What Is Poetry: VI. The Meaning of the Entire Argument (Column 112)
With God’s help
The present column was added unexpectedly, because of responses that came to the previous columns and especially to the last one. I will open with a summary (which Yisrael asked me to provide), and from there I will move on to clarify the meaning of the entire line of argument, and afterward I will use those clarifications in order to clear away errors that arose in the aforementioned comments. I hope that here I am completing this wearisome series of columns, but for those who have continued following all the way through, I believe there will be quite a bit to gain from the present column as well, and perhaps it will also make clearer what we learned from its predecessors.
Summary of the argument so far
In the previous columns I presented a rather complex picture of poetry and fiction in their various forms. Its core is that pure prose is concerned with conveying information, and the words and sentences function in it literally. The message is nothing but their literal meaning. By contrast, poetry and fiction use words to convey a message that is not their literal meaning. Fiction does this by creating situations (usually fictional, though not necessarily) through which the insights and meanings of the text arise in us. Poetry does this without the mediation of situations: from the words directly to catharsis. The accepted features of poetry, which are formal in essence, such as fragmented writing, meter, rhythm, rhyme, melody, and the like, are really external features. They express the fact that the message is not in the literal meaning of the words, and therefore the poet requires additional tools in order to convey it and to mark the text as a poem. Hence in modern poetry those features do not always appear, and yet it is still poetry. From here also arose the conclusion that various texts that are intuitively perceived as poems (for example, Avi Ohayon’s ‘Flight Song’) are not necessarily such. Sometimes this is fiction set to music or fragmented fiction.
Beyond that, the three types of texts described so far do not really describe actual texts that we encounter in reality. These are pure poles that serve me in describing a more complex picture. My basic claim is that every relevant text that comes before us in this discussion is a combination of these three poles in different proportions. My proposal is that these three poles are what underlie the concepts of poetry and fiction, but they do not describe an actual poem or story. Such a text always contains poetic and narrative dimensions in varying proportions. And from here comes an answer to all those who argued that poetry is a living concept that cannot be fully defined in words. My claim is that this is not entirely correct. Even if there is a complex phenomenon, the proper way to relate to it is not a nihilistic despair that contents itself with saying that poetry is something complex and alive that cannot be captured in words. That is not constructive and not helpful, and in my opinion it mainly reflects laziness (see column 107). What is needed is to clarify the feelings of confusion and the nature of the difficulty, and to try to fit them as far as possible into a sharp logical and conceptual framework. That is exactly what I tried to do.
This picture, as noted, explains very well the complexity, the feelings of confusion, and our inability to define sharply every text brought before us as a poem or as a story. That is part of what I tried to do here. Therefore the fact that people see the ‘Flight Song,’ for example, as a poem is itself a mistake. At most one can say that it contains some dosage of poetry, but as I argued, in its essence it is closer to the narrative pole. As stated, the fact that it has a melody does not say much. Melody is not an essential feature of a poem. There are texts that have not been set to music (and also lack meter, rhythm, and rhyme) that are poems, and we have seen examples of this. And conversely, even if we set a fictional text or prose to music, they do not thereby become poetry. For example, when passages of the Mishnah are chanted in order to help memorize them, that does not turn them into a poem. The same applies to the example of “Recite Kiddush and wash, dip the karpas, break the middle matzah…” that TZL brought in a comment to the last column. I claim that the reason is not that other formal features are lacking there (meter, rhythm, and rhyme), but because its primary purpose is the conveyance of information.
To conclude, I will add that this usefulness can also be seen from the discussion of texts whose connection to our topic is harder to identify, such as metaphor, a joke, a coded message (a sticker; see below), and the like. The picture I proposed succeeds in organizing the discussion across all these textual manifestations and in placing each of them at a relatively clear point on the overall map, that is, in determining to what extent it is a poem, a story, or prose.
An example of the usefulness and fruitfulness of my model: the meaning of narrative continuity
In Yishai’s response to the last column, two examples came up that sharpened for me yet another important point. He wrote there:
I tried to think with my wife whether there is a difference between ‘Where Is Pluto?’ which we perceive as a story, and ‘We Went Out for a Hike’ which we perceive as a poem. The conclusion is that in ‘We Went Out for a Hike’ there is a collection of experiences and not a story with a plot as in Pluto, and that this is more characteristic of a poem (but that does not mean that everything with a plot is not a poem).
Another interesting case that my wife raised – the ‘Sticker Song’.
