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 chose to be, short of 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 naturally poets. In Christian theology, we call this time prelapsarian, that is, before the Fall, the fall of Adam and Eve, and their subsequent expulsion from paradise.
In my opinion, one does not need to be a Christian to accept this statement; is that the Christian myth explains it in a simple way. But the reality is that all people throughout all time have been religious and have been involved 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 mistake. Humans were once happy, and then they weren’t. Hindus, ancient Greeks, and many others speak of the Golden Age, an era in which humans were happy, lived at peace with the gods, enjoyed extraordinary longevity and health, and possessed extraordinary abilities that far exceeded our own. . Then, according to the Greeks, the Golden Age gave way to the Silver Age and so on, until finally we 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 complete refutation of the modern idea of progress; on the contrary, we are going backwards. It seems hard to understand this when we have central heating, 3 meals a day in the West, send rockets to the moon, and threaten to rip anyone who stings us to pieces; but in reality it is not that difficult when we consider that the technology and science that has allowed these ‘advances’ are precisely the mechanisms by which we are going to be destroyed, since the gods -God- balance the book at some point in the near future . future. The signs are already here. Unfortunately, as Geri Giebel Chavis observed, “the tragedy we inflict on ourselves is worse even than the tragic fortune that is destined for us.”
But to return to the Garden of Eden, the paradise before our expulsion, what happens then with poetry? Well, it’s clear: poetry was what God gave to Adam and Eden – the power of language and naming – and naming to control, the true magic of all language – animals and all things; and by ‘all things’ I mean essentially our own minds and understanding. At this point there was no such thing as 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 impulse and outer expression, and framed in such a compelling way by its own obvious beauty. Lying, of course, is impossible. Imagine this: a dialogue with someone whose words are ecstatic, a simultaneous manifestation of goodness, truth and beauty, so that you don’t want to interrupt even if he wants to respond! Except that his poetry would be incomplete without your answer…
Naturally, too, in this state, the right and left brain hemispheres were in perfect sync, well-being is endemic, and we are further mesmerized by our own language into even deeper levels of joy. Not surprisingly, the Ancients, even after the initial Fall (there was effectively 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 need to remember that Adam is said to have been 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 Creator’: it was that human beings are creative, because that is all we know about God from Genesis chapters 1 and 2. We are inherently creative, and when we are not, our humanity and divinity are diminished. Second, to be like God, the infinite, is, of course, to be infinite ourselves in some mysterious sense; because the infinite cannot be diluted; if we are like what is infinite, then that property is also contained within us. So where is it contained?
Here we come to the crux of the matter: Adam was created as a ‘living soul’. This is our real and eternal being; it is where the true language comes from that cannot lie – and conscience too – and gently goads, rebukes, corrects the left brain, or 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? 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 mark with a dash -. Secondly, there is a time, which we could mark with a cross, x. And thus the genius of the English language manifests itself; Not all languages are stress driven, but English is. Why is this important? Because what moves us the most, what has the most emotional force in our life is not the sight -the image- but the sound, the rhythm, and above all the metric pattern that we call iambic. I don’t 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 greatest poetry in the English language is written in iambic meter.
And here’s the really amazing thing: so much is written in this meter not because poets are deliberately trying to reproduce heartbeat and design emotion in a formulaic way; but because the English language is naturally iambic in the way it is structured. Writing iambic verse goes with the grain of the language; writing in other meters is much more complicated, and there aren’t that many long poems one can name that aren’t in iambic; at least they are still readable. Of course, writing in free verse is invariably – with honorable exceptions – a complete abdication of the task of poetry.
So where do we see this structure in language? At the most basic levels, and therefore more common. First, in the requirement of our language to precede most nouns with the definite or indefinite article, together with the fact that we have a great wealth of monosyllabic nouns. Thus, we have ‘the pen’, ‘a book’, ‘some cheese’, etc.; the iambic pattern is there. Also, and secondly, we have the requirement that our verbs are preceded by pronouns. Again, ‘I walk’, ‘you run’, ‘they talk’ and so on; hundreds and thousands of combinations of strong and common words (in fact, many of the monosyllabic verbs are what we call ‘strong’ verbs). Finally, with the plethora of monosyllabic prepositions and conjunctions, we create iambic patterns all the time without even thinking about it: ‘of love’, ‘on top’, ‘but not’, ‘or wow’, etc.
What all this means is that the English language, perhaps pre-eminently (since its poetry, throughout the world, may be considered its crowning artistic glory, as, for example, the music could be considered the German’s crowning artistic achievement), it is expressive of the heart, of the emotion, of the soul – and the eternal soul is beautiful. And this is important, because 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 imbeciles”.
Therefore, by the end of this article, it should be clear that poetry writing is a primary concern for each and every one of us, and for our civilization as a whole, due to its divine origin, 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 the human mind,” and this leads Derek Steinberg to observe that “Even The psychodynamic forms elaborated by the theories have their limitations; many would agree that literature and poetry rise far beyond them.” Wow, what a claim! All that money, effort and time invested in ‘research’ and the ‘science of psychodynamic theories’ and poetry, and the Muses and myths, can fly above them, which means going into a deeper level, if the metaphor can be reversed. ; because the journey of the soul -where poetry resides- is always downwards, which is why Orpheus -and then Dante- had to go down first.
And we are reminded that at first the invocation of the Muse was an indication that the speaker was working within the poetic tradition, according to established formulas. The importance of this is shown in Christopher Bryant’s comment when he said: “The most powerful ally in resisting the discrediting spirit of modern reductionism is poetry.” The poetry is of and of the Muses, and for all the reasons I have given and explored when we leave 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 egos and their will-driven works.
In our world today, this is largely something we recognize as postmodernist, totally overrun with secularism and a deep atheism that seeks to remove 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 around proclaiming a false freedom – from the shackles – the forms – of those greater than us. But whether they renounce the form (as they normally do) or accept it (usually to corrupt it), we can always detect their work. We need only 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 balm for our souls; that enlightens 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 that it is easy to create; in fact, this article, I think, has hinted at how difficult is the business of poetry, of invoking the Muse. But the difficulty is not a reason not to do it; on the contrary, it is the spur. As Yeats said, ‘The fascination of the difficult’.
If we can’t be exactly like Orpheus, then I suggest we must be like Odysseus: each setting out on their journey from the ruins of Troy and trying to find their way home to their true love, Penelope. Penelope, for women, of course it will be a man, since in the subconscious we are backwards. But here is 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 as we said before is essential, eternal and… beautiful.