Art and artifice of Poetry
Youtube Link: The Art and Artifice of Poetry | Hamza Yusuf & Scott Crider
[Music]
Moderator: <> recently wrote an article for us for Renovatio and you make an arguments about poetry so maybe you could just give us a little summation of that
Scott Crider: Certainly, I'm very interested in the topic of "What makes a human being, a human being". And I wanted to identify language which I quite naturally rushed to as that which makes us human and ie we are the
we are the animal with language but then I was remembering encountering this remarkable text at the beginning of putnams art of posy. And in it, he clearly sees language as central to humanity that that really constitutes our humanity as such but he does not focus on the the rhetorical aspect as much as on the poetic which I found really interesting and so I wanted to explore a reading of his text and to just draw from what he says an argument about why it may be that it's poetry that actually makes us human a particular form of language which I think he does associate with rhetoric
but he tensed and continues to throughout it to emphasize poetry itself
and I decided after following his reasoning that he thinks this is the
case because poetry is particularly concentrated form of ordering language
metrically stands a eclis figuratively and I've begun to see that he thinks
that that ordering has a way of reordering the human soul of the one who
participates in poetry and then reorders the the soul of of others as well and so
it becomes a social order and I was really quite stunned to see
that Putnam thinks that poetry more or less makes us human by remaking us
through the poetic art itself one of the interesting things about human beings is
that I don't think there's a culture or civilization that doesn't have poetry
it's a it's really an argument for a universality of nature that there is a
human nature because and and the interesting thing is almost every
peoples and cultures certainly the ones
that all the ones that we know have the poetry is very similar it's about three
seconds for each line and it begins hundreds of years before I mean we have
recorded poetry from China in like I think 500 BC and a homer obviously and
in the in the Greek tradition is even earlier and another aspect that too
fascinates me personally is that arguably every single civilization
because we have Aboriginal peoples and then we have city people people that
create civilizations of very complex aggregates of people living together and
that all of those civilizations are prefaced with great poetry mmm
so for instance if you look at the Greeks I don't think I think it's
arguable that you know you cannot have Plato or Socrates without Homer and and
the number of times that they quote Homer that's right as a source book and
in in the in the Islamic tradition the very first book is the Quran but the
Quran is preceded in almost immediately
the the the the hundred years before the
Quran is the pinnacle of Arabic poetry
and right before the the Quran emerges
was considered they had reached
Acme of poetic prowess the famous ODEs
the seven ODEs that hung in the Kaaba
these were the great they call them
heceta and and then if you look at
European civilization I mean arguably
are in Norton's anthology because with
the Song of Roland you know our
literature begins with a song of Roland
and then the the English Shakespeare is
and Marlowe and all these great poets
Ben Jonson they precede the the King
James Bible I mean it's just amazing
that the King James Bible which is
arguably what created English civilized
in my trouser before that and be a wolf
even before that but arguably
the King James Bible does so much for
America without the King James out we
don't have Abraham Lincoln we don't have
so many of the rhetorical greatness that
the civilization produced yeah the point
about Homer is extremely interesting
because it immediately raises the
question what do we mean by poetry and
on the one hand we do mean measured
speech and so we are yeah we are talking
about dactylic hexameter verse so on the
one hand we recognize that Plato's own
understanding of music is itself arising
from Homeric poetry that is is musical
accompanied or not it's a lie exactly
because meter meter itself is a kind of
lyre within the language but then of
course Homer is also a memetic artist so
not just that it's verse but that it's
mimetic or representational of human of
human action and what I find
tremendously compelling about the
antagonistic relationship between Homer
and especially Plato and you're
absolutely right Socrates will quote
the Socrates the character will quote
Homeric verse regularly but what I find
so intriguing is that it's quite clear
that Plato arguably the first writer of
philosophical texts is clearly imitating
homer and not just topically but by
fashioning works that have been
influenced by Homeric fashion sure one
of things I like to point out to
students is that's why he wanted the
poets exiled so they wouldn't see yeah
that's right that he was stealing from
them but also that he's fashioning a new
form of poetry
it seems naive to me not to recognize
that when he critiques Homer as a poet
in the Republic he knows that his
audience realizes that the Republic
itself is a poem it's narrated my
Socrates that's the dramatized narrator
he says I went down to PI Reyes the
other day and you realized that if you
