What poets have you tried reading ?Originally Posted by Theunderground
What poets have you tried reading ?
I'm coming late to the party, but in terms of whether poetry makes anything happen, I think there is a distinct sense in which it does. While it may or may not directly engender drastic social or political change in the present, if we narrow our view to something like the history of ideas (broadly conceived), then poetry has had a demonstrable effectiveness.
For example, any deep engagement with Nietzsche or Heidegger must take into account the incredible influence which Hölderlin's work had on their respective systems of thought. Though this is a specific instance and I can't speak with any knowledge to the dialectic between poetry and philosophy outside of 19th and 20th century Germany, I would expect to find similar developments in other areas/traditions.
Whether this (perhaps narrow) sphere of influence is of lasting significance to the larger world, or if it reinforces an image of poetry as marginal and unimportant, I leave it up to others to decide--though I would undoubtedly espouse the former position.
I have read bits of nearly all the great poets east and west,why do you ask?
Originally Posted by AuntShecky:
This is another extremely valid and significant philosophical
question:
Can there ever be such a thing as a "thought" without words to express it?
I would assume so. Thus we have dance and painting and music and other such forms of artistic expression. One of the problems that artists face within these genre is that criticism exclusively takes the form of the written word and the written word literally cannot fully grasp the non-written art form and as a result such writers often lean toward a focus upon that which has a strong narrative element. It is far easier to discuss and dissect this in words:
than it is to attempt the same with something like this:
The Comedian-I think that we can have thoughts without words when we are infants and have no words. But once we have language, then thoughts without words are impossible. I don't know why, but based on my observations with the language development of my two daughters, it sure seems so to me.
Of course, I'm no psychologist.
Virgil-But how do you know we don't have thoughts before the language comes to us? As I just read your post this thought came to me, but I really didn't formulate the language until after I started to articulate it. It's my perception that there is a millisecond of thought before language shapes it.
Maybe we continue to have non-linguistic thoughts after we develop language. If we do, that non-linguistic thinking is some weird, weird, stuff. I mean, non-linguistic thinking has to have some form, right? If not language, then what?
I am obviously with Virgil on this. I would assume... first of all... that human beings are capable of thought without... beyond written/spoken language. Such language is simply an abstraction that must be learned. The child prior to speech thinks. Helen Keller... prior to developing a non-spoken language surely was capable of thought. Our dreams and day-dreams involve thought and often take the form of visual images... sounds... even other senses.
Looking at the two paintings above, that of the famous Guernica by Picasso and that of the landscape by Bonnard one can grasp Picasso's achievement and put it in words far easier than one can Bonnard's painting. Bonnard was and remains known as a "painter's painter". A great many painters recognize something in Bonnard's paintings that can't be simply put into words... something that those not highly attuned to the purely visual fail to grasp.
As a painter I can assure you that I think in the purely visual quite often. I am attuned to certain visual stimuli and think in images quite often before/beyond thinking in words. Unlike some artist, I am also a great lover of literature... an obsessive reader... and thus I have the ability to put much into the written or spoken word after the fact. I would assume that something similar exist in the mind of the musician or composer in terms of thinking in sound, in the mind of the dancer... and perhaps even the athlete in thinking in terms of movement and space, and in the mind of the mathematician in thinking through numbers... a language no less invented than music, art, or the word.
Last edited by stlukesguild; 03-20-2011 at 11:59 AM.
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Any biologist will just point that Whales and dolphins not only think, but also teach and have fun. They will point birds can learn from experience and teach it to other birds. And that humans developed social organization and use of utensils even before any form of developed language, imagine written language.
This is all speculation.
First, I would say that I totally agree with JBI on the aims of poetry. I totally agree with Virgil that we do have thoughts before language.
The reason why we think we don't have thoughts without language is because we don't realize how fast the brain moves. Thoughts literally flash. The thing we perceive as a "thought" is probably actually our attempt to put the flash (the synapse firing) into words. And what are we trying to put into words? In some ways, everything we say or "think" shares a commonality with what JBI said the goal of poetry was...to name the unnameable, to describe that which can't be described. Which really, is everything, because what language is trying to communicate is very experiential.
I'm sorry I am so bad at expressing myself in language, but hopefully when I finish Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, I can write a little bit more about it on my blog (and with better formed "thoughts").
J.H.S.
I agree with I. A. Richards' claim that "poetry is capable of saving us." What Richards meant by this extravagent claim was that the poetry of genius represents the highest level of adaptive psychological organization imaginable, hence we ought to turn to it as a model and pattern for the development of our own experiences. Unlike religion and science, poetry enables us to fulfill our nature as rationally and emotionally complex beings. Whereas the former depend heavily of "suppressions and restrictions" in order to make determinate "statements" about life, poetry "realizes" or dramatizes its content in a way that allows us to experience rather than merely know or believe. Thus the basis of aesthetic response is "imaginative assent" rather than "verifiable belief." Poetry is "the completest mode of utterance" and the standard of "unmitigated experience." In a world of confusion, it can supply us with systems of experience, or "attitudes," that attune us to existence without neutralizing it (as in science), simplifying it (as in popular literature), or falsifying it (as in religion). All this amounts to an argument that the poetry of genius ought to be the central mythos of modern civilization.
By the way, if anyone is interested in learning about the "value" of poetry as poetry, I suggest a return to the grandfathers of twentieth-century English criticism, namely I. A. Richards, F. R. Leavis, Cleanth Brooks, W. K. Wimsatt, and Northrop Frye. Steer clear of postmodernism, cultural studies, and postcolonialism. In my opinion, at least, a strong interest in these discourses constitutes a departure from literature as such.
