Standing Up for Poetry

How often have we heard people say, "I don't like poetry. I don't get it-- why does it have to be so obscure?" Evidently, this response has existed for centuries, and Giovanni Boccaccio testifies to this. However, most people would rather read a newspaper filled with articles about current events or flip through a fashion magazine while waiting in line at the supermarket. Poetry, however, has a more select audience.

Does poetry's select audience make it a genre for snobs? While appreciating poetry requires effort and education, I do not see it as a genre for the academically elite. Not all poetry requires the explication skill of an English major. I think of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, and Ogden Nash. The average fourteen-year-old can come away with at least an elementary understanding of their most famous works.

Our culture does not celebrate philosophers-- at least not philosophers in the traditional sense-- to the extent of Renaissance Italy. However, like Boccaccio, I see today's philosophers as the academic elite. While the poets seem to belong to the people, the philosophers reign in their marble halls and only speak to a select group of carefully selected scholars. Furthermore, some academics-- for example, Barbara Christian-- have accused the philosophically-oriented literary critics of attempting to destroy poetry by emphasizing discourse over imagination.

Some things haven't changed in the past seven hundred years.

Boccaccio seems to think that poets are the true, fervid philosophers, and he says that poetry "veils truth in a fair and fitting garment of fiction." Isn't this what English majors have known all along? I remember in Medieval-Renaissance Literature how Professor Smith said that English majors do the same thing as philosophy majors, except that they have more fun. The philosophy majors can keep their pretentious titles. We both understand and can better communicate the same profound truths. After all, what is the point of possessing knowledge if you can't successfully share it?

Boccaccio also elevates the status of the poet to that of a high priest who proclaims the truth of the Almighty God. The poet uses his (or her) gifts of imagination and word-weaving and becomes a kind of benevolent sorcerer, "bringing forth strange and unheard-of creations of the mind." I find in Boccaccio's description the portrait of an individual who is a cross between the Old Testament prophet and the Romantic poet.

This brings me to consider several other facets of Boccaccio's argument. First, secular poetry can be inspired by God, who does not limit His glory to the biblical texts. I see this as a breakthrough heralding the beginning of the Renaissance sacred humanist movement. Second, Boccaccio's ideas seem to have indirectly influenced 18th century Romantic writers such as Wordsworth and Coleridge. While his concept of the sublime remains fixed in the object itself-- as opposed to the Kantian sublime-- his connection of poetry to emotional fervor is revolutionary and ahead of his time. He also sees poetry as stemming from "the creations of the mind," or the imagination. This is another view commonly associated with the Romantic movement.

Despite Boccaccio's ability to anticipate movements centuries into the future, portions of his definition of poetry remain rooted in the Middle Ages and would certainly be seen as antiquated by today's standards. He deems the knowledge of rhetoric, logic, grammar, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy necessary for the production of excellent poetry. Our contemporary conception of poetry has been shaped by the Romantic movement's emphasis on "the language of the common man," the use of everyday subjects, and the power of the imagination and emotion. We don't see the need for logical training beyond knowledge of basic grammar and spelling, and I believe that if we insisted that poets study mathematics and astronomy before being allowed to write, we would see their passion and inspiration squelched simply because most poets love the humanities, not the sciences.

Antiquated residue notwithstanding, Boccaccio gives the foundation to contemporary views of poetry and philosophy. His ideas have survived the centuries' changes and remain ingrained in society's mind.