Alyan 1

Gökhan Alyan

Prof. Dr. Visam Mansur

Studies in English Poetry

07.06.2022

The Limits of Poetry

As a respected field of art, poetry would be restricted if one made a certain definition

of it. Due to the universality of art, it is not easy to put poetry into a particular shape with a

particular purpose. However, considering what the human race would most expect from a

poem, I shall point out the fact that most would be happy to read poetry in such an

entertaining way that it causes human beings to feel as if they were immortal. That is, poetry

should not be the reflection of nature only, it should go beyond nature and a poet should add

to what is already existed. To begin with the birth of poetry, it started in epic form in 1000

B.C. and lasted until 600 B.C. but it followed the same structure for 400 years. From The Epic

of Gilgamesh, which was found as tablets, until the last epic poem, the structure and plotline

carry similar characteristics, including the characters. Concerning the plot of epic poetry, it is

noticeable that all of the epic poems start with a quest that a hero goes on to fight supernatural

creatures or extremely long battles on a large scale. The quest requires courage, determination

and nobility although it does not have to be such. The hero goes home after a long, tiring

journey and the quest is completed. However, what must be done is to enlarge the setting and

vary the characters in a more cowardly way, which will enable the whole poem to be more

complicated and interesting. The idea of nobility and heroism, for instance, must be

deconstructed as it hinders the genre to reach universality and keeps it in a strictly structured

pattern. Wasyl Barka states in his essay called “The Nature of Poetry”: “Poetry "feeds" on

impressions from the world, reanimated by the human heart, and creates their alternatives”

(Barka 6). This brings us to that whatever we have read until now is the alternative of what
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already exists and sometimes even alternatives of alternatives. Poetry, however, is already

digging into nature with the already-existed structure and style. But poets have never actually

exceeded the boundary of the commonplace because whatever they have applied up to now is

already inside the limits of reason. By saying that, I mean that poetry has always been the

representation of nature and nothing else. In his article “Plato and Poetry”, Thomas Shearer

Duncan points out Plato’s view on poetry on this matter: “The maker, he says, does not make

the real but only a copy of the idea of a bed which God the Maker alone creates” (Duncan 8).

Metaphysical poets indeed tried their best to create art using different objects, animals, and

ideas to make bizarre combinations that, at some point, happened to push the human mind’s

limits but it did not last longer than 100 years. Plato, in his quotation above, is not wrong and

he would have appreciated poetry if it was good enough for humanity. His opposition to

poetry might have been because he did not think that poetry was instructive but deceiving, but

poetry does not have to be instructive at all now: it is neither a newspaper of the modern era

nor a brochure about a company’s products. Poetry is a tool for entertainment and the real

purpose must be to make an individual feel good. With this purpose, it is difficult to claim that

it has reached that point since it still cannot be considered to have departed from nature and

adopted universality. For instance, to make a quick analyse of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”,

one cannot disregard the fact that the poem would not reach fame if it was not for the

references Eliot made to various literary works, religious writings and historical events.

According to Plato’s quotation, Eliot used the copy of the copy which means he was in a

vicious circle with nature and this causes him to be recalled as commonplace since he has

grown away from nature instead of exceeding nature’s limits. One other matter about the

abovementioned poem is that it is far from entertaining; rather, it is depressing and depressing

for only the intellectual social class. It does not stimulate common people at all because even

if an ordinary person reads “The Waste Land”, s/he will not be able to make any kind of
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deduction out of the poem due to the references and the language Eliot used. Surely, the

argument is not reduced to whether a person with an average intellect can understand Eliot’s

poem and be delighted with it, yet his poem depends less on complete imagination than

Metaphysical poets'.

One reason why poetry has not yet gone beyond the existing limits is that throughout

the history of poetry, poets used certain styles and forms to express their feelings. That is,

poetry has been restricted in form and as a result of that, it has been restricted in terms of

meaning and pleasure for the readers. To give an example, E.E. Cumming’s poem l(a... (a

leaf falls on loneliness) is considered to be unusual but unnecessarily extraordinary.

l(a

le

af

fa

ll

s)

one

iness

There are two different ways to approach this poem: The first way is to clarify the fact that the

pattern of the poem is not accustomed. E.E. Cumming tried to create an unusual concept of

poetry and he partly succeeded as a result of the attempt to reach literary sublimity. The

second way to approach it is that the poem above is structured in a way that the rules of

syntax are violated and the meaning is ambiguous. What this poem lacks is the length;

Cumming could have created a longer poem, with the same pattern, that could merit one’s

soul. Because the feelings this poem arouses are familiar to people despite its distinctive
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structure. Although the poem is completely far from being for the ear, one might have enjoyed

it if it were in a longer shape despite the non-existent rhyme and meter.

