[转载]《英诗理解指南》【IV】1.3 What Is the Good of R

《英诗理解指南》(续)

A Guide to the Understanding

of English Poetry

(Continued)

1.3 What Is the Good of Reading Poems?

    With life as short as it is, with so many demands on our time, and with so many books, journals, magazines and newspapers of information waiting to be read, why should we spend precious time on reading poems? The simplest answer might be for understanding and for enjoyment.

    As is known, poetry is one of the literary forms and an art as well. In all ages and all countries, poems have been composed, widely read, and listened to by all sorts of people: old and young, men and women. In fact, poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient. But in the industrial and commercial society of today, human beings have become more and more practical and utilitarian. They are occupied the year round with their business in order to earn a better material life. If they could find leisure time, they would prefer to read some books or newspapers that could afford them with some knowledge of practical use or some information of the society, or just to sit back and watch TV to pass their time. Reading poems seems to have grown less popular than ever before. This is the undeniable fact of present-day tendency. But poem composing and poem reading are still going on among the young and the old, and among the people from different walks of life. Then why does poetry still have such an everlasting appeal to the people? What are the good in reading poetry?

(A) Reading poems can help deepen our sense of life

    Like other forms of literature, poetry takes all life as its province, and by reading poetry we can deepen our sense of life. Poems may tell us (as other forms of literature do but in a different way) about love and hate, war and peace, life and death, beauty and ugliness, joys and pains, and other social or natural phenomena and happenings, or human experiences. The well-know collection of Chinese classical poems The Book of Songs（《诗经》）recorded events such as love, labor, sorrow, as well as political system and religious activities of the ancient China. In English poetry, the earliest known is the epic Beowulf, which recorded a folk legend about how a hero fought against monsters, and it reflected the primitive northern tribes in their struggle against the adverse force of nature. The contemporary Irish poet, Seamus Heaney (1939—2013), the Nobel Prize winner in 1995, has written many poems reflecting the life of "the bog people", producing a voice of the silent and the oppressed.

    Many a poem may also glitter with sparks of philosophical ideas and wisdom. Here are some examples:

If winter comes can Spring be far behind?

—Old to the West Wind by P. B. Shelley

 

The Child is the father of man.

—My Heart Leaps Up by W. Wordsworth

 

In small proportions we just beauties see,

And in short measures life may perfect be.

—It Is Not Growing Like a Tree by Ben Jonson

 

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring.

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers the brain.

—An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope

 

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

—Auguries of Innocence by William Blake

    As a matter of fact, some of these lines and many others have become well-known epigrams that we take as our life mottoes. As Francis Bacon points out in his Of Studies, “poets (makes men) witty”. So the reading of poetry can not only deepen our understanding of life realities, but also make us witty, so that we can live a meaningful and better life.

  (B) Reading poetry can enrich our feelings and refine our minds

    Human beings are creatures of emotions, and emotions are as important as life itself. Poetry is the most emotional of all the other forms of literature. It appeals to the mind and arouses feelings. Poetry may state facts, but, more important, it makes imaginative statements that we may value even if its facts are incorrect. It communicates and touches personal feelings most closely and profoundly. Poetry is the best medium to describe and convey such feelings as love, hatred, anger, happiness, sadness, nostalgia and other feelings evoked by sights, sounds, or other experiences. As we know, human feelings are complicated, and poets are keen to give "clear expressions of mixed feelings". By reading poems, we can enrich our feelings and refine our minds. Poetry, therefore, has been regarded as something central to each man's existence; something having unique value to the fully realized life, something that he is better off for having and spiritually impoverished without.

    (C) Reading poems can offer spiritual pleasure

    To many people reading poems is a kind of pleasing experience and entertainment. This is because poetry can offer pleasures in many ways. A poem may be a pleasant experience, or an exotic and fantastic spectacle, that can open a reader's imagination to the wonders. Many a poem may convey a bright idea containing some enlightening philosophy that will be an inspiration to the reader. In particular, poets make greater use of the "music" of language than other literary writers do. A poem has the quality that shares with songs -- the rhythm, the cadence, the sounds, the intonation, the repetition of certain words or sentences, and the tone of the whole piece, etc. A poem can change a person's mood the way a piece of music or a song can. In fact, many poems have been set to music and sung as songs. Coincidentally, the Chinese term for "poem" is "shi ge"(诗歌), which fully shows the kindred relations between the two forms of art— "poem" and "song". A poem can offer the listener pleasant or amusing or plaintive sensations as a song can. When you are reading a poem that touches your heart deeply, an unspeakable pleasant sensation will rise in you. Besides, there are special poetic forms in English poetry, such as shaped poems, concrete poems, limericks and Mother Goose, which are written mostly for the purpose of pleasurable entertainment.

   (D) Special values to the learners of English language and literature

    To learn and read English poetry can afford special benefits to the learners of English language and literature. As we know, poetry involves almost every aspect of the language. A good poem is characterized by best choice of words. It may contain vivid imagery, or clear rhythm and rhyme, or ingenious combination of sound and sense, or imaginative and enlightening statements. Often, spelling and punctuation may also play an important role in helping express subtle meanings. Therefore, reading poetry can heighten our linguistic sense in the study of English, and raise our ability of appreciation of literature and arts. To take my own experience as an instance, as a teacher of English language teacher and English poetry I do have benefited tremendously from many years of studying and teaching of English poetry.

    The task for a teacher to teach poetry is chiefly to communicate the delight and wisdom of poetry. As an academic course for university class, we also aim to help the students expand their scope of literature, to sharpen their sense of English language, to impart a general knowledge about the art of English poetry, and, finally, to cultivate their ability of esthetical judgment.

(To be continued)