Re: Kafka and rilke and Perplexity State University

You're right, John, the distinctions ultimately don't matter much -- at
least not to our daily lives, where we have to make decisions that
affect ourselves and other people. I wouldn't say that the distinctions
don't matter at all, though. And to answer your question on another
level, questioning how language works and why is a pretty natural
function, don't you think? I think the prose/poetry discussion is
ultimately the product of this kind of questioning, and is valuable to
the extent that it sheds light on it.

I appreciate the experiment you attempted in your second e-mail
tonight. I've done it myself elsewhere to prove the opposite point,
because there's a tremendous difference in how we read the "prose"
version of the words and the "poetic" version of the same words.

We slow down while reading the poetry, stopping at the end of each line,
a habit which creates a somber mood in your example that isn't quite as
evident in the prose version. We *feel* differently about the passage,
in other words, to point out one difference between the poetry and prose
versions.

It doesn't matter, of course, that the piece was originally prose. We
use the same words to write poetry that we use to write prose. The
difference is in the arrangement of the words, and the effects that the
arrangement produces. This, I think, is the primary distinction between
poetry and prose: that the arrangement of the words contributes to the
effect and meaning in poetry, and that it does not to nearly the same
extent in most prose. Every other poetic effect proceeds from this
distinction, from rhyme and meter to the compactness of ideas.

I think the word "poetic" and, by extension, "poetry" has some
interesting connotations that are relevant to this discussion. I don't
know how far back these connotations go -- I was using the word
"romantic" pretty deliberately, because I think they may not go more
than a century or two before the romantic period of English lit. and was
certainly emphasized during it. At one point, though, whenever it was,
poetry became recognized not for its form -- its employment of specific
rhyme or meter schemes -- but by the effect it produced in the reader.

This effect is loosely characterized, I would say, by a specific depth
and type of emotional response. Technically, the importance of an
evocation of a specific type of response is as old as Aristotle's
_Poetics_, at least, but I suspect the "poetic" response I'm speaking of
is somewhat different from Aristotle's catharsis.

I think the word "sublime" became pretty important around the same time
that the word "poetic" acquired this sense, and pretty soon "poetry" or
"the poetic" came to mean, in many speakers' mouths, simply anything
that produced such an effect.

I dislike these connotations being attached to the word "poetry" because
it seems to limit the effects words should be used to produce. I think
our poetry needs to show us the truth about the world and about
ourselves, not make us feel a specific type of emotion (however intense,
or "sublime," or "noble" it might be). I think our language should be
used to represent the full range of human experience, and doing so via
poetry (in the sense of literary form) is probably the most powerfully
expressive way to do this.

Also, the "feely touchy" definition of poetry seems to indulge the
feeling, as if the feeling were important in itself, without recognizing
that feelings are only meaningful to specific people as a response to
specific circumstances. They are not important in and of themselves.
They're the fuel that drives the car, not the reason the car exists.

Real poetry is like sex, but this version of the "poetic" is more like
masturbation. With the exception of Liv Tyler and a few other rare,
beautiful cases, I'd just as soon not watch.

Jim

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Received on Mon Jun 30 23:34:15 2003