The first distinction is illuminating, because it demonstrates an important parameter that determines to what extent a text is a poem or a story. The question is not only whether it creates factual situations through which the message passes, but whether there is a sequence here, that is, whether the situations form a story. A collection of facts like “We Went Out for a Hike” is not chained into a story, and therefore, although it describes factual situations, it is clear that there is here a not insignificant poetic element. A story with a high q ought to have narrative continuity like “Where Is Pluto?” (which, incidentally, was bought for my granddaughter just yesterday). By the way, “Where Is Pluto?” is written in fragmented form, and yet it was clear to Yishai and his wife that it is a story and not a poem. Once again we see that the formal features are not essential.
By the way, in the ‘Flight Song’ brought in column 110 there is full narrative continuity (you should read it again now in order to see this), so one can now understand why I determined that it is a story (that is, a text with a high narrative q). Reading it shows that this is quite literally a story set to music (but not prose, because its purpose is not information but the creation of a fictional situation that conveys a message or creates poetic catharsis). It is now also clear why other songs that relate to factual situations are nevertheless closer to the poetic pole, and why it is incorrect to treat them as a story. Even if they describe factual situations, they do not contain narrative continuity. By contrast, there really are songs built on a full narrative sequence (take as examples He Did Not Know Her Name by Haim Hefer and Sasha Argov, or the song The Locomotive by Haim Hefer and Yohanan Zarai), and therefore they can be seen as a story (that is, a strong proximity to the narrative pole). So it seems strange to me, even baffling, that the same commenter who insists on the distinction between ‘Where Is Pluto?’ and ‘We Went Out for a Hike,’ and explains that it is connected to the narrative continuity in the text, in another comment questions the ‘Flight Song’ and brings it as an example to refute my picture. This only shows how anyone who does not use the picture I proposed lives in a confused and incoherent world, and how much my picture brings order to it.
In contrast to all this, the ‘Sticker Song’ mentioned by Yishai is very close to the poetic pole. True, every line has meaning (perhaps metaphorical. An exercise for the reader: is a sticker a poem, a story, or prose?), but their chaining does not create narrative continuity and in fact was not meant at all to convey information contained in the literal meaning of the words (unlike the fragmentation that Muadib imposed on my text. See column 107). Therefore this is a poem through and through. Here the building blocks are not situations, and certainly they do not create continuity, and the author’s purpose (of the song, not of the stickers themselves) was not the conveyance of information, even if one may say that there is information in the stickers themselves. By the way, this would have been true even if this text had never been set to music at all. It was no accident that I replied there to Yishai that his examples, which came to attack my picture, actually show how correct and useful it is.
From this one can see how the picture I proposed allows further continuation and elaboration of the discussion (as I argued at the end of the previous column, in comparison to psychoanalysis). If I spoke only about the conveyance of a poetic message through facts, Yishai (and his wife) now came and added continuity as a sub-criterion. One can continue and do the same for the other parameters in my model as well, and this is one of its important benefits. In this context too, whoever comes to attack the model ends up assisting it and showing its fruitfulness and usefulness.
In my opinion, from the description up to this point everything should already be clear, including the errors in the critiques that arose following the previous column. And yet, my feeling is that these claims reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of the entire argument from yet another angle. The present column is devoted to further explaining and sharpening my claims and their significance, and for that purpose we now return once again to the methodological-philosophical plane.
Two kinds of deviations from the proposed picture
This picture, almost by definition, should not have exceptions (perhaps you will manage to think of something, but in my opinion there will be hardly any, and indeed so far no one has presented such an exception). The reason is that, even before entering the discussion of the meaning of the concepts, there is here a factual-mathematical claim: every text can indeed undergo an analysis that will position it as a combination, in some dosage, of those three poles. In mathematical language, I would say that they are a basis that spans the space of relevant texts. To clarify this claim, I proposed a schematic description of those combinations in mathematical formulas, whose purpose of course is not to give us the ability to calculate whether we are dealing with a poem or a story, but only to represent the basic logic according to which a simple basis spans a complex space.
And indeed, those who spoke in the comments on the last column about exceptions did not claim that there is a text that does not fit my model. Even if that was what they meant, up to now no example has been brought that would substantiate it. The exceptions they were speaking about in those comments are exceptions in another sense: they do not fit our initial intuition regarding what is a poem and what is a story. The claim was that the model I proposed may be complete and may span the whole space, but it does not fit our intuitions. The model defines a certain text as fiction although intuitively it is clear to us that this is a kind of poem. The meaning of the claim is that, in the picture I proposed, I am really inventing new concepts rather than hitting upon and clarifying the existing ones.
