A Poetic Misprison

Poetry is at once literature and art. It crosses boundaries into music and song. Poetry has recorded history and divined great Truths. Poetry is revered as the language of the intellect and the passion of the romantic. It is mysterious and complex. It is the wooer of women and the madness of men. It is civilized. Poetry is the work of Genius and the inspiration of God.

Percy Bysse Shelly claims poetry enhances the imagination, strengthens moral character, and legislates the world (Shelly 700, 717) while Thomas Love Peacock touts that poetry is nothing but an ornamental waste of time and space (Peacock 693); it is just another commodity in the marketplace (Leitch 683). Poetry is philosophical, historical, magical, moral, beautiful, scandalous, and political. Poetry is anything and everything accept accessible to everyone, and that is exactly where poetry goes wrong.

Modern poetry has established itself as belonging solely to the educated. The layman must acquire the appropriate knowledge in order to understand the complex and intricately woven signs and signifiers of modern poetry. A poem only has meaning and interest for someone with the cultural competence to understand it (Bordieu 1810). Of the major modern poets, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelly, Landor, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Morris, Rossetti, and Swindburg to name a few, all but three had a University education and only one was not wealthy. It was not necessary for these men to work and therefore could devote their lives to study and writing (Woolf 107). The layman is not afforded the same luxuries at the elite class and as such is denied the tools needed to understand and enjoy modern poetry.

Many rejoice poetry for the very reason that the layman is not invited into this discourse. There are even those who defend and celebrate the complexities of modern poetry. Giovanni Boccaccio , in Book 14 of Genealogy of the Gentile Gods wrote a chapter, “The Obscurity of Poetry is not Just Cause for Condemning It.” He declares that poets do not intentionally try to make their verses incomprehensible. Instead, he lays the blame for the complexities of poetry on the subject. He says, “Some things are naturally so profound that not without difficulty can the most exceptional keenness in intellect sound their depths” (Boccaccio 260). Poets express themselves cloaked in obscurity to promote understanding. The difficulty makes the reader richer for having understood because their minds are opened through the act of interpretation. This practice is acceptable in the Bible so therefore it is acceptable for poetry as well. The reader is justly rewarded for the effort of sorting through all of the complex codes to achieve greater understanding (Boccaccio 261). This idea has not faded over time. Edgar Allen Poe agrees that some complexity in poetry is needed to add richness to the work (Poe 749).

With this elitist idea of poetry, writing poetry becomes even less accessible to the layman than reading poetry. If a person is well educated and has the tools of knowledge necessary, reading poetry can be an enjoyment. However, it takes much more than that to actually compose poetry. A person cannot simply decide to write poetry (Shelly 713). A poet must have the knowledge and cultural competence to encode life and truth into the language of the poem. The poet must be a genius tapped into the spirit of nature and guided by the inspiration of God. Poetry is not something that can be taught. A poet must possess that wonderful gift from God that is only bestowed upon the rarest of men (Boccaccio 258) in order to write poetry.

Acquiring an education and receiving inspiration from God is still not enough for the aspiring poet. As Virginia Woolf peruses the library shelves at Oxbridge, she concludes that one must have been a man with plenty of time, plenty of space, and plenty of money to have been a writer (Woolf 4). The layman is denied the craft of writing poetry due to its financial restraints as well. Many marginalized voices have not spoken through poetry simply because poetry is not a high enough paying profession. This is especially true for women. Women were denied education and did not interact with the world enough to be able to understand the complex semiotics of modern poetry. The modern world views women’s poetry through the eyes of Thomas Love Peacock; it is worthless and meaningless. It makes no difference whether she writes or not (Woolf 52). Again, poetry steers itself in the wrong direction.

Modern poetry travels in the wrong direction because it focuses its attention on the author. Roland Barthes, a leading figure in French structuralism, rejects the idea that the author is the sole source of meaning in a text. The author ceases to be the authority on the one correct interpretation of his text with the introduction of the possibility of multiple interpretations. Barthes contents that once a text is written, it ceases to be connected with the author. In effect, the author dies. The language of the text continues to speak without the author’s supreme explanation (Barthes 1466). Without the author’s explanation of the text, the reader is left to discover his own interpretation. This destroys the modern belief that there was one correct meaning to a text.

With the death of the author, the layman is invited into the poetic discourse. A reader of poetry who does not have the education required to understand the complex codes that were intentionally placed into the poem by the author may still be able to find meaning in the poem. The reader will bring the base of knowledge that he does have and find a place for the poem within that knowledge base. There is no correct interpretation for the reader to have to struggle to find. Poetry becomes much more accessible to everyone.

The craft of poetry still seems to lie beyond the scope of the layman’s reach. A high-class education is not needed to participate in the poetic discourse any longer, but a poet must still be able to divine great Truths. However, Truth is not sitting in novels and poems waiting for readers to have skills to extract them. The truth is found from what readers have in their knowledge base when they read the text (Emerson 722). The author will not always give truths. The author may write lies. The reader must consider the meaning that he pulls from the text, seek out the truth, and determine what to keep and what to discard (Woolf 4-5). Poetry can never express exact truth (Hume 489).

