Homepage
Login
New Post
Profile
Poetry is a tricky thing.
It works purely on the level of language, by stretching its power beyond the simple "normal" direct communication (like you would have in prose). A poem does not just "say things", nor it just say things "in rhymes". A poem works with different many levels of language that it's hard to understand and to judge easily, like you point out.
Some elements are intrinsic in the poem, so they are easy to identify: metrics, rhythm (remembering that no classic metrics is still metrics), sounds (assonances, rhymes, and such), phrasing (nominal style vs verbal style, etc.). The second level goes to the words chosen and the images they evoke. Some poems use plain language and usual metaphors, other work by juxtaposition of different concepts and images, up to the abstract and symbolic plane.
Ultimately, it all goes to a deeper and invisible layer which requires a lot of culture and understanding of the context. To understand a work of poetry you need to understand the cultural context where it's born. There is a reason why Eliot writes differently than Shakespeare, or Zanzotto writes differently than Foscolo. It's not just about style, or age, but there is a poetical theory behind. Also, if you write a poem today in the same style and language of any masterpiece of 19th century, it won't make a good poem, it will be just ridicolous.
There is a lot beyond the form, and all of this you cannot just tell by reading the poem.
I know it sounds very much anti-romantic, but it's too naive to believe that a poem (as any work of art) lives in itself. I also love to abandon myself into the words and images, but it's too much a simplistic solution. Being a complex and synthetic form of expression, it requires some external hints to fully grasp the meaning and the quality of it.
(0)More posts by @Connie138
Terms of Use Privacy policy Contact About Cancellation policy © selfpublishingguru.com2024 All Rights reserved.