Poe3

Notes on Three Poets

 

 

Thomas Stearns Eliot [1888–1965], Anglo-American

 

Poetry is not a turning loose of an emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. —From “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” 1919

 

Born to a well-to-do family and a religious lineage, this serious poet had lived a life full of strife, diligence and sensible genius. All the events in his long life—serious study, frail health, influence, conversion to Anglican Church, marriage to a madwoman, careers as bank clerk, teacher, etc.—show a well-lived existence, one that is maximized or if not totally actualized.

 

Eliot’s poetry and literary criticism existed complimentarily. His critical essays on literature paved the way for his own modern poetry, which in most ways elaborates on the doing away with the traditional notions of such discipline.

 

His significant body of work beautifully fleshes out the world of anxiety, ruin and decay. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” (1922) sums it up. Nevertheless, the sensibilities in these works seem to further on to anticipating redemption after all the desolation and despair.

 

Highly regarded as the significant poet of the twentieth century, Eliot has always been worth the trouble for readers who think his poetry is dense, undecipherable, distant, and foreign.

 

 

 

 

Gerard Manley Hopkins [1884–1889], British

 

Take breath and read it with the ears, as I always wish to be read, and my verse becomes all right.—From Selected Letters

 

Hardly known as a poet in his time, the Protestant-turned-Jesuit was predominantly spiritual, and definitely religious.

 

Hopkins’ dilemma was summed as—To be a Jesuit is to be selfless, to be a poet is otherwise. Nevertheless, he wrote much all throughout his life.

 

“I do not write for the public. You are my public,” Hopkins once wrote to poet friend Robert Bridges. Being a priest and writing peculiar and inventive poetry just jived according to his own sensibilities.

 

Introducing “inscape” and “spring rhythm,” Hopkins’ poetry contained word experimentation, irregular patterning, extensive use of sounds, movement, explosions of images and rhythm—all these were hardly recognized at his time, and much hailed by later generation of poets.

 

Such distinctive style of poetry complements his concept of redefining poetry itself by experimenting the form—and it is in this freeing from the restrictive form that he makes clear that the self becomes more than authentic, pure and true.

 

 

 

 

Rainer Maria Rilke [1875–1926], Swiss-Austrian

 

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?—From Duino Elegies: “First Elegy,” 1912

 

Rilke’s privileged and hard childhood was brought about by his parents’ dual, disparate aspirations for him.

 

His extensive travels afforded him the needed artistic growth, as he was exposed to different cultures, forms of art and significant influential personalities such as sculptor Auguste Rodin.

 

These exposures and similar literary immersions provided if not necessarily compelled him to put forth his creative talent in writing poetry. Largely, his poetic works were inspired by such experiences—his elegies were written in free verse.

 

Rilke’s literary output seeks to do away with personal subjectivity, allowing things themselves to dominate the life of the poem.

 

Rilke’s angels in his Elegies delineate his symbol for the essence of poetry. These beings, different from the ones we know in the Judeo-Christian tradition, refer to the existence that borders between the human world and the higher realm. They attempt to elucidate the intricacies of human existence.