Poet and society

I think poetry NEEDS to be in some way connected to the real word - society - or else it's empty and stale. Of course, you have to balance between including society, and being overwhelmed by it. If you are simply overwhelmed or consumed by what's going on in the world, to the point that you can't write clearly, then you run the risk of stifling your own writing through hopelessness, defensiveness, or anger.

^mmhm. but then comes in another cool thing about poets.. : ) Often, they have the ability to resonate with a large number of people. And if some of those people understand... and can get others to understand...

It's an optimistic hope, I know, but it is possible.

"But I think that sort of poetry has to actually be completely unconnected to the real world to have any significant effect."

Interesting... why do you suppose that would be?

There is a difference between freedom and lack of discipline.

Form and metric feet are arts as much as they are forms of discipline. I personally have no respect for a poet who cannot write within the constraints of traditional poetry.

It is just like anime art. To be an artist these days, one does not have to be that good at art - only have creative and controversial ideas, whereas the likes of Monet and Van Gogh who were being laughed at for their pioneering ideas, would have themselves laughed at anime art.

What would Shakespeare, the king of iambic pentameter think of how easy we have it? Besides, I like forms, they are interesting fun and challenging. I have written many sonnets in my time - (prefer Shakespearean over Petrarchan).

^No it's not, because modern cars are simply better than classic cars, which is why they are modern. However, modern poetry is often worse than classic poetry, ceteris paribus, because modern poetry is oftentimes undisciplined.

Also, your incorrect usage of the word 'bond' is annoying.

Nuovo, I think you would be insterested in John Milton's reason for using free verse in Paradise Lost, and his definition of traditional poetry. He actually relates traditional poetry to his reason for free verse, which is different than what you are saying. Also the idea of traditional potry in England at the time is slightly mixed, since there were two styles going on in the Renaissance that different poets were using.

Hm, I had no idea 'traditional' was more than a subjective term. I shall look into geting the book, although it is unlikely as my reading list is a London traffic jam and my life is equally busy. Thanks for the information, curiosity shall be my vehicle.

The whole thing is only a couple of paragraphs long if you would like me post it.

Wow. Well, I'd love you to, if you'd care to waste your time to entertain a potentially 50 year-old paedophilic stranger.

The measure is in english heroic verse without rhyme, as that of homer in greek and of virgil in latin; rhyme being no necessaryadjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame meter; graced indeed since by the use of famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have expressed them. Not without cause therefore both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme both in longer and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicial ears, trivial and of no musical delight; which consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancints both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then of rhyme so little is to be taken for a defect , though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example set, the first in english, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming.
John Milton

Not directly does he claim anything traditional, byt using that specefic word, but as you can see, his sense of traditional is not our sense of traditional. His sense of traditional goes back to the oratory tradition of storytelling and Homer. Also, I can post more about the different types of poetry going on in England during th etime period for more info.

The two types of tradition in England during the inme were the Native tradition, characterized by both secular and religious themes, directness, simplicity, spontanaeity, and void of self artifice.
The other is the continental tradition, which follows in the footsteps of Petrarch, which is characterized by a world of conventions, style, and descriptions.

Basicly one focuses more on idea than style and the other places much emphasis on style and stays consistent with teh sm ideas.

I still think something that "makes us more aware of our existence" has the capacity to help us take charge of our existence. (Or, perhaps, existence is so frightening that being aware of it would be detrimental... gah! : D) Anyway. It's nowhere near a perfect solution, but. art clarifies some thoughts... those thoughts become actions... I'm afraid I don't have any proof about a poem that changed the world, but... art has. literature, mythology... those are the things that shape us, and poetry can be just another expression of those things.

"Poetry, and other forms of art, cannot have the capacity to solve problems because it is no more than creative observation. "
^ If this is the case, then neither does math, or physics, or anything else. If this is the case, then everything is just an observation of how the world works. If this isn't the case, which it isn't, then art, due to it's complex study and examination (what you call observations) of man can solve problems. Without man their would be no problems. But without man their would be no art. Hmmmmm.

