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Question: More from Basic English Studies: How are form and meaning connected !?
4!.1!.1!. Outward Indications (Cont!.)
Searching for a definition of poetry, other readers look for ‘universal truth’ or some other deeper meaning in poetry more than prose, the famous nineteenth-century critic Matthew Arnold for instance (see Arnold 1880)!. Again, while some poetry might very well deal with universal truths, this is probably not the case for all!. There is no doubt some poetry which is very lovely and very popular but which, at bottom, is really neither very profound nor the expression of a universal truth!. Take these lines by Ben Jonson for instance, one of the most popular love songs in the last 400 years:
To Celia
Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in a the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine!.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine:
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine!.
[…]
In fact, to expect statements of universal truth from poetry can be rather misleading if one deduces from this that what matters in a poem is somehow what lies behind the language and its use (for this problem see the discussion in Warren/Brooks 1960: 6-20), whereas modern criticism insists that form cannot be separated from meaning (See also Theme ch!. 1!.5!.)!.
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Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
This is like work!.!.!.
First to answer your question, form and meaning are always connected and cannot be separated!. I never start with meaning when analyzing poetry, but with form!. I concentrate on the technical aspects, and then, if I'm lucky, I can find meaning!.
As to the question of "universal truth", this is either too obvious or untrue!. Literature is and should always be "universal"!. That's why we can read and love poetry from other cultures and other periods!. And I really don't see why love poetry should not be "universal"!. Poetry is not philosophy, and is not made primarily of ideas, but of words (I always say this!.!.!.)!. Www@QuestionHome@Com
To answer in simple language: Love is a universal truth!. Scientists now believe that certain animals actually feel love -- dolphins, whales, primates and canines, for example!.
I have something further to say on the subject of form, meaning and language in poetry, but prefer to say it on the Forum!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
I've got the pages to study, but please don't make me do it after I've had a few drinks!.!.!.!.It just doesn't sink in!.
You should be getting a wonderful message soon!Www@QuestionHome@Com
Ahhhh!.!.!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Facticity in poetic discourse is other than a true/false proposition!. It is not so much that form cannot be separated from meaning, as meaning is at least in part derived from form!. Ben Johnson's poem is as much a drinking song as a love poem!. Women were seldom present when it was sung, and as a serenade its use is rather modern!. It's not what's behind the language but what is within it!. Sipping Jove's nectar is a real high, one sip is all it takes!. The classical reference was all the rage!. I learned this verse as:
Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine,
Or leave a kiss within the cup
And I'll not ask for wine;
The thirst that from the soul doth come
Doth ask a drink divine
But might I of Jove's nectar sip,
I would not trade for thine!
It helps to be well in one's cups, and the meaning derives as much from the tune and camaraderie as it does from the words of the verse!. As Macliesh says: Not true! In the final analysis we ask too much, the poem should not mean but be!. It's a nice ditty!.
The song is in the same ballpark as To Anacreon on High, there's not a single Judaeo-Christian reference in the whole blooming thing, and the idealization of love is entirely fictitious!. For those who don't know about Anacreon, the tune is The Star Spangled Banner, and it was used as a kind of sobriety test, if you were loose enough to hit the full range the liquor had done its job!. Big thing in the Fourth degree of Masonic Lodges!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
I hadn't seen this poem since reading "Volpone" more than three decades ago as an undergrad; then and now I was struck by the sense that the diminishing lines of interspersed iambic tetrameter and trimeter served very well Jonson's aim of revealing, almost as a series of confessions and promises to the beloved in his trimeters, the lover's expression of his surpassing love for a mortal woman, who possessed a beauty for him even more satisfying than communion with God!. To be near her, one with her, amounted to being a superordinate goal of life, one where he was fully realized!. And yet, when one observes punctuation strictly, one is taken into the rhythm of fourteeners that, even in Jonson's time, were already losing popularity!. There is a certain profundity in this work, though it hardly compares with the greatest of Shakespeare's sonnets or the finest poetry of his plays!. We are not left with anything profound to ponder thereafter!. And yet, to dismiss the sentiment of the poem, and the ingenuity in designing its syntactical and semantic units to echo those of a chivalrous age, is not entirely correct!. What I am trying to say, but perhaps failing at miserably, is that not all poetry must sound the very depths of experiential reality or open new vistas, but the poet must strive to be artful in making connections between form and implied meaning and tone!. Form is similarly embodied in the choice of rhetorical forms, and I feel that some understanding of them is indispensable!. It seems to me that regardless of the poem's profundity of message, it achieves a greater resonance when structure and meaning in some sense correspond and reinforce each other!. Good poetry -- both reading it and writing it -- involves an awareness of such connections; meaning is made in many ways!. Www@QuestionHome@Com
On the subject of profundity, perhaps such a thing, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder!? Then again, maybe not!. Though the interpretation of some things can be subjective, such is not the case with everything!. I actually find this poem to be quite profound in its message: that the narrator is so smitten with his beloved that, not only would the touch of her lips on the cup from which she drinks (and presumably him after her) be like a kiss to him, but that could he drink from Jehovah's metaphorical divine nectar (partake of communion with God), he would prefer hers!. What he is essentially saying is that he would put his love for her before his love of God!. The level of adoration expressed herein (and the way in which he has done so) is therefore surely profound, wouldn't you say!? As for universal truth, he won't have been the first or the last man who felt like this when caught up in love's first heady rush!.Www@QuestionHome@Com