Poetry is Not Only Feelings
Dear Loved one,
I know that you believe in a very logical and scientific approach towards life and feel that poetry or any other art does not have the same worthiness or value in the real world as science (Shelley and Brett-Smith). Hence, I am writing you this letter as a defense of poetry where I intend to explain to you why poetry is important, and I intend to convince you to have an open-minded approach towards poetry. Aristotle, known as the father of criticism, has defined poetry as a form of imitative art and the expression of feelings of such art cannot be justified nor depicted through prose (Pope). So, I believe that you will read this letter as unbiasedly as possible, and the scientist in you must be intrigued to explore a new possibility.
My arguments are based on Percy B. Shelley’s work named “A defense of Poetry” in 1821. In this essay, Percy explains how poets are philosophers too. The author argues the importance of expressing oneself as one feels because dear loved one, it is not always numbers and formulas that one feels or thinks in; sometimes some feelings are inexpressible (Shelley and Brett-Smith). Poetry helps a person explore a dimension beyond the real ones; for instance, we all have experienced the feeling of cold and hot water in our mouth, and we all know that warm water feels round, and cold water feels pointy. Science agrees that the part of the brain that functions when drinking water can take cold water as pointy and warm as round, and this is just one tiny example of feeling things that sound absurd while explaining, there are a lot more of these things that are hard to explain if one wants to use science to do all the explanation (Jonson). The place of poetry in literature has always been critiqued by many since the true value of art can not be labeled. However, it is also critical to comprehend that poetry is the most significant part of literature and has survived these contemporary critiques since no standard model of English literary criticism existed (Shepherd and Maslen).
Works Cited
Jonson, Ben. Timber: Or, Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter. Ginn, 1892. Pope, Alexander. Essay on Criticism. CUP Archive, 1908.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, and H. F. B. Brett-Smith. A Defence of Poetry. Haldeman-Julius, 1969. Shepherd, Geoffrey, and W. Maslen. Sir Philip Sidney: An Apology for Poetry. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1973.
