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The Enchantment of Poetry
Sep. 20th, 2015 10:12 am‘Poetry is the rapture of rhythmical language.’
-- Greg Orr
Dana Gioia writes about how poetry lost much of its popularity as the study of literature became more analytical in the 20th century, and of the need to restore its enchantment
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Poetry is a distinct category of language—a special way of speaking that invites and rewards a special way of listening. Poetry is often subtle and sometimes even occult in its meaning, but it is rarely shy about announcing its status as a separate kind of language. In oral culture, poetry needs to sound different from ordinary speech in the very form of its saying to earn its special attention and response. The purpose of sonic features, such as meter, rhyme, alliteration, is partially to make verse immediately distinguishable from speech or prose. ‘I came to poetry,’ said Donald Hall, ‘for the sound it makes.’ Poetry is not merely different in degree from ordinary language—more images, more metaphors, more rhythm—it differs fundamentally in how it communicates. All poetic technique exists to enchant—to create a mild trance state in the listener or reader in order to heighten attention, relax emotional defenses, and rouse our full psyche, so that we hear and respond to the language more deeply and intensely.
[...]
The aim of poetry—in this primal and primary sense as enchantment—is to awaken us to a fuller sense of our own humanity in both its social and individual aspects. Poetry offers a way of understanding and expressing existence that is fundamentally different from conceptual thought. As Jacques Maritain observed, ‘poetry is not philosophy for the feeble-minded.’ It is a different mode of knowing and communicating the world. There are many truths about existence that we can only express authentically as a song or a story. Conceptual language, which is the necessary medium of the critic and scholar, primarily addresses the intellect. It is analytical, which is to say, it takes things apart, as the Greek root of the word ana-lyein, to unloosen, suggests. Conceptual discourse abstracts language from the particular to the general. Poetic language, however, is holistic and experiential. Poetry simultaneously addresses our intellect and our physical senses, our emotions, imagination, intuition, and memory without asking us to divide them. The text may be frozen on the page for easy visual inspection and analysis, but the poetic experience itself is temporal, individual, and mostly invisible. As Wallace Stevens wrote, ‘Poetry is a pheasant disappearing in the brush.’
-- Dana Gioia, "Poetry as Enchantment" in The Dark Horse Magazine
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-- Greg Orr
Dana Gioia writes about how poetry lost much of its popularity as the study of literature became more analytical in the 20th century, and of the need to restore its enchantment
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Poetry is a distinct category of language—a special way of speaking that invites and rewards a special way of listening. Poetry is often subtle and sometimes even occult in its meaning, but it is rarely shy about announcing its status as a separate kind of language. In oral culture, poetry needs to sound different from ordinary speech in the very form of its saying to earn its special attention and response. The purpose of sonic features, such as meter, rhyme, alliteration, is partially to make verse immediately distinguishable from speech or prose. ‘I came to poetry,’ said Donald Hall, ‘for the sound it makes.’ Poetry is not merely different in degree from ordinary language—more images, more metaphors, more rhythm—it differs fundamentally in how it communicates. All poetic technique exists to enchant—to create a mild trance state in the listener or reader in order to heighten attention, relax emotional defenses, and rouse our full psyche, so that we hear and respond to the language more deeply and intensely.
[...]
The aim of poetry—in this primal and primary sense as enchantment—is to awaken us to a fuller sense of our own humanity in both its social and individual aspects. Poetry offers a way of understanding and expressing existence that is fundamentally different from conceptual thought. As Jacques Maritain observed, ‘poetry is not philosophy for the feeble-minded.’ It is a different mode of knowing and communicating the world. There are many truths about existence that we can only express authentically as a song or a story. Conceptual language, which is the necessary medium of the critic and scholar, primarily addresses the intellect. It is analytical, which is to say, it takes things apart, as the Greek root of the word ana-lyein, to unloosen, suggests. Conceptual discourse abstracts language from the particular to the general. Poetic language, however, is holistic and experiential. Poetry simultaneously addresses our intellect and our physical senses, our emotions, imagination, intuition, and memory without asking us to divide them. The text may be frozen on the page for easy visual inspection and analysis, but the poetic experience itself is temporal, individual, and mostly invisible. As Wallace Stevens wrote, ‘Poetry is a pheasant disappearing in the brush.’
-- Dana Gioia, "Poetry as Enchantment" in The Dark Horse Magazine
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