This is a big claim and not one that I would support. I think poetry can have an effect, but only as part of a movement or a cultural shift. I don't see any validity in the claim that
"realizes" or dramatizes its content in a way that allows us to experience rather than merely know or believe
Poetry is a construction of language, and in no way can supplant experience or belief. It can have a powerful emotional effect, and can introduce radical ideas thought, but rarely does it change lives unless it is part of a wider cultural experience that is acted upon by the reader.
As far I recall, this works if the reader (or viewer) carry this experiences within, so he revify the feelings of such sittuation and may (or not) reconsider it. Not as he living an experience that belonged to other (the poet). Dante loves in a way, I love in another...
It seems to me that Auden was reacting to not only Yeats, but also to other Modernist poets who specifically saw their role as that of New Prophets in a Post-Religious age. Eliot, Pound and others consciously imagined this to be one of their roles. And, of course, it is true that poetry is magical and transcendent, and was often used in magical or religious rituals.
Here’s a similar post-religious question? If there is no God, does prayer “make anything happen”? Of course it does. It just doesn’t make happen what believers claim it can make happen. It makes something else happen. We can't measure what it makes happen, and we can't measure what poetry makes happen, either.
I'm not sure what you mean JC. Can you clarify.
On wordless thought: I distinctly remember one of those heightened moments during a physical game - rugby - where things are happenning fast. There's no time to formulate the thought "I'm going to tackle that bloke" - you just do it as if by instinct. Playing rugby is not an instinctive thing but it utilises instinctive action.
If you have time - only a little time - you can form wordy thoughts about something. You can certainly have momentary wordless experiences such as awe upon seeing a beautiful vista, a piece of art or hearing a tune etc etc. I think we explain it with words after.
Probably because the language is difficult to understand.
Of course art has some value, otherwise it would not occur. But is the value intrinsic or instrumental? Seems like the debate about art has always been a semantic one – whenever a piece of “art” has had an impact, those that maintain art is useless assert that it was this or that philosophical or what-have-you aspect of the work, not the artistic ones; but then 'useless' is in the very definition of art. I think the proponents of this definition do have a point, though. If we look at architecture, for instance, it is the unnecessary parts (or lack thereof) of the building that give it an artistic identity.
If one defines rap as poetry then poetry is more popular than ever.
I think a proper definition of poetry is in order here. Defined in the sense that most academicians would prefer, it would be absurd to expect poetry to be popular. The vernaculars of the classics are difficult to understand in a modern context, thus whatever is expressed becomes less accessible to the layman, unlike rap which employs, to its demographic, a familiar vernacular.
This reminds me of something from Shakespeare’s sonnet 29:
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate
probably because Blake is about as deep as a kiddie pool. If one wants religious depth one ought to pick up Milton or Dante.
Last edited by Cunninglinguist; 03-21-2011 at 10:21 PM.
Dare to know
The idea that poetry, or any art form, replaces experience does not imply it replaces with the experience of the poet (or painter, singer). You relate or react to a piece, because it can find on your the previous experience which have in your memory a similar "feeling taste".
So, when we read poem, we do not have the same feeling or experience of the writer. But it "clicks" on the feelings (all prety basic), which brings us memories, with that our own experience. So can live the feelings similar to your first kiss, but you cannt actually have a first kiss.
A bit like Wordsworth idea of memory and writing poetry. As many things, we can move writing to reading.
Richards' is not talking about the mere act of reading poetry. Of course reading isn't the same as living. But what we read (if we are serious readers) strongly influences how we live, and how we live (if we are serious in this sense as well--that is, well-rounded, emotionally adjusted, intellectually curious, and imaginatively vigorous) strongly influences what we read and how. Poetry is part of the continuum of experience (as you suggest by your reference to culture), but the blind force of culture itself cannot be the sole criterion of value in aesthetic or literary matters (unless we are willing to concede relativistic merit to Hitler's repressive standards of art). It is the epitome of culture with which we ought to concern ourselves, i.e. "the poet" (who is a metonymy for the Artist par excellence). Richards' point is that the poetry of genius is the epitome of experience (from which culture follows). Poets, in his view, are better experiencers, so to speak, than the rest of us, so we should endeavor to be more like them. I admit that this view is shockingly grandiose and strongly suggestive of displaced religious sentiment (e.g. "be like Christ"), but I find it refreshing and stimulating despite its superlatives. These sentiments were the foundation on which academic English was originally constructed, until French structuralist theories "deconstructed" the edifice of humanism and gave us postmodernism. I personally see more cutting edge potential in a return to the old school humanism of our grandfathers than in the tedious identity politics of "cultural studies" and "postcolonialism."
Hulme referred to Romanticism as "spilt religion." But Richards, Leavis, et al. weren't so far off the mark. Pejorative implications aside, poetry is in many ways akin to religion. There is an argument to be made here, although I doubt it would be very popular in the secular humanities. For one, the language of poetry and the language of religion have much in common. Most noticably, they both tend to work metaphor in a degree unparalleled by other discourses, and, arguably, they both privilege the emotive dimension of language over its referential or strictly propositional dimension. Where Richards and Leavis might have said they both chiefly concern the complex expression of feeling, a postmodernist might say they both privilege the signifier over the signified: "In the beginning was the Word."
What are we doing when we read poetry, or any serious literature for that matter, and how does it resemble or differ from what we do when we read scripture (assuming that we read it, or that we used to read it)? This isn't a question for everyone, I admit, but you don't have to be religious to look into it. I used to read the Bible as Truth, but now I only read it as literature. Though, I have enormous difficulty stating exactly what this distinction implies, hence my question.
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