I think so too. I was gonna look at some rhetorical devices in the next post. I started reading your piece the other day, but got distracted with something else. I have to come back and finish it.
I enjoyed this essay very much, Robert! Thank-you! I love Hopkins' exploration of the poetic process in "To R B"--"Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this; / I want the one rapture of an inspiration"--crafted within the limits of a sonnet. ✍🏻
Thank you Gemma. That's a beautiful poem. I was just talking with someone about Hopkins' journal the other day. He observes nature like no one else. I love that phrase, "one rapture of an inspiration."
Your essays typically cover a lot of ground elegantly and quickly. I appreciate that. Sometimes I want an example though! Reading this, I was wondering what poet would fit what theory best? Epic poets like Milton and Dante create new worlds. Poets like Keats use an exquisite amount of craft to create intense, passionate experiences almost like possessions. Johnson and Gray and Pope are kinda of "general truth" Aristotelians. Ashbery is low-mimetic (in Frye's terms) and subjective (imitating personal experience). And so on. You got me commenting and thinking...
I mean every poet has both these aspects of imitation and creation in their poetry, to different degrees. I'm reading a lot of Renaissance poetry, so Spensers Faerie Queene and Sidney's Arcadia are examples of very fanciful poetry, although they were both very interested in technique, in sound and stress and whatnot. Wyatt, on the other hand, less interested in 'making stuff up,' more concerned with technique, generally. Ashbery was imitating the internal monoloue of consciousness, and to that end developed techniques for doing that.
Ima guess that technique is formally orthogonal to the mimesis/creation categories. Almost any technique can be used with almost any approach (world-building in high or low key, fantasy, feelings, memoir, poem as artifact, poem as puzzle, etc), though it is interesting of course to see what techniques developed historically along with approaches. So I mentally discounted the technique/truth opposition pretty early in your essay, which doesn’t really stick with it either. Rightly so.
I like thinking of this using the body-soul duality as a framework. The body represents the craft, the physical expression, while the soul represents the inspiration, the spark of divinity. Both are necessary and dependent upon each other (the body incarnates, the soul inspires).
Also, I don't see how poetry can be separated from the other arts. Music is as much "inspired" as poetry. There is always some "divinity", some unteachable component with any great work of art.
This a good and substantial piece, Robert. This is your old acquaintance, the other Robert, the former Outside Cat from Instagram. I quit substack as I was not sure of my goal, but now I am back, hopefully, with a purpose. I have followed you, again.
I agree with you that Plato did not quit poetry for any lack of talent; rather, he seemed to need to provide a synthesis of poetry and the account of truth, as he understood it. In the Republic we see some sustained attacks on poetry as inculcating wrong ideas. One can agree with him that many such ideas (the ones he wants to ban by banning parts of Homer etc.) are, in fact, better to overcome in oneself. Yet, one can, thinking this, nonetheless refuse to ban those passages either because they are true, as in real people have and have those feelings and that conduct, and are also worthwhile to hear even if not provably true. But I leave this aside, as you have canvased many such issues in your article.
Good to hear from you Robert! Glad to see you're back.
I've always taken Plato's banishing of the poets with a grain of salt, after I read the thing myself. Much has been made of it. Lewis makes the point that Plato was doing it because he was trying to get away from the way people at the time were reading Homer as if he were scientific truth. His was the first attempt to give legitimacy to truth outside of the received wisdom. In that way you can see the nobility in what he's doing. Although, I side with Bloom in believing that the purpose of art isn't necessarily to make us good, but that it's no less noble for that, because it does enlarge our consciousness, and that's a good in and of itself
It's an interesting question, his opinion of poetry. I wouldnt say he was a failure at it, though, despite not making it as a dramatist, since he did give us some of the most enduring metaphors in his dialogues. And certainly some of the stories he told about Socrates were embellished or 'made up.'
His best poem is Phaedrus. It's the most beautiful thing he wrote, aside from the Apology, and even better than his Symposium. You have to remember that for Plato and Aristotle, and down to Sidney and Puttenham, poetry was not synonymous with verse, but meant any 'invented' work. Though, again, it would be interesting to know if Plato considered his dialogues 'invented' or just 'transcribed.'