The claim that well-rhymed poems written with a particular meter are pleasing to the

ear is merely a cheap idea in people’s minds, since having this structure does not give

pleasure on its own; but it is also the way the poet used the language and what readers infer

from the poem, as Petronius Arbiter states in his article “What Is Poetry?”: “…they are no

longer "poetry." They have been artisticated, aestheticized, stylized into artificiality and

debased into merely amusing doggerel” (Arbiter 6). To have given too much importance to

the style has unfortunately kept the artists back from searching to push the limits. A poet’s

primary duty must not be to put poetry into a particular shape, otherwise, the created work

will be an artificial, far-from-genuineness type of poem, but it must be to create concepts that

are not familiar to people in order to break out of the common structures of poetry. Besides,

the reason why rhyme was used in poetry is not only to make it sound musical, but it is also

that it was used to make the poem easy to keep in mind, for there was no written language in

ancient times. Only a child would pay attention to the rhythmic harmony of the words now,

what an adult individual would prefer is to read or hear more of defamiliarized, earth-free,

exalting verses. Because one always demands more of what s/he already possesses as a human

being gets bored very often with the stereotypical structures and feelings. The idea of “new”

must be applied to poetry in a much better way so that a piece of verse can arouse stronger or

even unusual emotions. So what does ‘depart from nature’ means?

A poet intends to exalt the emotional state of the soul with either verse that expresses

sorrow or happiness. It may be any kind of emotion as long as the poet merits the soul with

either the form or the expression, or a combination of the two. Longinus, on this matter, has a

wonderful quotation pointed out by Marta Isabel de Oliveira Várzeas in her article called

“Beyond the Limits: Longinus’ On the Sublime”:

… nature made man to be no humble or lowly creature, but … implanted in our minds

from the start an irresistible desire for anything which is great and, in relation to

ourselves, supernatural. The universe therefore is not wide enough for the range of

human speculation and intellect. Our thoughts often travel beyond the boundaries of

our surroundings. (Oliveira Várzeas 3)

By taking Longinus’ words into consideration, it is necessary to ask this question: Why can a

poet not write what s/he has experienced during the travel that s/he has gone on beyond the

boundaries of his/her surroundings? The answer has not been given yet, however, according

to Longinus, a poem must be a product that provides extraordinary feelings to exalt the human

soul by surpassing the reason’s measure. The idea of ‘going beyond the limits’ is emphasized

in the work since literary sublimity, to Longinus, is the way for a soul to approach the divine.

The concept of poetry, by now, should have been changed towards what is beyond nature.

Because if poetry means arousing diverse emotions, then it is hard to appreciate the outcome

of the work that has been done by the poets up to now. It would be cruel to claim that poetry

must go beyond the boundaries of nature only, because if it ever does, that means poetry will

be detached from the society for a long time since it will take people a long amount of time to

get used to the new concept of poetry. Rather, poetry must keep the tie tight between nature

and what is beyond it as in “Theory of Poetry”, Merle E. Brown states: “The individuality, the

uniqueness, of any truly human action is a quality of that normative, criteriological,

adjudicating act of thinking. In themselves, one's feelings and even his articulation of those

feelings are almost certain to be commonplace and convention” (Brown 7).

To conclude, one’s understanding of poetry must not go around in a vicious circle, but

it must be in a linear change parallel with time. That is, an individual must have the chance to

experience various concepts of poetry created in his/her lifetime. As it has not yet been

possible until now, the power of poetry has started to decrease over the masses, which leads
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societies to seek other areas for entertainment, mostly in a digital universe. Instead, poetry

should have been at the center of development as the most influential device to please people

by defamiliarizing the feelings they already possess. Although poetry used to be quite

important in ancient times and highly appreciated by societies, it does not make any change in

the human mind when it is read. Because the concept is already familiar to people and they do

not show any sign of enthusiasm to read what they expect roughly except for the minority

who are already passionate about reading and writing poetry. Therefore, poetry would mean

much more than it does now if the types of which were in a continuous change in terms of

both the structure and the way they arouse emotions. Because then, poetry would be able to

reflect what is hidden beyond nature.

Works Cited

Arbiter, Petronius. “What Is Poetry?” The Art World, vol. 3, no. 6, 1918, pp. 506–11. JSTOR,

https://doi.org/10.2307/25588388. Accessed 5 Jun. 2022.

Barka, Wasyl. “The Nature of Poetry.” Agni, no. 35, 1992, pp. 197–202. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/23009585. Accessed 5 Jun. 2022.

Brown, Merle E. “Theory of Poetry.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 16, no. 2, 1975, pp. 241–

48. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1207549. Accessed 5 Jun. 2022.

Corfman, A. (2021, November 13). l(a (A Leaf Falls with Loneliness) by E.E. Cummings.

Poem Analysis. Retrieved June 1, 2022, from https://poemanalysis.com/ee-

cummings/a-leaf-falls-with-loneliness/

Duncan, Thomas Shearer. “Plato and Poetry.” The Classical Journal, vol. 40, no. 8, 1945, pp.

481–94. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292274. Accessed 5 Jun. 2022.

Oliveira Várzeas, Marta Isabel de. “Beyond the Limits: Longinus’ On the Sublime.”

Faculdade de Letras Da Universidade Do Porto Centro de Estudos Clássicos e

Humanísticos Da Universidade de Coimbra, 2021. ORCHİD, repositorio-

aberto.up.pt/handle/10216/136994.