Is Beauty the Function of Poetry?

[Louanne Learning]

First thread of the new forum!!

Let's begin with some discussion surrounding a quote from Edgar Allen Poe's The Philosophy of Composition (which you can read for free at the link):

Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem.

For Poe, beauty is the one true province or function of poetry, the genre most able to inspire “intense and pure elevation of the soul.”

I have to admit, I don’t know how he defined beauty. I think even ugly truths can be beautiful simply because they are true.

(Conversely, he saw “the excitement of the heart” as best attained through prose writing.)

Was Poe right? If so, wherein lies the beauty in poetry?

 

[murff]

It depends on what you mean by beauty. If beauty means that which pleases the eye, ear, touch, etc. then I would say it is limited. If beauty means these things as well as pleasure, then it is still limited. But there is a more comprehensive view of beauty which involves truth. Now I don't propose to know the truth and I don't think anyone does. But we definitely know something through our experience and all of that contributes to our understanding of truth. But I would suggest that truth comes to us in fleeting moments and flashes of exceptional awareness that are probably unsustainable for long periods. Truth is also elusive. This is what I think the province of poetry is. There is beauty in it. There is also pain and frustration at our inability to sufficiently articulate it or to fully understand how it affects us. There is also truth in suffering, which most people would hardly call beautiful. Beauty can be complicated. Sometimes it's beyond our grasp. Which is why I think that poetry should not try to explain things, rather offer glimpses of those extraordinary moments that are impossible to hang on to.

 

[Louanne Learning]

It depends on what you mean by beauty.

Very much so. Poe considered it an effect, not a quality. And the effect he wrote of was an elevation of the "soul" (not of intellect, not of the heart)

Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring from direct causes … that the peculiar elevation alluded to is most readily attained in the poem.

But for him, the greatest beauty was found in gloom and sorrow (calling to mind the notion of the suffering artist):

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.

I admit I am having trouble differentiating elevation of the "soul" and of the "heart"

But there is a more comprehensive view of beauty which involves truth.

This would be my philosophy, too. To me, truth is the highest beauty. But Poe would disagree:

Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object, Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion a homeliness (the truly passionate will comprehend me) which are absolutely antagonistic to that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement, or pleasurable elevation, of the soul.

Now I don't propose to know the truth and I don't think anyone does.

Here, it depends on what kind of truth you're talking about. Everyone knows their own subjective truths, and isn't that what we use as our inspiration for any work of art?

There is also truth in suffering which most people would hardly call beautiful.

Again - depends on your definition of beauty. If, in our suffering, we become more fully human, that is a beautiful thing.

Which is why I think that poetry should not try to explain things but just offer glimpses of those extraordinary moments that are impossible to hang on to.

Love this sentiment.

 

[murff]

I avoid the word "soul" in poetry because no one really knows what it means. It's an abstraction and, frankly, a short cut for something more specific that would likely make a far better poem if it was articulated or even aluded to through concrete imagery.

I admit I am having trouble differentiating elevation of the "soul" and of the "heart"

 

[Louanne Learning]

I avoid the word "soul" in poetry because no one really knows what it means. It's an abstraction

Yeah, as the ancient Greeks said, something risked in battle, and lost in death