LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:4 April 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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The Poet on the Overdrive:
The Mystery of the Poetic Moment

Dr. J. S. Anand, Ph.D.
Prof. Manminder Singh Anand

Abstract

How far away and how close is poetry to intentional lying and how poetic lies [lie-cense] pass off as an ornament is the subject of this study. What is termed and admired as exaggeration is nothing but the extension or intension of reality. Poetry, in a way, is never a surface statement. Whatever it says, is never explicit. It uses metaphors and symbols which either extend on the real feeling, or under present the same. Thus, the unreal becomes an extended element of the real and poetry becomes a mix up of the two components. Who knows where the realm of the real ends and the domain of the unreal begins. Excitement, passion, anger, joy, ecstasy, crying, pining, sighing – all these living experiences are actually simple feelings added with a tinge of excitement and passion. A poet always overstates, or he understates, he is never normal. And, by the use of intentional over statements, which pass off as exaggeration, he is capable of creating an excited state in the mind of man. In the final analysis, a poem is the sum total of the real and the unreal and together it presents an experience which is intense. Can the poet be excused for telling intentional lies and provoking the readers into uncanny states?

Key words: Poetry, poetics, intension, extension, half-truths, oracle, unreal, real, a window to new dimensions

Turning Half-Truths into Oracles

Poetry is a conscious statement of an intensely passionate experience. Such experiences happen to almost every one, but only a poet can capture them in words and images, while others can only feel it and let it pass. To understand poetic creation, it would be appropriate to refer to the state of mind of a man who decides to commit suicide. He was living a normal life. Something happens. And then, his mind creates situations which do not actually exist. Only his fears take various shapes and start masquerading before his eyes. A sense of deprivation overtakes him. Now, he is in the grip of suicidal passion. And he commits the act. The idea to be underlined here is that the reality was not so horrible as it was presented to him by a heightened state of mind.

This situation can be better explained by referring to the dagger episode in ‘Macbeth’ while Macbeth is in a heightened mental state before he murders Duncan, and finds a dagger hanging before him. The dagger which was at the most an illusion actually represented a poetic truth. This is what poetry does to the normal feelings of a man. It heightens them. Most of the time, this heightening of emotions and intensification of experience takes place at the expense of reality. Unreality extends the frontiers of normal experience, and it lends a sense of urgency to the fleeting thoughts. A moment arrives when the clouds fail to carry the water vapours, and rain sets in. This is how a poetic piece comes into being.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. J. S. Anand, Ph.D.
Principal
Guru Gobind Singh Khalsa College
Bhagrta Bhai Ka
Bathinda 151001
Punjab
India
anandjs55@yahoo.com

Prof. Manminder Singh Anand
Assistant Professor in English
Punjabi University Neighbourhood Campus
Jaitu
Punjab
India
fortune.favours@ymail.com

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