- “Good poetry reading is part attitude and part technique”.
I want to start by saying that during our course, I carried over a few thoughts for myself. The first, concerning the goals and objectives of art and literature in particular. I have always believed that literature should have a purpose. Now it seems to me that literature owes nothing to anyone. However, if a universal thesis arises, we can say that its goal is our emotional and mental response. All literary devices and art forms appear for this purpose.
Therefore, I understand the word “attitude” as a reaction to what has been read and the following interaction. Thus, a kind of dialogue between the reader and literature takes place. However, in order to start this dialogue, we must have a number of knowledge and skills, or techniques. This is especially true of the genre of poetry, the genre of the most capacious and more complex “interlocutor” than prose. Form, rhyme, literary devices, they all build our experience and perception of poetry. Sometimes, you need to understand the background of it. Just recently, for example, I read a poem that tells about a letter that came to the mother of a soldier during World War II. The lines of the verse were composed in such a way that they appeared with a triangle. These forms of letters were sent to mothers, wives and children of soldiers from the front. People were in trepidation and horror opening such letters with the hope that their husband, son or father is still alive. The use of such a form prevails over the feelings and sensations that people experience. However, if you are not aware of this fact, it will be just a poem in the shape of a triangle.
2. After reading sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare for the first time, I saw a description of the beauty of his beloved, so magnificent that even nature cannot compare with her. “Thou art more lovely and more temperate”. However, after several readings, you can see that comparisons with nature are here not just to describe the beauty of his love, but to describe her fragility and finiteness. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” The main idea of the author is not to describe beauty of the girl, but the search for eternal life, the search for a way to gain immortality to her. How does Shakespeare convey the theme of eternal life? Starting to compare its beauty with natural phenomena, he immediately comes to a sad conclusion: the burden of decay gravitates over any creation of nature. A storm or time will destroy the beautiful May buds and the author does not want such a fate for the beauty of his beloved. Reading these lines, I think about the fact that nothing lasts forever under the moon, including us and our loved ones. The author is looking for a way to give her immortality. This is how the theme of art appears here as a tool for obtaining immortality. The beauty of a beautiful girl, captured in the lines of a sonnet, will live forever, for Shakespeare is sure that his creations will stand the test of time. The desire to keep what is most dear to a person’s heart inspires the poet to create sonnet 18. Beauty, conveyed in art, becomes eternal and begins to dominate nature, and death itself. Perhaps this is the main aim of art?
