Philosophy and Poetry
Poetry can be used to express philosophical content. In terms of the way it expresses meaning, philosophical poetry can be divided into the following two types.
The first is used to directly express a certain philosophical idea. The philosophical ideas contained in this kind of poetry can basically exist independently of the poetic form, so its meaning can be explained clearly and accurately logically. Philosophical poems belonging to this type include Lucretius's "The Relationship of Things", Pope's "The Relationship of Human Beings", Bridges's "The Covenant of Beauty", etc.
The second type is to embody philosophy in the poet's original poetic artistic conception. The author of this type of poetry makes full use of language, rhythm, association and other means to form a unique poetic artistic conception, expressing some profound value, relationship or meaningful possibility; and this kind of philosophical meaning, if separated from it, The artistic conception of poetry cannot exist. Poems that fall into this category include Shakespeare's "King Lear", Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn", Eliot's "Four Quartets", etc.
However, even if the theme of a poem is a clear philosophical statement, it can never be fully equivalent to the statement of the philosophy it expresses. If the words in a poem that convey meaning are strictly limited to illustrating a general thesis in an abstract nature, then the poem is little more than a dry didactic essay, and the specific details it may use serve only as metaphors and not as metaphors. Not a poetic symbol. If a poem expresses a clear philosophy and is also a beautiful poem, it is mainly because the author can use language superbly and express implicit insights in poetic techniques rather than logical ways, making the subject of the poem The clear philosophy is more profound, more vivid and powerful. For example, in "On the Nature of Things", Lucretius used timeless images such as "the flaming ramparts of the universe" and the "power of love" that attract and hold atoms together, making the boring atomistic theory more accessible. vivid expression. These images are not only decorative, but have their own cultural meanings: "cosmos" - a reverence for the God who rules the universe, "love" - ??a sweet reference to the god of love, "fit" - reminiscent of ancient Rome contract.
In contrast to the distinction between the two types of philosophical poetry mentioned above - explicit philosophical poetry and implicit philosophical poetry - is the difference between "clarity of intellectual expression" and "poetic poetry". The difference between "clarity of expression", that is, the difference between "philosophical meaning" and "poetic meaning". Eliot pointed out that although the philosophical meaning of Dante's "Divine Comedy" is consistent with that of Thomas Aquinas's "Introduction to Theology", the meanings understood by people reading these two works are not the same, because " "Introduction to Theology" was written using rational logic while "The Divine Comedy" was written using perceptual logic. Eliot pointed out that the philosophical meaning expressed in Dante's poetry is closely connected and inseparable from the images he created.
Poetry can express truth with the help of its own unique poetic characteristics, so poetry itself can also be considered to be philosophical. The first person to propose this point of view was Aristotle of ancient Greece. In a famous statement, he declared: "Poetry is more philosophical than history, because poetry deals with universal issues, while history deals with particular issues." Aristotle's judgment is obviously a reaction to Plato's rejection of poetry in Book 10 of "The Republic". Plato believes that the external world is semi-real, it is only the image projected by the eternal form (or "absolute meaning" or "absolute ideal"), and it is only its incomplete manifestation. He also believes that various literary and art forms are further away from reality because authors use various artistic means (such as language, rhythm, painting, modeling, etc.) to express certain parts of nature they choose at will. Therefore, their works are only "copies of copies." In contrast, Aristotle believed that nature itself has the potential to develop all things, and has been transforming these possibilities into reality to varying degrees. He pointed out in "Physics": "On the one hand, art imitates nature, and on the other hand, it perfects the shortcomings of nature." The role of art in "perfecting the deficiencies of nature" shows that art itself is philosophical. Since it is believed that the creativity of art is imitative, then the creation of art also reflects the creation of nature. Later theorists elaborated on Aristotle's theory as follows: The universal philosophical principles expressed in poetry express the soul of nature rather than the body of nature, express concrete rather than abstract concepts, and create The impulse rather than the finished result.