This was a helpful history, thank you! I've certainly found that some of my technically more sophisticated poems have felt showhorned into submission rather than flowing from inspiration. When accompanied by inspiration, though technique is powerful and liberating. II agree with one of the other commenter that i wonder how different this is from other arts... you can't fully teach an ear for musicality, nor the vision for visual arts.
I can’t remember who I was reading, but someone made the distinction between the artist who is technically proficient, which they called erudite, and the artist who is naturally talented. I found that helpful when thinking about artists.
Also helpful! (Also, I shudder at the typos and grammatical errors in my original comment. I must have written it in a sleep deprived fog. My apologies.)
No, I'm not joking. Father of the How Many Idiots on the Head of a Pin School. No time for numnutzes, nor philosopher-kings.
I was eight when I heard about the shadows on the wall, etc., and thought he was belaboring the obvious; he is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
Even Dante paid respects to the ancients before he found God. And I dunno how you can read The Apology and not see parallels to Christ. Sounds like you havent grown much since you were eight.
The blank, which is only a forgotten life, lying behind the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an undeveloped life, lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations of other connexions with the worlds around us, than those of science and poetry. No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a self-encircling twin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a man's soul, and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well. They are portions of the living house wherein he abides. - George Macdonald, Phantastes
I think so too. I was gonna look at some rhetorical devices in the next post. I started reading your piece the other day, but got distracted with something else. I have to come back and finish it.
I imagine Tamarah’s posts will interest you too: https://open.substack.com/pub/bainbridgeislandpress/p/the-four-ways-language-turns?r=9w4rx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I enjoyed this essay very much, Robert! Thank-you! I love Hopkins' exploration of the poetic process in "To R B"--"Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this; / I want the one rapture of an inspiration"--crafted within the limits of a sonnet. ✍🏻
Thank you Gemma. That's a beautiful poem. I was just talking with someone about Hopkins' journal the other day. He observes nature like no one else. I love that phrase, "one rapture of an inspiration."
If everything is a footnote to Plato, then Plato is a footnote to Plato.
The way I described his two theories, it would seem so.
Your essays typically cover a lot of ground elegantly and quickly. I appreciate that. Sometimes I want an example though! Reading this, I was wondering what poet would fit what theory best? Epic poets like Milton and Dante create new worlds. Poets like Keats use an exquisite amount of craft to create intense, passionate experiences almost like possessions. Johnson and Gray and Pope are kinda of "general truth" Aristotelians. Ashbery is low-mimetic (in Frye's terms) and subjective (imitating personal experience). And so on. You got me commenting and thinking...
I mean every poet has both these aspects of imitation and creation in their poetry, to different degrees. I'm reading a lot of Renaissance poetry, so Spensers Faerie Queene and Sidney's Arcadia are examples of very fanciful poetry, although they were both very interested in technique, in sound and stress and whatnot. Wyatt, on the other hand, less interested in 'making stuff up,' more concerned with technique, generally. Ashbery was imitating the internal monoloue of consciousness, and to that end developed techniques for doing that.
Ima guess that technique is formally orthogonal to the mimesis/creation categories. Almost any technique can be used with almost any approach (world-building in high or low key, fantasy, feelings, memoir, poem as artifact, poem as puzzle, etc), though it is interesting of course to see what techniques developed historically along with approaches. So I mentally discounted the technique/truth opposition pretty early in your essay, which doesn’t really stick with it either. Rightly so.
I like thinking of this using the body-soul duality as a framework. The body represents the craft, the physical expression, while the soul represents the inspiration, the spark of divinity. Both are necessary and dependent upon each other (the body incarnates, the soul inspires).
Also, I don't see how poetry can be separated from the other arts. Music is as much "inspired" as poetry. There is always some "divinity", some unteachable component with any great work of art.
Thanks Abram. I think that's a good way to think about it.
This a good and substantial piece, Robert. This is your old acquaintance, the other Robert, the former Outside Cat from Instagram. I quit substack as I was not sure of my goal, but now I am back, hopefully, with a purpose. I have followed you, again.
