To memorize a Shakespearean sonnet or a passage from Dante is to resist the erosion of memory, to store within oneself a treasury of language and meaning that no algorithm can retrieve on command.
Very good analysis. Indeed, poetry is subversive and always has been.
I think it’s especially so today because of how it works in contrast to the workings of modern life.
Today’s world is reductive and systematic. From job descriptions to daily routines, Pinterest inspos and productivity hacks, every aspect of our lives focuses on definitions, certainty, processes, and the illusion of control.
Poetry works differently at every level. It is a language of relationships, intuition, lived experience and emotional depth. And indeed there will always be a place for it because there are so many life situations for which definitions and analysis leave us wanting. Poetry integrates us with our experiences and with the world; today’s values separate, isolate, and throw our lives into abstraction through technology and digital experiences. In such an environment, the former kind of activity is inherently subversive.
Thank you. I found your point - and your argument- to be astute. The core of our civilization is language. The rhythms of poetry, speech, and prose are the rhythms of a well ordered brain. And, a society that has long sought the beauty of a life well ordered. From Dante to Shakespeare to Walt Whitman our civilization has yearned to elevate not only the hard beauty of human life but also our sense of creation. Art has been our answer. Thomas More and Erasmus were comrades in such a time, when darkness had been enveloping the West. ENCOMIUM MORIAE called for a rebirth, a renaissance, of the best that had been thought in the classical age. Perhaps your essay is only a praise of folly as well. Such folly is what we need now to replace the late depredations of language.
Very good analysis. Indeed, poetry is subversive and always has been.
I think it’s especially so today because of how it works in contrast to the workings of modern life.
Today’s world is reductive and systematic. From job descriptions to daily routines, Pinterest inspos and productivity hacks, every aspect of our lives focuses on definitions, certainty, processes, and the illusion of control.
Poetry works differently at every level. It is a language of relationships, intuition, lived experience and emotional depth. And indeed there will always be a place for it because there are so many life situations for which definitions and analysis leave us wanting. Poetry integrates us with our experiences and with the world; today’s values separate, isolate, and throw our lives into abstraction through technology and digital experiences. In such an environment, the former kind of activity is inherently subversive.
Can you tell me something about the painting?
This is a detail from Hans Holbein the Younger's painting "The Portrait of Erasmus" (1523) -- Erasmus of Rotterdam.
Thank you. I found your point - and your argument- to be astute. The core of our civilization is language. The rhythms of poetry, speech, and prose are the rhythms of a well ordered brain. And, a society that has long sought the beauty of a life well ordered. From Dante to Shakespeare to Walt Whitman our civilization has yearned to elevate not only the hard beauty of human life but also our sense of creation. Art has been our answer. Thomas More and Erasmus were comrades in such a time, when darkness had been enveloping the West. ENCOMIUM MORIAE called for a rebirth, a renaissance, of the best that had been thought in the classical age. Perhaps your essay is only a praise of folly as well. Such folly is what we need now to replace the late depredations of language.
Sorry … MORIAE ENCOMIUM.