What Is Poetry?Essay Preview: What Is Poetry?Report this essayPoetry (from the Greek poiesis/ποίησις [poieo/ποιέω], a making: a forming, creating, or the art of poetry, or a poem) is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns, lyrics, or prose poetry. It is published in dedicated magazines (the longest established being Poetry and Oxford Poetry), individual collections and wider anthologies.
Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. The earliest poems evolved from folk songs,[1] such as the Chinese Shijing, or from the need to retell oral epics, such as the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Odyssey and the Iliad. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotles Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song, and comedy.[2] Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme, and emphasized the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from more objectively informative, prosaic forms of writing, such as manifestos, biographies, essays, and novels .[3] From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally labeled as a fundamental creative act using language.[4]
Poetry primarily is governed by idiosyncratic forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony, and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor, simile, and metonymy[5] create a resonance between otherwise disparate images–a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.
Some poetry types are specific to particular cultures and genres, responding to the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as being written in lines based upon rhyme and regular meter, there are traditions, such as Biblical poetry, that use other methodologies to create rhythm and euphony. Much of modern British and American poetry is to some extent a critique of poetic tradition,[6] playing with and testing (among other things) the principle of euphony itself, to the extent that sometimes it deliberately does not rhyme or keep to set rhythms at all.[7][8][9] In todays globalized world poets often borrow styles, techniques and forms from diverse cultures and languages.
The poetry of the twentieth century has been deeply influenced by the world of social relations, such as the cultural and economic conditions in capitalist systems. By following the literary rules laid out in The Art of the Romantic Period, Western writers have developed literary practices that do not merely represent a variety of styles, but also reflect, according to contemporary tastes, all the forms of expression that have survived through the nineteenth century—ranging from poetic prose, to poetry in literary form, to poetry and performance, to classical music and poetry in a certain genre.[10][11]
The literary practices that developed into the 21st century provide a range of new opportunities for all writers. The world of ‘modern’ literature has been a particularly fertile ground, both for artists and for critics of traditional forms of expression. In the 1990s, most works of Western fiction were written by artists, especially those who had little or no experience of social struggle. While it does not appear that any of the world’s great writers were the first writers to experience the same struggles, their lives, ideas and works have been shaped by the pressures they are faced in everyday life. For young writers such as Mark Ronson, the difficulties of writing that have had a profound effect on him have not only been difficult and arduous, but also profound.[12] In response to this, many Western writers have started reading and adapting and rereading the classics. Among the many authors involved in the genre right now are Philip Roth (1955), Daniel Coyle (2006), and George Eliot (2000).[13] These works have received wide publicity as examples of poetry that are often adapted and interpreted to the contemporary age, especially when they are based on such an original set of ideas and events
As one writer put it: “Linguist does not know it’s been fifty years since I first started writing poetry, but the world has already changed.”[14]
Cultural Influences Edit
The most significant influence on Western writers is probably the cultural influence of the English language [15] The social norms of Western societies are not simply those established in their native languages, but that of other cultures, including those in the former Roman Empire, that were founded by the East, and the East Europeans that were brought along with them, and that developed into what are today Western European languages. This influences how Western writers understand the world. As authors like J.K. Rowling develop their writing style and skills, and as writers like Mark Ronson develop their artistic sense, readers may have more understanding of Western poets to begin with.[16][17] Because of the fact that Western writers are so similar to the literary styles of their day, they can differ from each other not just in style, but also in the way that English is written.[18][19]
To some extent, the literary styles of writers outside of the West today have the potential to offer a useful context for how they write about the world. Here are an example of many of the characteristics of Western literature that have shaped Western writers, starting with the ways that writers in the early twentieth century could read and explore the