were to explore Greek literature and ask
where have we heard someone tell their
own tale before about going down it
becomes quite clear that he realizes
that his audience will know that he's
imitating he's imitating homers
representation of Odysseus telling his
own tale at the fire key in court and so
I think that Plato actually wants to
write a new form of poetry but the
condition of possibility for that is is
is clearly is clearly homer and it's
that that quality of making making music
of fabricating through this mimetic art
of representation worlds fictional
worlds in which we can participate and
observe and be moved by characters who
who are not people but resemble people
it draws us into a kind of
intelligibility of human action and our
our compassion so often in response to
the
to their suffering that that I think may
actually be central to humanity which
might indicate why it's universal well
why indeed storytelling in some form or
another is is there in every culture we
encounter and I think a lot of people
have pointed this out throughout the
ages that we speak rhythmically that
human languages by its very nature
rhythmic
a lot of people are completely unaware
that Shakespeare is actually in verse
it's true because it's so natural to be
or not to be that as the good version it
just it flows trippingly off the tape
does indeed and and you can scan parts
of Lincoln and Melville absolutely I
mean you can scan parts of what we're
saying no doubts it's just
especially iambic because this is the
the the meter of the English language
tends to fall into the iambic but the
the use of meter in conveying meaning
and before because I want to extend
about poetry extend it beyond verse
because certainly it you know the Greek
concept it comes from a word which is
basically about artifice to create
something to make something and and
certainly imaginative literature is all
if it's good if it's great it reaches a
level of poetry but the epic poem which
obviously homers our greatest in in
Western civilization the epic poem it's
there's so few people have been able to
do it and it's been tried many times the
last time we had we we actually had a
caracal character in early American
history Joel Barlow
do you do I don't know he's famous for a
poem called Hasty Pudding which is very
often anthology
he was part of the Connecticut wits he
was a friend of George Washington but he
had aspirations to be an epic he wanted
to be America's epic
and and he attempted but it's it's it
was a failed attempt and it's it's just
very interesting then what's called the
noble voice you know that that was one
of them Stringfellow bar I think wrote a
book called the noble voices Ono Van
Doren actually about the epic poem why
is the epic poem so difficult to to do
no that's a wonderful that's a wonderful
question at least in literary studies we
tend to assume that the epic poem took
up took up residence if you will in the
novel and so that the novel began to do
the work of the love of the epic poem
but what's interesting about that is
that the novel is really quite
essentially composed of prose it's its
body if you will is a prose ybody
right whereas the the epic poem is in is
in verse and so a lot of people will
suggest that that may be for example
Wordsworth's prelude was the last great
epic but we actually I think live in an
age of a great epic poem derek walcott
so marrows which is a magnificent
treatment of life in in the caribbean
and and takes up a number of questions
and does so by means of a central
character named - he'll clearly named
for achilles and is always running a
Homeric parallel along his own quite
distinct contemporary Caribbean culture
Dante - is quite influential in that in
that poem but I I think it's very
difficult to do of course in part
because readers are not accustomed to
reading verse as often as they used to
be and expect their stories to be in in
prose and so when people read literature
they tend to presume that means reading
novels imaginative
literature is I won't say it's reduced
to novels but that's that really is the
form of literature people most gravitate
toward in part because we haven't taught
enough people recently how drivers
needed to write no that's exactly right
one of these is an art that has to be
taught one of the things about well not
necessarily I mean there there are
people that do naturally the Arabs are
amazing at that I know some pretty
sophisticated Arabic poets that that
really don't know the prosody of and
it's it's like Greek it's not syllabic
so it's it it's not accentually it's
it's related to the actual duration of
the word so it's long short as opposed
to light heavy or heavy light or heavy
that doesn't surprise me though actually
because as you were saying it indicates
poetry itself indicates some natural
talent for it right which means that the
measure in language is natural to
language yeah exactly and some people
will have an extraordinarily whole
musician powerful natural gift with or
without training but but but art art
will improve it right so even those
without as much talent can have that an
element proved through art you often
hear about musicians that we would
recognize as clearly quite talented who
don't know music my first thought is
always what if they did how would it
change how would it how would it change
what would be the accomplishment if all
for the Beatles actually knew how to