Poststructuralists deny that an absolute Truth even exists. This has been a rather difficult concept for many people to grasp as a reality. To deny the existence of an absolute Truth is to deny the very foundation of existence. However, this denial opens the door for the layman to enter into the craft of poetry. Michel Foucault theorizes that there is such a thing as truth, though not with absolution. The truth can change with the influence of the dominant ideology. The dominant ideology of the time exerts its influence on the general public to define the “center” that we focus on (Selden 185-186). For example, in America, a center that is widely accepted and understood is Christianity. However, this is not an absolute Truth. The argument against this assertion is that in the Bible it says that God in unchanging and constant. If this is so then God is a Truth. However, examining history demonstrates that Christianity, religion, and God are not constant and unchanging. Throughout time there have been men that have changed the face of religion, Martin Luther, Budda, John Calvin, King James, and Osama Bin Laudin to name a few. These men, through their thoughts and actions, altered the center of a religious thought or practice. By altering the center, they changed the characteristics of that religion, including the not so constant and ever-changing God.

Postructuralists will tell you that centers are not based on Truth, but the influence of the dominant ideology. It does not matter what we place at the center; it will change. The center is a momentary perception of what is the truth, but it is only a perception, not a reality. Since truths are based on individual perceptions and change over time, a poem, which is static in time and has multiple interpretations, cannot divine a great Truth.

The modern poet needed to be a genius blessed with a special gift. If a person must be a genius in order to write poetry then only the selected few will ever achieve becoming a poet. However, a poet does not need to receive a gift from God in order to write. In discussing the work of Monsieur G, Charles Baudelaire concluded that the author’s genius was his curiosity (Baudelaire 794). Monsieur G was not gifted or guided by God. He kept his eyes and mind open to observe the world around him. His desire to learn, observe, and even his desire to write made him a genius.

Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel states that genius and talent appear as a state of inspiration (Hegel 637). Inventions are the conceptions of the imagination. It does not matter whether the inventions imitate, invent, or represent. They do not need to be based on truth or reality. All that inventions must be able to be understood by everyone (Rosnard 297). All a person truly needs to write poetry is desire and imagination. This means the layman can become a poet.

Everyone can write poetry. The emergence of the common poet is abundant of the Internet. Thousands of web sites contain poetry written without the author having first acquired a high-class education and a gift. They are the representatives of the postmodern poet. They experiment with form and reject the elitist poetic tradition. They parody the modern poets and utilize the absurd. They write on common subjects not based on Truth or reality. With this change of the poetic center and the flood of new poetry, how will the aesthetic value of poetry be upheld?
Poets will be judged on the standards that come from the modern tradition (Eliot 1093). Poems do not have meaning without the tradition that precedes them (Hume 489). An intentional break from form has no purpose or meaning unless the form previously existed. For the same reason, a poet should not break the forms and rules of poetry simply to break them. The poet should carefully consider the reason for breaking a rule. Rules should only be broken to create, not simply to destroy (Woolf 81). The rules of art are based in experience and observation and as such, the rules will not always apply (Hume 489). They will shift with the center of the dominant ideology. The satisfaction from poetry should come from the poet’s individuality and difference from his predecessors (Eliot 1092).
Poetry’s elitist past does not allow room for the layman to participate in the poetic discourse. As the center of the dominant ideology shifts, so do the ideas about what poetry is and who the poets should be. Poetry is an art. It does not have a solitary purpose. Poetry can tell a story, record history, parody the past, or paint a picture. The poet can be anyone with the desire and the imagination to write.

Error, misinterpretation. This term appears in The Anxiety of Influence (1973) by Harold Bloom.
Thomas Love Peacock’s “Four Ages of Poetry” (1820) is not as well known as Percy Bysse Shelly’s Defense of Poetry (1821), which was written in response to Peacock’s essay.
In Revolution in Poetic Language, Julia Kristeva discusses the relationship between the symbolic and the semiotic. She theorizes that the semiotic dimension of language cannot be understood except for in the moments where it breaks through the symbolic. She analyzes subjectivity and signification through poetry.
Giovanni Boccaccio is the author of, The Decameron. His ideas on literature and humanism found the philosophical basis of the Renaissance.
Semiotics is the science of language systems. In 1915, a book published by a Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, helped define semiotics. He said that words are not symbols, which correspond to referents, but are signs made up of two parts, the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the written or spoken mark. The signified is the concept to which the signifier refers (Selden 67).








Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
1466-1470.
Baudelaire, Charles. A Painter of Modern Life. The Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
792-802.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. Genealogy of the Gentile Gods. The Norton Anthology of
Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2001. 255-262.
Bordieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. The
Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. 1809-1814.
Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” The Norton Anthology of
Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
1092-1098.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Poet.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
724-739.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Fredrich. Lectures on Fine Art. The Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
636-644.
Hume, David. “Of the Standard of Taste.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
486-499.
Kristeva, Julia. Revolution in Poetic Language. The Norton Anthology of Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
2169-2179.
Leitch, Vincent. Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, 2001.
Peacock, Thomas Love. “The Four Ages of Poetry.” The Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
684-695.
Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Philosophy of Composition.” The Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
742-750.
Selden, Raman. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. 4th Ed. London:
Prentice Hall, 1985.
Shelly, Percy Bysse. A Defense of Poetry, or Remarks Suggested by an Essay Entitled
“The Four Ages of Poetry. The Norton Anthology of Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Vincent Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001.
699-717.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1929.