Of course art can solve problems. Why do you think that the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Europeans during the Renaissance thought it vital to study rhetoric, the art of persuasion? Because it solves problems. Putting together a good, strong, valid argument is an art form according to aristotle and Plato. Much of the philosphical literature from the Renaissance is there to show problems, and solve them once people realize their is a problem. Hobbes, Bacon, Locke--all of these people are considered literature and they all "solve" problems with humanity. Social Contract theory, psychology, reasoning, education, it is all in there.

If you don't believe there are universal truths/goods that everyone can adhere to then you are right. But every culture in th world believes that there are certain universal truths or goods that everyone should adhere to. They are a integral part of society; just look at how governments are set up. MLK jr.'s I Have A Dream speech is art; I don't care what anybody says about this; it is art. Look at the good that speech did, along with his other speeches, which are also art.

All science, which is reguarded as fact, is nothing more than an observation of how the world works. We call it fa ct because we found that the world works that way everytime without fail, hence gravity. However, even science fails. We find that our observations and hypothesis were wrong, and we have to change them to suit our new observations. In 1491 the world, as Europeans new it, was flat. In 1492 it was round. In the 1300s the stars were heavens and the heavens were perfect, and the earth was the center of the solar system. After Galileo and his telescope the moon had flaws, there were sunspots that changed shape and place, and the sun became the center of the universe, which meant we were moving. After Newtonian Physics there were set laws to the universe that were unbreakable, but then Einstein came along and made his theory of relativity and newtonian physics was broken for many aspecs of physics that deal with space and things on an atomic level.

The point of all this, everything is based upon observationsscience doesn't necessarily solve problems that exist in the world outside of man. It solves what we have already messed up. It gives us warning to earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanoes, sometimes, but those things aren't problems; they are a natural occurence that help keep the world in balance. Philosphy and art are the only things that have actually been made purely on the basis of solving problems with humanity. That is the focus and goal of each (given not all art, much of today art is looked at for aestetics only because people believe there is nothing ne under the sun). But I would argue that good art poses the problem, allows people to see it, and then tries to solve that problem at the same time. That's how I write quite often. Even if the solution isn't spelled out, I try to put it in there.

These are the reasons why back in ancient greece and in Rome there was no difference between the sciences and mathematics as we see the differences today. No difference between rhetoric and arithmetic and medicine. They were all categorized as philosphy.

On Universal Truths:

I really like Cory’s point that science - that which we regard as facts - is really just a shifting base of looking at reality, that changes as our understanding changes. That’s why I think it IS important to have such things as art, and the philosophy that it tends to reflect. Yes, cultural mores change throughout times, and even now obviously differ across distance, but there seem to be some basic similarities that stay the same. You could look at Hobbes, as Cory brought up, who thought that humans would basically agree to certain rules: ‘I won’t kill you if you won’t kill me; I won’t steal from you if you won’t steal from me.” Kant had similar rules, based on his categorical and practical imperatives, which were basic rules of conduct that he thought were obvious to us through a priori reasoning. Now... I don’t know if I’ll ever agree with there being a priori reasoning, but Kant’s rules themselves seem intuitively natural: don’t make yourself an exception to a rule you’d expect everyone to follow, and always treat people as ends in themselves, and never simply as means to your ends.

On Wisdom:

abby, I can’t be sure, but I get the feeling that wise people are more confused than the rest of us. Who was it who said “the more I know, the more I realize how little I know?” I think it was Einstein. And that was an awkward paraphrase, but you get the idea. What you said about “fools being certain of themselves” is I think the truth.

On Application:

Maybe art and philosophy don’t ‘create’ new realities, and therefore might not -in themselves- be able to solve problems. But art and philosophy can bring to light those truths that are otherwise veiled to us, and we could use that information to at least... I don’t know. I really, honestly don’t know if there’s anything we could do that would make the world perfect. I highly, highly doubt it. It wouldn't BE the world anymore. But if we can’t “fix” creation... then what are we doing? Why are we trying? I think... though there will always be chaos in the world - always be darkness, always be hardship. But what art and philosophy can do is work to prepare people for that darkness - give them tools with which to face it.

On Random Other Things:

I’d also like to go to Greece and Italy. But I don’t know if I’d want to go to -ancient- Greece and Italy. At least, not as a woman. Unless I could pass myself off as Athena...