I agree with you that Plato did not quit poetry for any lack of talent; rather, he seemed to need to provide a synthesis of poetry and the account of truth, as he understood it. In the Republic we see some sustained attacks on poetry as inculcating wrong ideas. One can agree with him that many such ideas (the ones he wants to ban by banning parts of Homer etc.) are, in fact, better to overcome in oneself. Yet, one can, thinking this, nonetheless refuse to ban those passages either because they are true, as in real people have and have those feelings and that conduct, and are also worthwhile to hear even if not provably true. But I leave this aside, as you have canvased many such issues in your article.
Best, Robert
Good to hear from you Robert! Glad to see you're back.
I've always taken Plato's banishing of the poets with a grain of salt, after I read the thing myself. Much has been made of it. Lewis makes the point that Plato was doing it because he was trying to get away from the way people at the time were reading Homer as if he were scientific truth. His was the first attempt to give legitimacy to truth outside of the received wisdom. In that way you can see the nobility in what he's doing. Although, I side with Bloom in believing that the purpose of art isn't necessarily to make us good, but that it's no less noble for that, because it does enlarge our consciousness, and that's a good in and of itself
Question to ponder: Plato’s contempt for poetry a betrayal of his failure at it? 🤨
It's an interesting question, his opinion of poetry. I wouldnt say he was a failure at it, though, despite not making it as a dramatist, since he did give us some of the most enduring metaphors in his dialogues. And certainly some of the stories he told about Socrates were embellished or 'made up.'
Ok, RC- what is Plato’s best poem? (I think I’ve got you by the short hairs…😉)
His best poem is Phaedrus. It's the most beautiful thing he wrote, aside from the Apology, and even better than his Symposium. You have to remember that for Plato and Aristotle, and down to Sidney and Puttenham, poetry was not synonymous with verse, but meant any 'invented' work. Though, again, it would be interesting to know if Plato considered his dialogues 'invented' or just 'transcribed.'
Ah, Phaedrus as trap door! You’ve escaped. Curses!
I would say the technical aspects of craft can absolutely be both interesting and inspiring when successfully illustrated, especially if the communicator conveys their own enthusiasm. I did my best here (for instance, in my discussion of an exchange in The Tempest): https://open.substack.com/pub/poemshape/p/the-multifaceted-pentameter-part?utm_source=direct&r=9w4rx&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Interesting post, Robert, thank you. An odd quirk that you posted it the day after mine!
This was a helpful history, thank you! I've certainly found that some of my technically more sophisticated poems have felt showhorned into submission rather than flowing from inspiration. When accompanied by inspiration, though technique is powerful and liberating. II agree with one of the other commenter that i wonder how different this is from other arts... you can't fully teach an ear for musicality, nor the vision for visual arts.
Thank you Clara. I’ve felt that way too before.
I can’t remember who I was reading, but someone made the distinction between the artist who is technically proficient, which they called erudite, and the artist who is naturally talented. I found that helpful when thinking about artists.
Also helpful! (Also, I shudder at the typos and grammatical errors in my original comment. I must have written it in a sleep deprived fog. My apologies.)
Plato is full of sh*t, frankly.
Surely you're joking, and don't call me frankly.
No, I'm not joking. Father of the How Many Idiots on the Head of a Pin School. No time for numnutzes, nor philosopher-kings.
I was eight when I heard about the shadows on the wall, etc., and thought he was belaboring the obvious; he is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.
Christ calls us to action.
Even Dante paid respects to the ancients before he found God. And I dunno how you can read The Apology and not see parallels to Christ. Sounds like you havent grown much since you were eight.
How tactful of you. I'll thank you to refrain from needless insult.
You're also being presumptuous. I said nothing about the ancients, just Plato.
The blank, which is only a forgotten life, lying behind the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an undeveloped life, lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations of other connexions with the worlds around us, than those of science and poetry. No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a self-encircling twin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a man's soul, and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well. They are portions of the living house wherein he abides. - George Macdonald, Phantastes