Reflections on Poetic Language and Its Mode of Expression

Those who have studied the question are more or less in agreement — aided by the documents — in recognizing that poetry preceded prose: that before composing books of history or geography, treatises of grammar or philosophy, we expressed ourselves in verse and delivered rhapsodies. The bard preceded the grammaria. This is understood if we consent to see in poetry “the private song of the human soul,” as the romantics wished. This is explained as soon as we accept that poetic language is most proper to translate the cries of sadness and joy, the surges of tenderness and hatred, the fits of faith and doubt, the comforting reveries and dreadful disappointments that move and overwhelm the heart of man — as the poets have always claimed. Prose is much too disciplined and dependent on grammatical form to serve as a vehicle for the description of the passions that engage in combat within the human being, for the expression of the sufferings and joys that fill its days.

So far, we have hardly strayed from the classical point of view. Where we cease to agree with the school, is when this account of the character of poetry is completed by the declaraition that poetic language is subject to a particular maesure, to certain rhythmic combinations, submissive to rules whose code is called “The Art of Poetry.”

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We know longer understand or else we understand too well. Is poetry the translation, the representation of the emotions that shake, rattle and thrill the human being? If so, I do not see it accommodating itself well to a collection of rules — bothering itself with measures and cadences that constitute so many hindrances to sincerity of expression. If poetry is a literary process constrained by the observation of certain fixed rules, it ceases to translate, to express whatever it is that is sensed or experienced; it is no longer anything but a way of writing as conventional as prose… It could no longer trace the boiling of feelings that shake the man except through a labyrinth of rhythmic combinations where the spontaneity and truth of the emotions felt are singularly distorted.

It is not a question of denying here the architectural aspect of a poem composed of several chants, each consisting a regular number of rhyming alexandrines systematically aligned, nor of putting in doubt the monumental character of a carefully arranged theater piece, the scenes of which, meticulously organized, roll out majestic soliloquies, skilfully exempt from any infraction of the prescriptions on the tablet of rules of the poetic art. Nor is it a question of misjudging the talent, the know-how—even the genius—of the arranger. It will be admitted, however, that this arrangement is far from the “random walk” of that impetuous style which distinguishes poetry from other expressions of human thought and feeling. Instead of famous “beautiful disorder,” I see for, my part, only channels, levels, surveyor’s chains, plumb-lines…

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Undoubtedly, some form or forms are necessary for any materialization of cerebral production. It is only by donning a form that thought can render itself understandable or multiply. Papyrus, parchment, the paste of rags, that of wood, paper, colors, brushes, pencils, the canvas, the chisel, marble, the type in the printer’s shop — so many intermediaries that an intellectual producer, an artist cannot do without. What I deny is that measure and rhyme should be the only form that can clothe poetic speech. In vain you will object that it has always been that way — or nearly so — in all the literatures of the so-called civilized people, whose poetic productions — even those using unrhymed verse — make use of meters modeled on those in use among the greeks and Romans. The subject would demand a deep study. I would respond, however, and straight away, to that superficial objection there is here an intellectual influence, specifically that of a unilateral education — all considerations that reinforce my thesis.

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Neither is it a question of denying the effects that can be drawn from rhyme and meter, but of noting — as we already knew — that measure and rhyme do not endow with a poetic character the piece of literature that they constrain. An excellent rhymer can be an awful poet. What distinguishes poetry from prose is not that the later does not express itself in uniformly cadenced sentences containing a definite number of syllables, rhymed and succeeding each other in a given order — what distinguishes poetry from prose is that the manner of poetic speaking is much more instinctive, much less artificial than the mode of writing prose. Poetry can not be as constrained as prose. It hardly bothers itself with syntax and it cares little about the conventions of style: it is less clear and more tumultuous; it lends itself more to licenses, neologisms and inversions. In short, there is between prose and poetry the same difference as between a canal and a torrent that runs down a mountain.

It is certainly not a criticism of bad faith — nor of a lack of taste — nor of lack of capacity to understand the great classical or romantic poets — nor of contempt for the Parnassians. It is understood that Corneille, Racine, Boileau, Moliere, Lamartine, Musset, Victor Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, etc., have produced verses of an undeniable sweep, bearing, sonority and sentimentality. I fear, however, that with them talent has beem detrimental to instinct and sincerity. I fear that in many cases this talent can no longer be distinguished from skill and subtlety. On seeing the majestic verses of the great classics of the age of Louis XIV, I preserve some impression of rows of gentlemen beautifully adorned and carefully lined up in some drawing-room of Versailles, awaiting the passage and the smiles of the Sun King. As with the reading of the poets of the first part of the nineteenth century, I often seem to hear like a sort of rolling echo of the language of prestigious speakers, if not formidable barristers in the courtroom.

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Lastly, it is not a question of turning back against the rhymers the disdain with which they heap for so long those who do not consider the intevention of rhyme and meter — but to claim for the poet, as for every creator, as for every artist, a choice in the means of expressing themselves. It is necessary to leave to the operators the concern with sticking to the traditions of the school, the preoccupation with not displeasing the public, with being understood by the multitude. It is up to the one creates, who initiates, who does the work for themselves, to determine the form of realization most in keeping with their temperament and aspirations. If it is through Alexandrins or verses with ten metric feet that the poet renders “the intimate song of his soul” with most sincerity — who would object to it? But when we cease to look upon as inferior (sic) the poet who uses sentences following one another according to an arrangement that is his own, including a rhythm, a disposition of words that are personal to him and seem to him more appropriate to what it is important for him to sing than cadenced and rhymed phrases. Alliteration, the desired repetition of certain words, the accentuation and the highlighting of certain members of sentences, are technical processes the value of which depends on the talent of the producer and also on the design that he sustains.

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The original, creative poet, who is concerned above all with “singing” his emotions, of giving free rein to what he feels, feels deep within him — to “cry” the tragedy that unfolds in the depths of his sensible being — the one who the one who has set himself the task of poetically translating the impulses, the ups and downs, the crises, the setbacks, the retreats of the man struggling with the difficulties of the struggle for HIS life: the true poet never submits to an imposed forme, whether it is consecrated by tradition, rules or schools. If he finds in the mechanisms of meter and rhyme a tool that suits him better than any other, it is natural that he will take it up. If it is free verse that offers him a better instrument, it is normal that he would choose it. If the combination of these two modes or expression, if the use of a third method, hitherto unseen or perhaps already in common use — appears more favorable to his designs, then he will have recourse to it. In short, it is up the the poet-producer — and to the poet alone — to determine his mode of expression. That is what we claim for him and it is not a question of anything other than that.