read music well I'm used to the song Cat
Stevens
I heard him once say that he found it so
difficult to learn other people's music
so he just decided to write his own
and I thought that was really
interesting because one of the things
about classical musicians is that all
they loot they start from day one
learning not really how to make music
but how to imitate music and and this is
something that the pre-modern world was
obsessed with with mimesis with its
artifice with with actually one of the
things was very common they the idea of
creative writing would have been insane
to to anybody before the 20th century
that the idea that you could teach
people how to write what you could teach
them to do was how to imitate and and so
they would you know have a sentence like
when in the course of human events and
then they'd have to the student would
have to write a sentence with completely
different words but following the form
of that sentence and and so artifice was
not a negative thing whereas today it's
become a very negative thing and I think
one of the tragedies of a lot of modern
especially the young people i I actually
think it's it's really unfair to them to
encourage them to write poetry because
99.9 percent of it is is tripe and and
they're not because their self-esteem
has to be boosted we're not allowed to
actually say that's doggerel and it's
complete rubbish and we have to say gee
that's wonderful great you know a way to
go and instead of doing the traditional
way which would have they would have
memorized great poetry and and
internalize it I mean we talk about
learning something by heart it's such a
beautiful idiom the idea of
internalizing something and one of the
things that the Arabs say that if you
want to be a great poet memorize the
corpus of a great poet and then forget
it that's right and I think Dylan to me
who you know there's a lot of debate
about Dylan but III really do think he
he's he will be in the Canon that's my
do and and and and there there are
people like Rick ceteris prefer Riggs
and others I just read a book about him
why Dylan matters from a Harvard
professor making that argument and I
think the Dylan when he came to New York
I think he knew 200 Woody Guthrie songs
and he was basically I've got three
imitative using ramblin Jack Elliott s--
style and then the other major influence
on him was Hank Williams who is also a
really I mean I think quite an
extraordinary lyricist Rick said makes a
make Sakai heard mix make this case
actually in public that uh that he
thinks he's influenced as well by a
number of a number of poets including
including Elliott this this DynaMed I
mean he read Verlaine Rambo he was hero
definitely had a big this dynamic of
imitation up to a habit and then a habit
which is no longer consciously imitating
and then becomes innovative and I think
is actually the classical model for for
education for education itself it's
interesting that we're talking about
teaching people how to write but of
course we also want to make readers and
so I think because of a fear frequently
of the massive technical vocabulary
that's often involved improvident
prosody people will be worried if you
will about about introducing young
people to to poetry but I think it's a
mistake because for for one thing you
cannot suppress it right so so in fact
the desire for rhyme which is a
different kind of chord than then the
most most poetry globally is is in blank
verse
so rhyme is is Chinese poetry is
definitely the Arabs are obsessed with
Ryan yeah there's a great scene in Dead
Poets Society where the character that's
played by Robin Williams Robin Williams
rips out that you know that kind of
Cartesian analytic approach the X and
the y that's right and whether a poem is
great and
even though the message of that film I
didn't like but but that one scene I
really appreciate it because I remember
very clearly the first time a poem hit
me in the gut like I was in eighth grade
hmm and and and it was a literature
class I we I was actually at a
progressive school where they had four
quads and so based on your aptitude you
went like they had a quad for it was
actually pretty horrific now and I think
about it this social engineering but
they had a quad for math and science
they had a quad for arts and music and
things and then they had a quad for just
like vocation well these are like eight
so the students were divided by yeah and
so I was in the language arts down quad
but I remember clearly reading
Ozymandias and it was just it just
really affected me you know in such a
deep way and that was the first time a
poem had ever done that that's for me
and well I was just gonna say and I
don't think had it been explained to me
in that x/y that's ripe thing it
wouldn't it it was a gut reaction I
think the question is in whether but
when pedagogically I actually I actually
do think that we should bring the art to
the to the students on the other hand I
know we have to we have to do it in a
way that actually killed doesn't kill
the spirit that that that recognition
that you had in your heart like rhetoric
you know one of the things about
rhetoric that when you learn all the
tricks it can it can it can almost take
the magic okaylet but it but if if you
if you it can also have the opposite
effect where you really appreciate the
artifice where you really appreciate
what a master is doing
and when they're when they're true
masters there's a reason why somebody
