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Poetry remains one of the most challenging of all artistic forms. The challenge of art remains to confine one's abilities within prescribed limitations, to accomplish a "type" of artistry that has qualitative, quantitative, or prescribed rules, or at least limitations that define how one proceeds and what one can accomplish. Such remains the challenge of art: not to define or to interpret, but to create against impossibilities. The Greeks, for instance, recognized that life makes no sense; we can't answer for why good people suffer, why children fall ill to pain or worse, or why those who deserve punishment seem to escape justice. Rather, we impose, as the Greeks realized, our own interpretations as to why such things happen. But are any of the standard clichés or familiar bromides satisfying? Should we begin with the most substantial, we would recognize claims that it must be "God's Will." Yet say this to someone who has lost someone after prolonged and intolerable suffering, and we could as easily face the anger and resentment of one telling us that "No God I know would wish this!" It doesn't satisfy; moreover, it answers nothing, since such as statement reflects our own faith and not substantial proof or even reasoning. In fact, we don't know why such things happen. Augustine, when faced with this dilemma, said that humanity suffers as good people feel pain, and yet bad people sometimes benefit. Then again, we often see "poetic justice" for the bad and the good rewarded. How to answer this conundrum? His answer, which satisfied him through his faith, said that when the good become rewarded and the evil feel punishment, it demonstrates God's hand in the world. However, were all good to know reward and the bad punished, no need for the Final Judgment would exist--a time comes when God judges the world. Again, this satisfied Augustine's faith; but others may find the answer a bit too "pat" for comfort. Certainly, the Greeks would have, had someone of their time expressed such beliefs. For the Greeks, life consisted of long, arduous pain, and in extreme pessimism, some claimed that "better to have never been born is best; after that, die young." But to respond to such unanswerable questions as to why people suffer, the Greek poets used art to express themselves. That is to say, life makes no sense, but art does. By creating, we can make anything make sense, answer the unanswerable, ask more questions than offered, or grant the most hideous of secrets revelation. In Greek tragedy, the goat became the sacrificial victim of the Festival of Dionysus, in which in a frenzy of drunkenness and abandon, the final act was to fall upon the sacrifice and eat its flesh and drink its blood--an act that they described as the Sparagmos. Today, we may call this Communion, for after the hideous event and suffering, the people came together as one, as a "community." Thus, the Apostle Paul says that those who do not think upon the suffering and death of Christ at the time of the Supper, they eat and drink damnation to their soul. Yet we call it Communion, because it brings believers in the Savior together in a common bond and fellowship. Thus all worship, and creativity, begins as a scream (the sound the goat emits when attacked: tagis oida, or "goat song," perhaps the meaning of our word "tragedy")--and ends with harmony and fulfillment. Anything we create begins as the most arduous and difficult, or the sacrifice and effort remain incomplete; but it ends in satisfaction and gives meaning where none previously existed. Consider poor Michelangelo, who could have done MUCH more had he been given a canvas or at least a wall to create his efforts, rather than the curved dome of the Sistine Chapel--that represents, of course, nonsense. The challenge of creativity and art lies within its boundaries and limitations. Those who work in oils can't do what those who use charcoals can; those who write for the stage have limitations that short story or novelists do not. And so it goes. Poetry remains one of the most challenging of forms because of its inherent limitations, especially those who attempt standard forms or use ages-old metrical styles. In addition to artistic form, the content of poetry captures the basic rhythms of life: everything consists of such rhythms, from our pulse and heart beats, brain waves, cycles of our bodies, seasonal changes, to the sounds of the universe. Thus, what poetry states and how it does it equates to the basic patterns of life, so that in capturing that essence, we resort to metaphors, figures of speech, and "likeness" to things of which we know in order to speak in greater understanding than that of literal speech. All poetry, even if presenting a narrative, an idea, or expressing an emotion, relies upon the greater understandings of the "soul," if you will, than our knowledge base of what words mean in our own language. For instance, it remains impossible in English to say "I love you" in any other way than to resort to poetry. Intensives don't work, words such as "very," "really," "definitely," because they do nothing or express anything: after all, what's the difference between "sick" and "very sick"? In order to do justice to the meaning, we would have to remove the intensive and find the appropriate word, such as impaired, frail, diseased, incurable, etc. So, consider how Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) approached the more meaningful statement of love: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall love thee better after death. (4th poem of Sonnets From the Portuguese)
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This page maintained by Wayne Narey; suggestions and comments appreciated--please contact wnarey@astate.edu |