The poems “Easter Wings” and “The Alter” by George Herbert
are excellent examples of a particular interest of mine; words as art. For some
time now I have noticed an attraction to artists that use language for more
than their conventional method of communication. I’ll try not to spend my whole
post talking about how beautiful I think words are, but I will attach a few
links to show you what I mean.
What I think Herbert is discovering is another dimension of
meaning. From what I understand of the rise of print culture people didn’t
really have access to texts, then they did. Poetry was an auditory experience
becoming a visual experience. These two poems are proof of this transition. I
feel a sense of playfulness and experimentation when I read these poems. The
subjects are sacred and the visual depictions are sacred, but the experience of
reading it is sort of odd. I imagine these old scholarly renaissance men
turning their books sideways and going “oh!” I wonder what the public reception of this innovation was
like. From a little research it seems like this new perspective on poetry was
well received and even popularized by Herbert.
“Herbert viewed
the poem as both page and sound. This is particularly surprising as the idea of
poem as a page was relatively modern for his time. Herbert's awareness of the
poem's physicality was revolutionary. This resulted in his creation of iconic
poems with physically emblematic structures”(Chan).
The structure created a new tool for emphasis and meaning.
In “Easter Wings” for example the structure offers new possibility to the lines
“most poor,” “most thin” and “with thee.” They are the shortest lines in the
middle of each stanza and the end of a physical and representational end of a
decline and beginning of an elevation (Siemens). Today this technique is called
concrete poetry and was used by well-known poets like E.E. Cummings and Ezra
Pound. I find this style exciting and indicative of the potential poetry has
and the innovation of the renaissance. I simply find it beautiful.
Chan,
Duana. "Cambridge Authors." Cambridge
Authors RSS. University of Cambridge, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/cambridgeauthors/herbert-influence/>.
Siemens,
Ray. "IMAGINING THE MANUSCRIPT AND PRINTED BOOK IN A DIGITAL AGE."
(2010): Xii-iii. University of Victoria, 2010. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://web.uvic.ca/~siemens/pub/2010-Imagining.pdf>.
I also love these poems not just in the beauty of the words, but the actual form of the poem. There's something about the shape that adds new meaning to it. I think that's why its so important that it was printed and people had physical access to it.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think can change or is changing about poetry today, because of our digital Renaissance? Is poetry going to evolve to be not only a visual, physical experience but a visual/auditory/physical/olfactory experience? Just a thought.
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