One of my "good experiences with poetry", so to speak, was reading Dante's Inferno over the summer. I had been hearing a lot about it, and being the overcritical atheist that I am, I just had to check it out. I actually found that it was a really good poem, and was shocked to find that it was actually epic, in both senses of the word.
It lost none of it's originally intended power through the translation process from Italian to English, and Alighieri's brilliant insanity shown through wonderfully. Be it scenes of gore, death and suffering, or deeply intuitive epigrams, the poem kept me hooked. This was one of my best experiences with poetry in my life so far, and will affect me forevermore in the sense that no other poem (save Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner or Tennyson's In Memorium) will ever be as good.
At this point in my life, the word poetry is rather synonymous with the idea of being in the home stretch, or wrapping up a period of learning. This, clearly, is due to the end of the year being nigh and such things. Beyond that, I take a rather neutral stance towards poetry. Some poems I find shallow and pedantic, whilst others appear deep and thoughtful. 'Tis not a static thing, this brain of mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment