The Metaphysics of Poetry

Gus Lamarch

We all know that "Poetry" is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language - such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, etc... - and that it is used in the most different ways, so that the most diverse linguistic scenarios and concepts can be projected through both their phonetic and symbolic construction.

However, its "projections" - understand "projection" as what one wants to make explicit in an implicit way through poetic writing - do not allow the "substance" - understand "substance" as what even implicitly, does not become projectable because it is the fundamental basis of thought transformed into writing - of the concept itself to be perceived - external to individual interpretation -, therefore, one can take as true the conclusion that "poetry does not support an independent metaphysics", correct? No.

Ismail I - sixteenth century Iranian monarch and mystic poet - was one of the pioneers of Sufi mystical poetry, which is the only one - to my knowledge - capable of comprehensively externalizing the metaphysical "substance" of poetry, whether through phonetics. aesthetics, or repetition. Here are some examples:

By Ismail I - under the pseudonym "Khata'i" -

Poetry where "substance" is detectable through repetition:

"Today I have come to the world as a Master. Know truly that I am Haydar's son.
I am Fereydun, Khosrow, Jamshid, and Zahak. I am Zal's son and Alexander.
The mystery of I am the truth is hidden in this my heart. I am the Absolute Truth and what I say is Truth.
I belong to the religion of the "Adherent of the Ali" and on the Shah's path I am a guide to every one who says: "I am a Muslim." My sign is the "Crown of Happiness".
I am the signet-ring on Sulayman's finger. Muhammad is made of light, Ali of Mystery.
I am a pearl in the sea of Absolute Reality.
I am Khatai, the Shah's slave full of shortcomings.
At thy gate I am the smallest and the last servant."

Core explicit concept = I am that which brings me joy and sorrow
Core implicit concept = I am that which brings me joy and sorrow as I am a servant of God
Substance = Faith

Poetry where "substance" is detectable through phonetics:

"My name is Shāh Ismā'īl. I am God's mystery. I am the leader of all these ghāzīs.
My mother is Fatima, my father is 'Ali; and eke I am the Pīr of the Twelve Imāms.
I have recovered my father's blood from Yazīd. Be sure that I am of Haydarian essence.
I am the living Khidr and Jesus, son of Mary. I am the Alexander of my contemporaries.
Look you, Yazīd, polytheist and the adept of the Accursed one, I am free from the Ka'ba of hypocrites.
In me is Prophethood and the mystery of Holiness. I follow the path of Muhammad Mustafā.
I have conquered the world at the point of my sword. I am the Qanbar of Murtaza 'Ali.
My sire is Safī, my father Haydar. Truly I am the Ja'far of the audacious.
I am a Husaynid and have curses for Yazīd. I am Khatā'ī, a servant of the Shāh's."

Core explicit concept = I am the heir of holy glories long past
Core implicit concept = I am the heir of holy glories long past as I am the heir of my own glories
Substance = Heredity/Glory

- Realize that even mystical Sufi poetry is sometimes incapable of sufficiently deconstructing the meaning of poetry so that its metaphysical essence is fully understood -

The conclusion reached by Ismail, and by other poets and philosophers, was that:

"Poetry comprises only an authentic metaphysics, from the moment on that its analysis is done in such a way that the linguistic poetic basis is also its development and conclusion."

Therefore, poetic metaphysics is something that can only be conceived through the incomplete visualization - not absolute but subjective - of concepts.

DeScheleSchilder

Nice question. I still must absorb it well. Somehow it reminds of Jalal ad-Din Rumi.

TheMadFool

Poetry is to thought as makeup is to a woman. A poet is a beautician - enhances beauty and conceals ugliness. The metaphysics of beauty is simply our dissatisfaction (dukkha) with reality and thus our obsession with illusion (maya). Turns Buddhism which believes maya is dukkha on its head.

Janus

A poet is a beautician - enhances beauty and conceals ugliness. — TheMadFool

You've been reading the wrong poets, mate.

TheMadFool

A poet is a beautician - enhances beauty and conceals ugliness.
— TheMadFool

You've been reading the wrong poets, mate. — Janus

Why? Show me a right poet and a wrong poet and maybe there's something worth discussing.

Jack Cummins

↪Gus Lamarch

I think that poetry, or poesis, is a different way of viewing the world and, in many ways, is more about intuition than logic. It also is about language to capture images and it could be seen like painting In words. It does involve subjective expression more than reason, but it can touch and grasp higher, 'truths' as well. I think that some of the poets, including William Blake, and W B Yeats, stand out as such important thinkers in their own right. But, seeing their ideas as objective is questionable, but they did create worldviews, like many novelists and romantic philosophers.

There was, of course, the tradition of metaphysical poets, such as John Donne, but it was a very specific worldview and probably not one which could be seen as truly objective.

Corvus

Therefore, poetic metaphysics is something that can only be conceived through the incomplete visualization - not absolute but subjective - of concepts. — Gus Lamarch

There is a poetry movement called "Imagism" where the poets pursue "Part of the figurative language in a literary work, whereby the author uses vivid images to describe a phenomenon" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagism

TheMadFool

I think that poetry, or poesis, is a different way of viewing the world — Jack Cummins

:fire:

painting In words — Jack Cummins

:up:

touch and grasp higher, 'truths' as well — Jack Cummins

:ok:

seeing their ideas as objective is questionable — Jack Cummins

:chin:

In poetry, words come alive; words are the medium for a specific message, yes, but unlike prose where we're simply interested in the message, in poesis, as you put it, the medium itself, the words themselves, play a vital role.

Poetry, in a sense, is just a form of rhetoric - sometimes empty and sometimes dripping with wisdom. That's a clear sign that the medium (words) has broken free of the message (information): before poetry, words had to make sense; after poetry, words could be nonsense. Many, even poets, don't realize this simple truth.

He took
She look
They forsook
It was by the book
At the bottom of a brook
All the deed of an unscrupulous crook
Said the rather sheepish looking duke
All eyes were on the cook
The cooks eyes were on the rook
The wee babe hiding in the nook
Oh, the Jedi Master Luke
Was a disguised gook
Zook
Pook
Jook
Wook
Yook
.
.
.

Jack Cummins

↪TheMadFool

I think that you underplay the importance and significance of poetry, as a source of expression and its power. We only have to think of the writings of Homer and Shakespeare to see how they played a vital role. Perhaps, poetry can be seen as one of the main ways in which symbolic and metaphorical constructs can be depicted. Personally, my own approach and interpretation of Nietzsche's writings is on the symbolic level and I think that in some ways he can be seen as a poet rather than simply as a philosopher.

TheMadFool

underplay — Jack Cummins

downplay?

I don't mean to contradict you but, for me, poetry is more about language itself (the medium) rather than what is conveyed (the message). True that if both could be had i.e. an important message poeticized, it would be the stuff of dreams but, the emphasis on linguistic elements - rhyme, meter, whatnot - rather than meaning or, more accurately, that rhyme, meter, etc. are a must for a piece of written work to qualify as poetry suggests to me that language is the, in a sense, be all and end all of poems.

For no rhyme or reason... :chin:

tim wood

↪Gus Lamarch

What is metaphysics in this context? If the discussion is to be whether poetry have it or not, then we - I - need to know. Anyone?

Jack Cummins

↪TheMadFool

I think that the way in which you describe poetry is connected to the way in which we are becoming accustomed to think and, how indeed philosophy itself has become more concerned with language.

T Clark

I think that poetry, or poesis, is a different way of viewing the world and, in many ways, is more about intuition than logic. It also is about language to capture images and it could be seen like painting In words. It does involve subjective expression more than reason, but it can touch and grasp higher, 'truths' as well. I think that some of the poets, including William Blake, and W B Yeats, stand out as such important thinkers in their own right. But, seeing their ideas as objective is questionable, but they did create worldviews, like many novelists and romantic philosophers. — Jack Cummins

Good post. Well expressed and I agree with you thoughts.

T Clark

↪Gus Lamarch

Perhaps the poem examples you provided would read as more poetic in Persian, but in English they're pretty prosy. So I'm not sure they're very good examples.

Poetry is not generally somewhere I go for metaphysics. It kind of misses the point. There are some philosophical poets I love, in particular Robert Frost. It feels like poetry uses a different part of my mind than prose does. It goes down different pathways. I think it's more like music or visual art than it is like prose.

Serious question - Do music and visual art "support an independent metaphysics?"

However, its "projections" - understand "projection" as what one wants to make explicit in an implicit way through poetic writing - do not allow the "substance" - understand "substance" as what even implicitly, does not become projectable because it is the fundamental basis of thought transformed into writing - of the concept itself to be perceived - external to individual interpretation — Gus Lamarch

I'm not sure exactly what this means, but I think you are getting at something basic about poetry (and music and visual art). It seems similar to how I describe them - I say they don't mean anything beyond the experience of reading, listening to, or looking at them. Does that ring a bell?

Gus Lamarch

I think that poetry, or poesis, is a different way of viewing the world and, in many ways, is more about intuition than logic. It also is about language to capture images and it could be seen like painting In words. — Jack Cummins

The point precisely quoted in your passage, and which is the same subject of my inquiry, is "if poetry contains an authentic metaphysics, how can it be evidenced?", since, if the argument that "yes , the concept of "Poetry" includes a metaphysical substance", why the "method" by which the substance is evidenced, becomes indifferent to the analysis of the poetic text itself - if done through mystic language, such as Ismail I, Selim I, etc... -?

"Poetry" and its "individual metaphysical ideal", in a way, can only be discovered through the indirect and non-objective analysis of it, since, being a concept completely supported by the subjectivity of human emotions - in this regard, " aesthetics" -, a scientific and "mathematical" analysis would not result in absolute results, as there are none.

Gus Lamarch

What is metaphysics in this context? If the discussion is to be whether poetry have it or not, then we - I - need to know. Anyone? — tim wood

"The world of the hidden ideas of poetry"

Gus Lamarch

erious question - Do music and visual art "support an independent metaphysics?" — T Clark

Maybe yes, maybe not, it is difficult to say, because a concept like "metaphysics" which encompasses many other ideas, to be authentic, would need to contain some ideal that is no longer found in the generic metaphysical perception.

Personally, I believe that every essence that constitutes "aesthetic perception" and "art", is nothing more than the method that we - beings in a conscious existence - find to project unto this existence, something that is still not comprehended - emotions.

What is "beautiful" is only "beautiful" because such an object of worship projects into existence, the substance of the concept of aesthetics - like music, poetry and visual art, for example -.

tim wood

"The world of the hidden ideas of poetry" — Gus Lamarch

Very clever. Now what exactly do you suppose it means?

Gus Lamarch

Now what exactly do you suppose it means? — tim wood

"Poetry" as described by Khata'i is "composed of explicit and implicit meanings, and both are composed of a third - and fundamental - sense, which is hidden, and can only be discovered if the concept of "poetry" have an autenthic - exclusive to substantial poetic concepts - metaphysics - therefore, a world composed of ideas -".

In a more basic language:

"Imagine the generic metaphysical world of ideas; now exclude all concepts that are not the hidden substance of poetic language. If they exist - the hidden substances -, this authentic 'bubble' of the metaphysical world is the metaphysics of poetry."

tim wood

@csalisbury

↪Gus Lamarch

Meanings and sense. Reasonably simple and straightforward; probably best to stop there. No need to add a polysyllabic bit of mumbo-jumbo to the mix.

And it's easy enough, though facile, to attribute meaning and sense to the poem. In some sense it must be there. In actuality it's in the poet and if he's lucky and good, his audience. I was going to invite csalisbury to comment, him being a bona fide pretty good poet, but he appears to have been deleted.

T Clark

Personally, I believe that every essence that constitutes "aesthetic perception" and "art", is nothing more than the method that we - beings in a conscious existence - find to project unto this existence, something that is still not comprehended - emotions.

What is "beautiful" is only "beautiful" because such an object of worship projects into existence, the substance of the concept of aesthetics - like music, poetry and visual art, for example -. — Gus Lamarch

I think you and I are talking about something similar, but the language we use is too different for us to make a connection. And I don't think art - poetry, music, visual art - are about emotions in particular. At least not just emotions. I think they're about something that can't be explained or understood, only expressed and experienced.

Noble Dust

↪Gus Lamarch

It's unclear to me whether there's any traceable metaphysic to Poetry, capital P, because the two main components of poetry, 1) words (and any potential meaning ascribed to them) and 2) any given poetic structure, both change constantly over time. Even when we read the Sufis, we're reading an interpretation (to say the least); we're not reading the poetry as it was written. We're looking at JPEG's of Mona Lisa.

None of this is to say that some metaphysic of Poetry doesn't exist, but if it does, it's at best apprehended by the poet at the time of writing and possibly at no other time, but probably not by readers, and certainly not by dilettante philosophers hundreds of years later. Just off the top of my head; I probably missed some things.

T Clark

Even when we read the Sufis, we're reading an interpretation (to say the least); we're not reading the poetry as it was written. We're looking at JPEG's of Mona Lisa.

None of this is to say that some metaphysic of Poetry doesn't exist, but if it does, it's at best apprehended by the poet at the time of writing and possibly at no other time, but probably not by readers, and certainly not by dilettante philosophers hundreds of years later. — Noble Dust

Sounds like you're saying art is impossible or useless. Given your history, I know that's not what you mean.

Noble Dust

↪T Clark

Right you are, I don't mean that. Per the OP topic, I'm suggesting that what and how poetry expresses changes over time. Because "what" indicates "meaning, structure" and "how" indicates "words", this means everything that constitutes poetry (and any art form) is always in flux, which prevents any grandiose attempts by philosophy to pin the caterpillar under the glass. Again, I'm just typing while I watch baseball; I can sit down and compose something more coherent later, maybe.

Noble Dust

↪T Clark

T Clark

this means everything that constitutes poetry (and any art form) is always in flux, which prevents any grandiose attempts by philosophy to pin the caterpillar under the glass. — Noble Dust

But I think pinning the caterpillar is the whole point of art. By which I mean that, when I read Lao Tzu, I am trying to receive the message he sent 2,500 years ago. A message intended to transmit an experience from his mind into mine.

T Clark

↪Noble Dust

This is not a scientifically accurate depiction.

Noble Dust

↪T Clark

I'll take your professional word for it; I'll trade you my layman-poet word. :joke:

when I read Lao Tzu, I am trying to receive the message he sent 2,500 years ago. A message intended to transmit an experience from his mind into mine. — T Clark

As an appreciator of the Tao Te Ching, I'll mention 1) the line between poetry and philosophy for the ancients is more blurred than now, as I know you know. and 2) (as I'm sure you know) translating ancient Chinese to English with any semblance of coherency is no small task. So, already, the odds are against you receiving what the author of the Tao Te Ching might have intended (assuming they intended any single, cogent meaning). There are just so many factors, even just within the interpretation of current English poetry, for instance. I'm not highlighting all of this confusion for the sake of confusion, but just for the sake of an ironic clarity; the clarity that poetry doesn't work clearly. And the Tao Te Ching can't be classified as poetry in the same way that modern English poetry is classified, for us modern English speakers. All we can do is appropriate it to our way of reading what we think of as poetry.

So, in my view, it doesn't matter if we think we're here to pin the caterpillar. We won't do it, regardless of what we think we can do. This isn't nihilistic, or "anti-art"; it actually frees us artists to explore. Now, as to what it is we're exploring...we could begin that conversation once we establish that we can't establish anything concrete, at least not yet...

TheMadFool

I think that the way in which you describe poetry is connected to the way in which we are becoming accustomed to think and, how indeed philosophy itself has become more concerned with language. — Jack Cummins

One of my biggest fears: "...becoming accustomed to think..." There are many ways to think, false that one is any better than the other, and I'd like to check them all out, keep an open mind you know. I don't want the baggage that comes with adopting any particular "ism", becoming a this-ist or that-ist is not my idea of good philosoply; if forced, however, I'd choose to be an "ic" - skeptic/agnostic.

That was an aside; picking up where we left off, I wonder what the deal is with blank verse. This particular strain of poetry is about rhythm and not rhyme. Rhythm is, bottom line, just another way of keeping time, no? So, metaphysically speaking, poems, whether rhythm/rhyme, are clocks, linguistic clocks. :chin: What say you?

Noble Dust

↪TheMadFool

Blank verse is incredible. The rhythm of words freed from the distraction of rhyme allows the poet to explore overlooked corners of language.

T Clark

All we can do is appropriate it to our way of reading what we think of as poetry. — Noble Dust

Can we receive the message sent to us by Mozart? By the cave painters in Lascaux? By the guys who built fucking Machu Picchu? By the guys who built this 5,000 years ago?

There are just so many factors, even just within the interpretation of current English poetry, for instance. — Noble Dust

The messages of art, including poetry, are not received by interpreting it. They are received by experiencing it.

The Metaphysics of Poetry

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