying to keep from oblivion for its own sake. Why I should do this, I have no idea, but I think the impulse to preserve at the bottom of all art.” (77)
Larkin believes that poetry offers pleasure and so he seeks pleasure-seeking audience like all arts. It therefore has a special place in literature in attracting them. Seamus Heaney, a living poet compares the pen with a gun. He chooses the pen over the spade as a tool used for farming. His poems reflect direct and straightforward themes with the use terse rhymes and syllabic patterns. From the American literature point of view, it is also defined. For Edgar Allan Poe it is ‘rhythmical creation of beauty in words.’ Robert Frost in an essay, ‘The Figure a Poem Makes’ expresses his goal of poetry that a poem ‘begins in delight and ends in wisdom’. It has been differently defined with its different subjects by the poets of all generations.
Critics of Poets, Opinions and Definitions
Poetry traversed to witness or listen to different opinions or definitions of critics from Plato that day to those today. They guide poets and let them enrich their poetry by their constructive criticism. Let us have the critiques of the critics of different ages. Plato (427-347 B .C.), in Academy treats poetry as a copy or imitation of nature as it is, and its notion as pure inspiration. It, of course, wears today’s glitters and glitz in terms of modification in definition. For him, poetry is not a craft or art like painting, learnt and practiced; but it springs from pure inspiration, divine speaking by means of invaluable word-expressions through the mouthpiece of the poet. So, it is ‘not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine’ as he speaks the divine truth. He believes in poetry to influence the reader in the shaping of character. It is the divine communication of truths to the reader through the poet. In Poetics, Plato’s disciple, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) insists on emotional aspects that are essential for poetry as the poet imitates imaginatively so as to present a higher truth and a higher reality in the art of poetry than they do in other arts. He idealizes reality. It is not just history to portray what has happened but poetry to reveal what may or should happen. It is not just reality but a higher reality to be universal with its higher subject to promote human knowledge. For Horace (65 B.C. -8 B.C.) like Plato and Aristotle poetry is imitation. He mixes the facts by means of fancy to make it nearer the truth. Longinus is of the opinion that poetry for its sublime stature to instruct and delight is distinguished from prose that is just to persuade. Dante (1265-1321) prefers the choicest arrangement of words in sentences with grammatical correctness and the grand style of Milton, Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) agrees to Aristotle’s concept of poetry with its function to delight and teach men for their goodness. He opposes Puritan objections to poetry which mean that poetry is waste, useless for it is mere full of rhyming and versification. As a critic, John Dryden (1631-1700) opines that poetry instructs as it delights the reader. For him, mere imitation of reality is enough. Reality should be shaped by the poet’s imagination in the way the workman turns the raw material into a beautiful work of art by means of his imagination. In Lives of Poets, Dr. Johnson (1709-1874) opines that poetry is “the art of uniting pleasure with truth by calling imagination to the help of the reason” (61). It reflects the themes of universal human interests as it aptly mirrors life and presents messages in the language comprehensible to the common man, ‘man of this world’. Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) feels that poetry “a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for that criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Its excellence is certified on the basis of its matter or substance and of its manner and style. It is the soul that conceives and composes real poetry.” (66) For I.A. Richards, poetry is ‘a system of impulses’, (83) the mind’s response to a stimulus. To summarize all the criticisms above, poetry is for pleasure in the poet’s artistic expressions of imaginative thoughts and feelings in the language of poetry with rhythms and meters. It is for pleasure or delight, wisdom and enlightenment on the part of the reader. T.S. Eliot, referring to the enjoyment of poetry said, ‘… different poems, even, yield different satisfactions. It is certain that we do not fully enjoy a poem unless we understand it; and on the other hand, it is equally true that we do not fully understand a poem unless we enjoy it.’ (115) Cleanth Brooks states that a poem is the combination of all poetic characteristics. ‘The beauty of the poem is the flowering of the whole plant, and needs the stalk, the leaf, and the hidden roots’ (60). Different poets or critics have defined it in different ways but they are inadequate to reflect the true essence of poetry. Poetry reflects subjects in kaleidoscope as described above definitely all to mark a definite definition.
Essential Factors of Poetry:
All such definitions of poets and critics cannot justify the definition of poetry and its scope. Poetry in general is never defined as it is not confined to the limits of its definition. The essence of imaginative and emotional substance is the nucleus of poetry. There are other essential parts to enrich its beauty for its full blossom and all perfume for the enjoyment of the reader as content and form are complementary to each other. The diction with the choice of apt words in metrical and syntactical devices, adds beauty to poetry. Its sounds must echo the sense by its rhythmical and musical effects. The felicity and beauty of expressions also depend on the employment of figures of speech like simile, metaphor, personification, irony, alliteration, hyperbole, pathetic fallacy, etc. There may be any meter, any figure of speech, any verse, any rhythm, any style or anything else poetic but it solely aims at an imaginative or emotive expression as all roads lead to Rome. What the poet and the reader crave for the fulfillment of their hunger is solely for the poetic objective by the poetry of sheer working satiable food rather than by that of the sumptuous one with different tastes.
Poetry, a Living River to Flow in Mind:
Poetry lives in the moving expression of feelings, ideas, inklings, etc. through the poet. It reflects in newspaper headlines, sub-titles and titles, maxims, dictums, quotations, slogans, ads, emotional utterances, proverbs, incantations, abuses, etc. It echoes from the oasis-expression of fulfillment, the joy-jubilation of achievement, the tear-emotion of bereavement and so on. It flows from imaginative, emotive and creative minds in flowing ideas for moving expressions to audiences. It rises and journeys from the mind to the senses like the flow of water with its ripples and bubbles to reach the ocean. It is the living river of the ideas in mind to flow ever from the imaginative mind to the responsive senses through the mouthpiece of the poet in terms of ‘I’ to express the poet’s heart-responses, ‘we’ with the involvement of audiences to share with the poet all his observations and experiences and ‘you’ to shoulder the responsibility on the part of audiences. Poetry flows from the mind of a poet to gush in ink on paper like a living river with its chief objective of amazement, enjoyment and enlightenment of the audiences.
First published in Triveni VOL.83 Jul-Sep, 2014 No. 3, PP 52-56
Works Cited
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28-Sep-2024
More by : Dr. K. Rajamouly