Poetry and philosophy.

[blp]

To philosophise is to-think a lot and then-say little, something like Edgar's "Amontillado".

Poetry can but rarely does follow this rule.

In which case, for poetry, it's not a rule. And, indeed, in my own poetry, I've perpetually found myself breaking my own Strunk and White derived rule against linguistic excess. In fact, it's when I've tried to whittle my poetry down to 'essentials' in a minimalist/objectivist manner that I've liked it least.

Not that that, of course, should be used as an argument against this style of poetic writing. The point is that multiple styles, perhaps all styles, are valid, whereas for philosophy, substance, not style, would seem to be the key.

To what extent does this polarised view hold up? What about poets with a philosophical bent, such as Wallace Stevens, Elliot or Robert Duncan? Or Shakespeare for that matter? To what extent are their poetic effects necessary to their philosophical speculations or attempts at truth telling, and, conversely, to what extent do their truths give rise to a given poetics? Do the forms of their poetics render certain truths? Do they do so in spite of the apparent content? In harmony with it?

Whatever the answers to these questions, which I suspect will vary from poet to poet and poem to poem, what seems to be in play in the notion of poetry as philosophy is some kind of excess beyond basic utilitarian linguistic requirements. in this excess, there seems to me to be something intrinsically hostile to philosophy. Why? Because it represents an approach to pleasure inimical to that of philosophy: in poetry, however it is achieved specifically, it is immediate and independent of meaning and lies in the arrangement of words and their rhythms. In philosophy, to paradoxically borrow a formulation from poetry (Elliot's East Coker (no. 2 of the Four Quartets), 'You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy' - only to find, in the dryly, methodically accumulated edifices of conceptual thought, necessarily presented without adornment, shocks to and fissures in your perception of reality, as well as validations of beliefs long held but either not articulated or not validated, an experience, finally, of ecstasy.

Perhaps when Elliot or Stevens write in a philosophical mode, they are expressing this hard-won ecstasy. Elliot's 'Because I know that time is always time and place is always and only place', might come from Kant, for instance, but rather than directly promoting understanding as Kant does, it expresses Elliot's joy in understanding.

I think there's quite a lot more to say, but I'll leave it there.

[JBI]

Try looking into Giacomo Leopardi, if you haven't already. He was a poet/philosopher as well known in both in Italy.

[yanni]

"'In which case, for poetry, it's not a rule. "

From a pshycoanalytic view-point, I find it of interest that poets, who are supposed to let their emotions loose in order to create, do normally conform to- or hide behind the-"dry speech rule".

Ashamed for their blessing, their better understanding of things or perhaps for the "animal inside" that cannot be covered with words.

I dont really enjoy reading poetry: It tires me and also I feel like spying into the poet's private life (neccesary nevertheless if his message and intentions are to be understood).

[blazeofglory]

Poetry comes as a link or connection between the conscious and the unconscious, and it bridges the gap between philosophy and itself.

[wilbur lim]

Some poetry connotes philosophy,while some philosophy is written in poetry.