On the Universality of Poetry
On the Universality of PoetryLike any art form, poetry is considered universal. It ranks with music, dance, and fine arts as a form or process of expressing Man's thoughts and passions. Unlike other art forms, however, poetry -- and in fact literature -- has a peculiar characteristic. As a medium it uses language, and unlike other mediums -- like rocks, paints, beat -- language is not universal, it is cultural. Since culture varies according to geography, time, religion, and gender -- it is without doubt that there are multitudes of different languages. Thus poetry becomes cultural or non-universal in form, a characteristic that confines the production and reception of poetry to people that understand the form(language, symbolism, idiom etc etc) that poetry use ---a relatively small class of people.
Some time ago, our English class read T.S. Elliot's "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock", a long poem in the form of a soliloquy on whether or not the persona should or should not approach a woman he loves, eat a peach, or part his hair. Critiques declared it as the modern Hamlet -- a reflection of the consciousness of the Modern Man. They exclaimed that the poem is a concise description of resent ideologies and philosophies. With a lot of difficulty and guidance, we understood and even appreciated the poem, primarily because we are familiar with the "language" that Elliot used. But would a farmer or just abut any individual unfamiliar with the nuances of poetry understand o appreciate it? Maybe, but the most probable scenario is that they would understand the major points of the poem, but t not recognize little details that make the poem great -- the fact that it contains excerpts from major English writers and that the images in the poem echoes its sense.
It can also be noted that the allusions present in "Prufrock" are Western in origin. There are cuts from Chaucer, Donne, Shakespeare and about every other canonical English writers. This technique of alluding to the Masters is...
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