In short, Aristotle believes that poetry reflects and develops the creative activities of nature. It was the German poet Goethe (1746-1832) who further developed this view. Goethe believed that there is evidence that the growth and evolution of natural organic matter and human artistic creation activities all have intrinsic purposes. The role of thought is not to impose subjective laws on the objective world, but to "explore the laws from objective things." It can be seen that the two creative processes of nature and art are consistent and similar, and both have "prototypes". But Goethe's "archetype" is not a specific thing with a clear outline, but something that exists in and is embodied through something. Therefore, this "prototype" can only be perceived through people's ears, eyes, and minds.
The function of thought is to discover specific things that appear instantaneously in our real experience and are difficult to capture at ordinary times. So in essence, poetry has a certain revealing function, not because poetry directly states universal truths, but because poetry reveals the universal truths it embodies by capturing things that appear momentarily.
Some Romantic theorists in Germany and England further argued from various angles that poetry was philosophical in nature. Some early Romantic writers in Germany (such as August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Schelling, etc.) often expanded the concept of poetry and confused poetry with The relationship between philosophy. August Wilhelm Schlegel believed that since all things in nature are interrelated, each thing represents other things to a certain extent and reflects the whole picture of nature; general perception can only see the trees. The forest cannot be seen, but artistic imagination can break through limitations and show us the true universe as a whole—a universe in which everything is always in a state of movement, correlation, blending, and transformation.
Novalis and Schelling describe the integration and creativity of nature as love. Novalis equated this power with "the highest form of natural poetry"; Schelling called it "the spirit of nature, a spirit that can only speak to us through symbols."
Two later German philosophers, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, put forward new views on this issue. Schopenhauer believed that it was not love but will that made nature work. The will of nature, from inorganic matter, plants, animals to humans, can be divided into different levels; this level is determined by "ideas" that represent the role of will at a certain level. He defined art (including poetry) as a certain knowledge of ideas whose "sole purpose is to convey knowledge." Therefore, the highest art and the highest philosophy are one and the same thing, since both aim at achieving a "painless state" - that is, a state in which "we can temporarily escape the strenuous pursuit of the will." Nietzsche's (1844-1900) theory described this "will" more strongly and called it "will to power." However, he expanded the connotation of this concept to include the following different manifestations, such as: fierce thunderstorms, spring branches with first buds, babies just out of the womb, advancing war-hungry Prussian regiments, artists' creations Sensitivity, asceticism of saints, etc. In artists, this "will to power" manifests itself in the fervor of creation, the pursuit of form, and the illusion of universal laws. Nietzsche believed that philosophy and poetry are fundamentally two in one. Because "wisdom is like a woman" (representing philosophy), she will only favor "dynamic, suave and romantic men" (representing poetry). It is not eloquent discourse but the flash of poetic insight that lights the way to truth.
During the British Romantic period, a common theme was to demonstrate the identity of poetry and philosophy. Shelley once declared that the poet is the "supreme philosopher"; poetry is "all-encompassing and the center of all knowledge." Coleridge qualified this statement by arguing that poets are philosophers in the implicit sense rather than in the explicit sense. Both he and Wordsworth partly borrowed Kant's theory of imagination as the basis for the idea that poetry has implicit philosophy. Wordsworth believed that imagination is "the faculty by which the poet conceives and forms individual forms, which embody general ideas or abstract concepts." Coleridge further distinguished between primary imagination and secondary imagination . The primary imagination is "the vitality and original motivation of all human feelings"; the secondary imagination is the combination and reflection of the primary imagination, and it accepts the guidance and control of artistic purposes. The imaginations used - both primary (metaphysical) and secondary (artistic) - are repetitions in the finite mind of the endless creative activity of the infinite self; therefore, a true poet, in his There is a solid continuity between philosophical insight and poetic composition.
In the past few decades, there has been an anti-Romantic trend that tends to deny the existence of important connections between poetry and philosophy. The American poet MacLeish's famous saying "Poetry is poetry, it should not have meaning" shows the tendency of many poets in a period of disordered philosophical thought. They believe that poets should be evaluated as creators rather than prophets. From the perspective of semantics, I.A. Richards provided the basis that poetry has nothing to do with philosophy, emphasizing that the function of poetry is to express feelings and attitudes.