Further sharpening: two kinds of definition
In column 108 I distinguished between two kinds of definition that in philosophical terminology can be called: a constitutive definition and a directive definition. The first kind is a definition that constitutes a new concept that did not previously exist. Such definitions are not to be examined in terms of truth or falsehood (since they are not trying to hit upon anything), but at most in terms of convenience and fruitfulness (how many claims can be proven regarding the concepts that are constituted by them). The second kind is a definition whose purpose is to direct us toward something outside it, that is, to conceptualize and clarify a concept that already exists. Until now we understood it intuitively, and the definition seeks to cast it into a sharper and clearer pattern. The added value of such a definition lies in the fact that it allows us better analysis and understanding of the concept, and of course also further complex applications to cases regarding which we have no intuition. Here I will add that it also allows us to identify contradictions and mismatches in our current intuitions, and thus to revise previous judgments.
Somewhat surprisingly, constitutive definitions that in fact come to clarify existing intuitions can sometimes lead us to define those very things differently. In column 108 I explained that my purpose in this series is not to constitute new concepts of fiction and poetry but to define existing concepts, that is, I am seeking a definition of the second kind. I also added there that one of the benefits (the second one) of such a definition is precisely when mismatches emerge between the judgments generated on its basis and the judgments that were previously made intuitively. The definition helps us clarify and distill our intuitions and remove contradictions and errors from them.
We can now better understand the meaning of the claims raised against me (and afterward also why they lack substance). What was really claimed against me is that I did not meet the task. The picture I described offers definitions of the first kind (constitutive) and not of the second kind (directive). The claim is that I did not really clarify the existing concepts of poetry and narrative literature, but instead invented new concepts in their place, concepts constituted by my definitions. Thus, for example, it was argued against me that Ohayon’s ‘Flight Song’ is indeed a poem because that is what is intuitively clear to us (until now. Even for someone who followed my whole argument, it still seems like a poem and not a story). The claim is that if, in the picture I proposed, this song turns out to be a story, then I have failed. And if there are many such exceptions (in which the picture clashes with the intuitions on which it itself is based), then I have failed all the more. Those exceptions show that my concepts do not hit the existing concepts but create new ones. As noted, in column 108 I already answered these claims (when I showed that conceptualizing existing concepts can change our judgments as compared to what they had been previously), but these critiques showed me that the point was not understood. Therefore, here I will try to sharpen and clarify it further.
Two components in the picture I proposed: the meaning of the challenge
I explained that in my picture there are two different components: 1. The mathematical component – that every text can indeed be represented as a combination, in some dosage, of the three pure poles. 2. The conceptual component – the definition of poetry and fiction begins with the definition of a pure concept that we will not actually encounter. Every text we encounter is something in between all of these. Therefore, when we define something as a poem, that is already a mistake (like defining some pile of stones as a heap). At most one should say that it is fairly poetic or very poetic (like fairly much of a heap or very much a heap), that is, that its q is high. It was argued against me regarding the ‘Flight Song’ that despite the complexity it is still correct to say that it is a poem. Whereas I claim that, because its q is very low, this is really fiction set to music and not poetry. Hence the claim that the ‘Flight Song’ and the like are a refutation of the picture I proposed, since intuition is that it is a poem whereas my model claims it is a story.
As noted, in all the critiques no challenge was raised against the mathematical component. That is, the mathematical-factual claim that the three pure poles indeed span the whole space of relevant texts seems to be acceptable to all of us. Certainly no example has thus far been brought that undermines this. The criticism concerns only the second component, the linguistic one. This is an important point, because I will now argue that this is the main focal point of the error in those critiques.
A preliminary example: the Copernican revolution
Before I return to our topic, it is worth discussing an example that will clarify the matter. It is commonly said nowadays that Copernicus carried out a revolution in the physical worldview. Until his time people thought that the sun revolved around the earth, whereas he claimed that the earth revolves around the sun. Until his time humanity lived in error, and he revealed the truth to us. But anyone who knows a bit of mathematics knows that this is nonsense. Copernicus discovered nothing except a coordinate system within which it is simpler and easier to describe the motion of the heavenly bodies.
To understand this, think of a situation in which my train is moving relative to my friend’s train, which is standing in the station. He sees my train moving forward, but from my perspective his train is the one moving backward. So who is right? Many will no doubt say that he is, because the truth is that my train is moving forward and his is standing still, whereas I live in an illusion. But no. You are simply assuming that our coordinate system is synchronized to the platform, and relative to it the friend’s train is indeed standing still and mine is moving. But we could choose another coordinate system, one attached to my train, and the picture that results from it is no less correct. It would of course be a different picture, but one that is equally legitimate. The point from which one chooses to look at reality is arbitrary. A kind of language. The only absolute truth here is that the relative velocity between the two trains is such-and-such. Regarding the question of who moves and who stands still, there is no right and wrong. It is a matter of convenience and efficiency, and of course also of habit (what we are used to is naturally more convenient as well).
