Poetry, as we have discussed in previous parts of this article, depends on the Muses and access to the deepest self or soul within each person; This is not an easy thing to do. In the 18th century, Lord Chesterfield commented on how an individual could be anything he wanted to be, except a “great poet.” There has always been a recognition in all societies throughout history that the vocation of the true poet, like the true prophet, is rare and difficult. But it was not always like this; There was a time when all people were poets by nature. This time, in Christian theology, we call it prelapsary, that is, before the Fall, the fall of Adam and Eve, and their subsequent expulsion from paradise.
In my opinion, you don’t have to be a Christian to accept this argument; it’s just that the Christian myth explains it in a simple way. But the reality is that all peoples throughout all time have been religious and have engaged in religious practices. Why is this? For it is evident that the human race at some early point in its history was involved in some calamitous and aboriginal error. Humans were once happy, and then they weren’t. Hindus, ancient Greeks, and many others speak of the Golden Age, a time when humans were happy, lived in peace with the gods, enjoyed extraordinary longevity and health, and possessed extraordinary abilities that far exceeded ours. . Then, according to the Greeks, the Golden Age gave way to the Silver and so on, until we finally ended up in the Iron Age of barbarism and humans acting more like animals than animals themselves.
In short, what we have here in these powerful and potent myths is a total refutation of the modern idea of progress; on the contrary, we are regressing. It seems difficult to understand this when we have central heating, 3 meals a day in the West, we launch rockets at the moon and they threaten to smash anyone who cuts us off; but it is not that really difficult if we take into account that the technology and science that have made these ‘advances’ possible are precisely the mechanisms by which we are going to be destroyed, since the gods – God – balance the book at some point in time. future. The signs are here. Unfortunately, as Geri Giebel Chavis observed, “the tragedy we bear is worse than even a tragic fortune that is destined for us.”
But going back to the garden of Eden, the paradise before our expulsion, what about poetry then? Well, it is clear: poetry was what God gave Adam and Eden – the power of language and name – and naming to control, the true magic of all language – animals and all things; and by “all things” I mean essentially our own mind and understanding. At this point there was no prose; those in the garden only spoke poetry, and that it was poetry is certain because the language would be entirely onomatopoeic. In other words, the sense and the sound would correspond perfectly to each other, they would be in balance, or rather, in harmony. And, as we discussed in Part 3, that’s what poetry is: a harmony between inner drive and outer expression, and framed in such a way that it compels by its own apparent beauty. Lying, of course, is impossible. Imagine this: a dialogue with someone whose speech induces ecstasy, a simultaneous manifestation of goodness, truth and beauty, so that you do not want to interrupt even if you want to respond! Except that his poetry would be incomplete without your answer …
Naturally, too, in this state (the left and right hemispheres of the brain were in perfect sync) well-being is endemic and our own language hypnotizes us even further into even deeper levels of joy. Not surprisingly, the Ancients, even after the initial Fall (indeed there was a second Fall, precipitating the Flood, an event remembered by all cultures with the possible exception of the Japanese) were recorded as experiencing extraordinary longevity.
And at this point we must remember that Adam, it is said, was created as a “living soul”; also that he was created in the image of God, as was Eve. What was that resemblance? As Dorothy L Sayers pointed out in her book, ‘The Mind of the Maker’: human beings are creative, because that’s all we know about God in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. We are inherently creative, and when we are not, our humanity and divinity diminish. Second, to be like God – infinity – is, of course, to be infinite ourselves in some mysterious sense; because infinity cannot be diluted; if we are like the infinite, then that property is also contained within us. So where is it contained?
Here we get to the heart of the matter: Adam was created as a “living soul.” This is our real and eternal self; it is where the true language comes from that cannot lie – and conscience too – and gently incites, rebukes, corrects the left side of the brain or the ego mind; at least, until the ego cauterizes it. Like our subconscious, it is buried within us, and more specifically, as the ancient Egyptians and others knew, it is located in the heart. Yes, our core is in our hearts and it is from the heart, not from the head, that true poetry speaks.
How does the heart speak? It beats. The main sound of the living soul is the heartbeat; and the new living soul, the baby, grows under its influence. First, there is nothing, absence, that we could hyphenate. Second, there is a beat, which we could mark with a cross, x. And so the genius of the English language manifests itself; not all languages are stress-based, but English is. Why is this important? Because what moves us the most, the most emotionally powerful thing in our lives is not the sight, the image, but the sound, the rhythm and, above all, the metric pattern that we call iambic. I hardly need to elaborate on this, but this is why movies have soundtracks, and why we spend so much time listening to music, and why music has healing properties when used correctly. And that is why more than 90% of the best poetry in the English language is written in iambic meter.