like Frost will go from it I am to
anapest in in I mean he knows what he's
doing because to him the the the form
was actually sometimes he said that a
great poet for him the form is surpasses
the importance of the content and and I
think there's a lot of truth to that I
think I think Shakespeare I mean you can
see Shakespeare is having fun with
language you know he's you can see his
tongue in cheek you know a horse a horse
my kingdom for a horse I mean you can
hear the horse trot you know and it's
such a wonderful
so to understand what he's doing yeah
you know with like a kind of spondee
type of and you it's interesting they
said you can hear it which means that
that memorization is not enough actually
what we want to do I think as well is
that once a student has memorized a poem
we want them to deliver it but when we
want them to recite it and it's there I
think where the vocabulary comes in
right as a useful way to explain the the
recitation that they're that they're
doing I think we don't do enough with
delivery unfortunately it is very
important it's almost nixed from the
Canon no that's right we live we live in
a loud culture the volume may not have
ever been this high in human culture but
the discrimination of sound from sound
act yeah the last two cannons are really
they've been mixed and and they're it's
I mean all of it really very few people
learn the invention which is so central
I mean the the the you know the first
and the dominant you know definition but
then comparison and and and in the in
the in the in the topics of invention
comparison is is that's the bread
but ER of great poetry the conceit
finding two things that are so
dissimilar and yet bringing them
together in a way that's the aha moment
shall I compare thee to a summers day
like me in fact in the poetics Aristotle
says and this I think actually confirms
something you were saying before he says
that the power of of metaphor can't be
taught and I'm not convinced of that by
the way but it's a very interesting idea
that in indeed the ability to see
counterintuitive likenesses which then
become quite intuitive is is a real gift
but there's no doubt there's no doubt
about it a figuration figuration is
crucial and metaphor metaphor central
but I still think a lot about this need
to ask students to to stand and to
deliver to use another teacher movie
that that I enjoy and that is to ask
them to speak because what I office of
assertion no that's right more and more
what I find is that the that students
will that was a plug for your book thank
you I appreciate that the students more
and more actually have trouble
articulating them themselves and again
it's not because they don't have often
quite very intelligent and interesting
things to say but they're frequently
intimidated by public public discourse
they're exceptions no doubt it seems to
me that the that any number of young
people who are particularly naturally
gifted at it yeah but I think to to ask
them to memorize so that they don't have
to access their phone but to ask them to
memorize and to ask them to recite and
to recite artistically I think is is
itself a great gift because at that
point they're being given their own
voice but it's a voice that's being
educated by by poetry itself I I make
students memorize to their chagrin in
every class that I do they have to
memorize and I incorporate poetry and
all I had
when I taught astronomy I had a book on
all the the poetry to deal with the
Stars and when I taught ethics they read
The Merchant of Venice so I always I
always have poetry and bring it in and
corporated I think it's really important
I think one of the things about did you
use sonnet 116 for the for the astronomy
course I I can't remember I actually had
a book that was just poems about the
Stars but one of the things about poets
I think is they just have brilliant ears
because people are saying poetic things
all the time
there are children are saying poetic
things I was I was at the grocery store
the other day and there was this elderly
I think she was probably Filipino
American lady and she was a little plump
and and she was in front of me and her
and her husband or significant other
showed up she was about to buy things
and he showed up with a Ben & Jerry's
Cherry Garcia you know and she looked at
it and just her eyes lit up and she said
oh my favorite and she said but I've
gained so many pounds eating that but
happy pounds you know and I I think
that's what Dickens was able to do he
just listened to people's conversations
because one of the things that that's so
clear from great poets is their
characters are so different and when a
bad writers always you feel the same 'no
sits right in the characters whereas
great writers are clearly I I once saw
somebody he was reading Dostoyevsky's
the brother to cameras off at the
airport so I just said how's that book
going for you and he just he put it down
he looked up he said this is not fiction
[Laughter]
and that's what great poetry is not
fiction in that way it's like mythology
you know it's the mythos my father's
definition of mythology was too true to
be believable
and and and I think I Dylan you know
there's there's a there's an old skit
from a from a program where where they
have Dylan at would he got through his
bedside you ever see that know what were
you know they're actors and he says
how's things going woody and he's like
the answer is bl