I suppose this is more or less my take: Poetry written for the sake of philosophy, as for the sake of anything else, affords not poetry. Poetry written for the sake of poetry itself, however, has been observed to sometimes afford or touch upon philosophy.*

*This statement exaggerates and amplifies; I think this may be true in the more extreme cases of writing poetry for philosophy, but perhaps there is a more subtle or less recognizable interrelation as well, between one's desire to articulate ideas about beauty, truth, etc, on the one hand and the need for poetry to be its own end on the other.

Erik,

Are we reading too literally here? Now, I admit, I have an aversion to Pope, so I'm going to recoil from any example citing him. But even his "What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed" contains an aesthetic, and is the basis for an aesthetic judgement.

I don't think anyone would suggest every poem should contain a brand new answer to the questions of "what do we know, what should we do, what can we hope for?" But surely every poet has thoughts about beauty and goodness and truth that go beyond saying one equals the other, and that's the extent of all possible knowledge? Surely everyone who puts pen to paper has a transformative and constantly transforming aesthetic, even if most don't care to articulate it.

Those are the two questions that most interest me: what can we say about beauty, and why are we so reluctant to say anything about it? Are there those who say we shouldn't talk about it? Yes, but we have to respect them enough to realize that underneath their objections there are defensible, intelligible judgments about the nature of beauty and the nature of poetry.

Of course, I blame Archibald MacLeish for this reluctance, but he passed on three decades ago, and that poem is from 1926. And he didn't mean it, even then.

Best,

Bill

Ann, your lunge to save us all from possible morpheme thought crime brought out the best or worst in me -- maybe they're identical. Great fun, anyway. I am going down to the corner to watch the illuminated pedestrian signs alternately flash red and green at right angles, instructing people to "Don't Hwock!" and "Hwock!". I will be thinking that a problem with big ideas about life (philosophy) in poetry lies in the readership, which is polarized and often dismissive of uncomfortable views, whether "progressive", firmly conservative (in the best sense), or just unusual. It wasn't always like that : Lucretius, Horace, Alexander Pope (yes, John W.), even LHU Tennyson, Dickinson, etc etc. Now we must fit into some asinine political cubbyhole or other, and promptly be dismissed.

I think we are perhaps, being too literal actually. I think as when you read a poem the matter at hand is rather complex, so it often happens the first approaches to it starts on the most literal level and then, reduces complex intersections with simplified reductions, only as an preliminary posture to then move outward and refine one's apprehensions. The truth is I think there's a gray area, a hazy intersection that may exist between the impulse to articulate ideas one holds about beauty and truth, etc, on the one hand; and the need for poetry to be an end in itself on the other. Clearly, ideas one holds and wants to express can come out in poetry, yet I think the danger is also still there that if poetry is only used to convey some doctrine or other, it may become versified philosophy rather than poetry. Or so I suppose.

Best,
Erik

But here, you're setting up a binary opposition, which looks an awful lot like a straw man. Surely we can say something meaningful?

Best,

Bill

From R. Nemo Hill:
But this in itself doesn't preclude poetry from touching on anything or everything. This reminds me of a call for submissions to Rattle for Feminist Poets (initial caps important), for those who identify as Feminist Poets, and "often use poetry to advocate for women’s rights." I wanted to submit to this issue, but balked when I read the word "use...to advocate"... I can never write poetry "to advocate for" something, to set out with a purpose, a sole purpose, and "use the muse." Poetry encompasses all levels and should not be deliberately, consciously confined to a purpose. Or so I believe. Which, again, means that it can touch on philosophy, feminism, ethics, etc. but cannot defined and confined by them. Poets who write about philosophy, such as Dante (and I defer to Andrew on this), it seems to me have incorporated philosophy (and ideas generally) into their overarching worldview which in turn drives their creative response, so that the subject is not imposed or artificially sought as a "subject." Indeed any subject, if not integrated into the poet's "heart," can inspire a certain artificiality. If that makes sense.

"But here, you're setting up a binary opposition, which looks an awful lot like a straw man. Surely we can say something meaningful?"

Of course we can, Bill, but not because we set out to. Setting out to convey one meaning/doctrine is where the binary opposition is set up—not in the recognition of that fatal split in work that is crippled by it from the outset.

Tarkovsky again:

"In a word, the image is not a certain meaning, expressed by the director, but an entire world reflected as in a drop of water."

"The function of image, as Gogol said, is to express life itself, not ideas or arguments about life. It does not signify life or symbolize it, but embodies it, expressing its uniqueness."

"The lines are beautiful, because the moment, plucked out and fixed, is one, and falls into infinity."

Nemo

I think Nemo's got it right. Poetry's an inside-out emanation that acquires worldly features and ego-makers along the journey.

"for those who identify as Feminist Poets, and "often use poetry to advocate for women’s rights."

Of course my identity damns me at the start, but this sounds to me Siham like identity politics gone in search of advocacy papers, surreptitiously of course.

All overt tracts will be rejected. Rather, disguise your grinding axes (Frost's forbidden grievances) in stanza form please.

"We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us--and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket." --Keats, letter to Reynolds, 2/3/18 [or 3 Feb 1818].

Andrew, I remember a review in which the male reviewer (whose name I have forgotten) criticized Alicia Stallings' poems for having no philosophy. I was shocked that he could not see that there is a humane, thoughtful, consistent world-view underpinning her work and that that is a philosophy, too, one that fits well with what poetry is trying to do. Too often the writers, usually male, who complain that there is no philosophy in a particular poet's work are looking for some kind of treatise on "the big issues" and not a poem at all. The great poems are a coming to terms with life in all of its complexity. Sometimes that coming to terms is expressed in ideas; sometimes the ideas are embodied in an experience or the poet's complicated response to it.

Susan