[Philip Quinlan]

Originally Posted by Janet Kenny

Mark asked:
Does the ecstatic mode embarrass us today?

No. But some of it's alleged expressions do. The real thing reduces most of us to respectful silence.

Janet - I am genuinely (hopefully you know me well enough to accept that) interested in what you hint at here.

1) Examples of alleged expressions which embarrass us?
2) As someone who has experienced ecstasy in a rather singular way I find the idea of being silent about it difficult to understand.

But as for poetry in general. I think it is unreasonable to expect the reader to get out what you did not put in. Not everyone wants the reader to experience ecstasy - and that is fine. But if you do want that response there is no way in the world to craft it into being - you have to genuinely feel it.

To have one's poetry of that kind judged by others, though, is in a way to "put one's self on offer". And that is the difficult, albeit rewarding, bit.

If one sets out merely to obey the rules of craft and form then one only stands to be judged by one's success at adhering to them. Which to me feels safer. But adherence to rules of form and craft by no means excludes the expression of true emotion or ecstasy. Hopkins was most certainly a formalist.

I think there is a very genuine sense in which people these days are embarassed, as Mark says, to say what is in their heart (although I imagine it is no longer OK to speak of the "heart" as the seat of emotion in the same way that, as I was recently advised in these pages, it is no longer "good form" to speak of the "soul" as the seat of other sensibilities).

Chinese and Japanese (classical) poetry are great examples of how ecstatic emotion can be conveyed simply and without reort to wailing or chest-beating or free-form confessional. What is a haiku but the ecstasy of the moment encapsulated in what is a very exact and demanding form? Ecstasy doesn't have to declare itself from the rooftops, it can be inherent in a quiet (if not silent) and reverential way

Regards

Philip

Edited in to say: of course one can be stunned into silence by the truly beautiful, but later (when it is recollected in tranquillity perhaps?) there is very often a case for saying something about it.