And here is the really incredible thing: there is so much written in this metric, not because poets are deliberately trying to reproduce the heartbeat and design the emotion in a formulaic way; but because the English language is naturally iambic in structure. Writing iambic verses goes with the essence of the language; writing in other meters is much more complicated, and there are not so many long poems that one could name that are not in iambic; unless they are still readable. Of course, writing in free verse is invariably, with honorable exceptions, a complete abdication of the work of poetry.
So where do we see this structure in language? At the most basic and therefore most common levels. First, in our language’s requirement to precede most nouns with the definite or indefinite article, along with the fact that we have a large number of monosyllabic nouns. Therefore, we have “the pen”, “a book”, “some cheese” and so on; the iambic pattern is there. Furthermore, and secondly, we have the requirement that our verbs be preceded by pronouns. Again, “I walk,” “you run,” they speak, and so on – hundreds and thousands of strong, common word combinations (in fact, many of the monosyllabic verbs are what we call ‘strong’ verbs). Finally, with the plethora of prepositions and monosyllabic conjunctions, we create iambic patterns all the time without even thinking about it: ‘from love’, ‘on top’, ‘but no’, ‘or let’s go’, and so on.
What all this means is that the English language, perhaps in a preeminent way (since its poetry, worldwide, can be considered its highest artistic glory, as, for example, music could be considered the supreme artistic achievement of German), it is an expression of the heart. of emotion, of the soul – and the eternal soul is beautiful. And this is important, since, as Alan Watts said, “wonder and its expression in poetry and the arts are among the most important things that seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from animals. idiots”.
Therefore, as we come to the end of this article, it should be apparent that the writing of poetry is of prime concern to each and every one of us, and to our civilization as a whole, due to its divine origin, its healing power and because, as Norman O. Brown said, “Art and poetry have always been altering our ways of feeling and feeling, that is, altering the human body and mind,” and this leads Derek Steinberg to observe that “Even the Elaborate psychodynamic methods theories have their limitations, many would agree that literature and poetry rise far beyond them. ” Wow, what a statement! All that money, effort and time invested in the ‘research’ and the ‘science of psychodynamic theories’ and poetry – and the Muses and myths – can fly above them, which means going to a deeper level, if the metaphor can be reversed. ; because the soul’s journey, where poetry resides, is always downward, which is why Orpheus, and Dante later, had to go down first.
And we remember that at first the invocation of the Muse was an indication that the speaker was working within the poetic tradition, according to the established formulas. How important this is is shown in Christopher Bryant’s comment when he said: “The most powerful ally in resisting the debunking spirit of modern reductionism is poetry.” Poetry is by and of the Muses, and for all the reasons I have given and explored when we abandon that tradition – the Muses – we are not writing poetry at all, but the spirit of self-deception is in us, and the spirit of pride, as We insist, the pantheon of poets gives way to our petty ego and its works driven by the will.
In our world today, this is largely something we recognize as postmodern, totally invaded by secularism and a deep atheism that seeks to remove the wonder, mystery, truth, goodness, and beauty from our world. In form, it is invariably, but not always, in free verse; that absence of structure that proudly struts proclaiming a false freedom – from the shackles – from the forms – of those greater than us. But whether they abjure the form (as they normally do) or accept it (usually to corrupt it), we can always detect their work. We just have to go back to Edgar Alan Poe’s famous and true definition of poetry: “Poetry is the rhythmic creation of beauty in words.” Yes, not necessarily metric, but rhythmically and critically the creation of beauty. The beauty that is a balm for our souls; that illuminates us spiritually, emotionally, mentally; and thus casts a healing glow over our lives. This is what we want, what we must insist on. Nobody says it is easy to create; in fact, I think this article has hinted at how difficult the enterprise of poetry is, to invoke the Muse. But the difficulty is not a reason not to do it; rather, it is the spur. As Yeats said, “The fascination of the difficult.”
If we cannot be exactly like Orpheus, I suggest that we must become like Odysseus: each one sets out from the ruins of Troy and tries to find their way back home to their true love, Penelope. Penelope, for women, of course it will be a man, since in the subconscious we are the other way around. But here’s the important thing to understand: the journey home to find our true love is a symbol, because our true love is our own soul, which we said earlier is essential, eternal, and … beautiful.