41/1001 -Auden, Steinbeck, Peters

 Day 41 - Monday, March 17th

Essay: Squares and Oblongs by W.H. Auden, on the language of poetry:

There were several phrases that brought to mind Yeats' poem on popular poetry and Frye. 

Some quotes:

"A verbal system cannot be selected completely arbitrarily, nor can one say that any given system is absolutely necessary. The poet searches for the one which seems to him to impose the most just obligations on the feelings.

...

"The process of poetic composition is a work of civilizing. A barbaric horde of emotions which cannot rule themselves are transformed into a just, loving, and self-ruling polis. Unless, however, there is already present in the initial horde a nucleus of self-rule, an idea, a phrase, the poet has no point from which to start. The degree of justice and self-rule possible in a poem is very much higher than in any historical political society. Every good poem is very nearly a Utopia.

"In the earlier stages of composition, the poet has to act like a Greek tyrant; the decision to write this phrase rather than that must be largely his, for the demand of the poem are as yet inarticulate or contradictory. As composition proceeds, *the poem begins to take over the job of ruling itself*; the transeunt rule of the poet gets weaker and weaker until, in the final stages, he is like the elected representative of a democracy whose duty it is to listen to and execute the demands of the poem, which now knows exactly what it wishes to be. On completion, the poem rules itself immanently, and the poet is dismissed into private life."

"If works of art could be created by 'inspiration' alone, i.e., automatically in a trance, artistic creation would be so boring or so unpleasant that only substantial rewards in money or social prestige could induce a man to become an artist."

"A poet is, before everything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. Whether this love is a sign of his poetic gift or the gift itself -- falling in love is something which happens to a person, not something he chooses - it is impossible to say."

Short Story: The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck

Poem

from 'On Imagination'

by Phillis Wheatley Peters

Imagination! who can sing thy force?

Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?

Soaring through air to find the bright abode,

Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God,

We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,

And leave the rolling universe behind:

From star to star the mental optics rove,

Measure the skies, and range the realms above.

There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,

Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul.

Though Winter frowns, to Fancy's raptur'd eyes

The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise;

The frozen deeps may break their iron bands,

And bid their waters murmur o'er the sands.

Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign,

And with her flow'ry riches deck the plain;

Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round,

And all the forest may with leaves be crown'd:

Show'rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose,

And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose.

Such is thy pow'r, nor are thine orders vain,

O thou the leader of the mental train:

In full perfection all thy works are wrought,

And thine the sceptre o'er the realms of thought.

Before thy throne the subject-passions bow,

Of subject-passions sov'reign ruler thou;

At thy command joy rushes on the heart,

And through the glowing veins the spirits dart.