By the same token, if object A revolves around object B, this means that if one uses a coordinate system attached to object B, one sees A revolving around it. But if we change nothing except the location of the coordinate system, that is, choose to attach it specifically to object A, then suddenly we will see that in fact object B revolves around us and object A stands still. There is no truth and falsehood here, but two languages. It is like describing reality in Hebrew or in English, or describing two-dimensional objects in a Cartesian coordinate system (straight X-Y) or a polar one (distance from the origin and angle). So who, in your opinion, is right: the one who describes in Hebrew or the one who describes in English?
What, then, did Copernicus innovate? He merely placed the origin of the coordinates in a different place. If until his time it was placed on the earth, and therefore it is no wonder that they saw the sun revolving around us, he proposed placing it on the sun, and lo and behold, suddenly it is the earth that revolves around the sun and the sun stands still.[1] Why make such a change? As I explained, this is a matter of convenience and efficiency. It turns out that if one places the origin of the coordinates on the sun, the picture comes out much simpler (all the heavenly bodies revolve around one center – the sun), and therefore it is preferable to use the Copernican coordinate system.
The conclusion is that Copernicus essentially found a language in which the description of reality would be simpler, and that is the main substance of his innovation. I do not mean to belittle this innovation. It was revolutionary and brilliant, and it also significantly advanced our understanding of the solar system. But it is important to understand that, in essence, he did not really discover any new fact for us; he merely found or proposed a more efficient point of view and language.
My initial claim: the mathematical advantage
If someone were now to come to Copernicus and claim that the picture he proposes does not fit our intuitions, since we feel that the sun revolves and we stand still, Copernicus could reply that he has no interest in fitting our intuitions. He merely proposed that we adopt a different system or language, plainly non-intuitive, within which understanding and calculation would be easier.
By the same token, I will raise here my initial claim: first of all, the picture I proposed is at least a more efficient language that succeeds in describing the range of poetry-prose-fiction phenomena in a complete way (the mathematical claim). Within it, every type of text finds its place, whereas in the intuitive outlook that preceded it there is great confusion and an inability to define and discuss these vague categories (just read the comments). Moreover, in our case the proposed language is not only simpler than its predecessor (as with Copernicus). In our case the alternative is not relevant, because it does not succeed at all in describing the phenomena under discussion (and not merely that it does so less efficiently, as with Copernicus). Third, the alternative actually contains contradictions. It hangs on fragmentation and melody, but admits that even without fragmentation and without melody this is still a poem. A contradiction is not an alternative.
My critics can continue to argue that even if I am right, this is only a mathematical advantage, for now I have really conceded to them that the definitions I proposed are constitutive definitions and not directive ones, contrary to my original declaration. The concepts are indeed contradictory, and I invented an efficient system of concepts free of contradictions, but a different one.
My second claim: the linguistic advantage – or, getting at the truth
I would now like to continue and argue that my model actually also captures more correctly the meaning of the concepts under discussion (fiction and poetry). That is, it does indeed propose a directive definition that clarifies the existing concepts, and not a constitutive definition that creates new concepts in their place.
If the alternative does not succeed in defining the texts standing before it, then in truth there are not two alternatives here facing one another. True, our intuitions are indeed confused on these issues, but does this not mean that they are missing something? The picture I proposed points them to that miss and thereby solves it. After all, we all understand that prose set to music is not a poem (like chanted passages of Mishnah). We also saw that fragmentation is not an essential feature of poetry, and neither are rhyme or meter. So what remains? Is it not right to focus on information versus poetics as I described? Is that distinction not more fundamental and deeper, especially when it is clear that everything else (the formal features) is a derivative of it?
In these terms I showed that the ‘Flight Song’ is indeed full-fledged fiction. It is a description of a factual sequence that creates a story (not a very interesting one, I must say. But that is not important). True, it has a melody, and that causes us to think that it is a poem, but that is the root of the confusion. We trust our intuitions too much. I claim that this is an example of our intuitions confusing us. They are vague and contradictory, and therefore there is no reason to cling to them. Because we are accustomed to poems being presented in a different visual form and sometimes also set to music, we tend to see every fragmented and set-to-music text as a poem. But as I showed, this language is riddled with contradictions and vagueness and does not really allow us to distinguish between the different kinds of text. So why cling to it? A language that fails to give us any essential feature shared by all the manifestations that we call poetry or fiction is probably missing something. Therefore I propose replacing it with a more efficient and more precise language. But, as I will now explain, this is not only a question of efficiency. I claim that my language is also more correct, that is, that I have proposed a directive picture and not merely a constitutive one.
What is a directive definition?
The implicit assumption of my critics is that a directive definition is a definition whose purpose is to hit our linguistic intuitions. Therefore, when there is a contradiction between the picture I proposed and linguistic intuitions, they think this refutes it. But that is a mistake, or at least not a necessary interpretation. A directive definition is a definition that hits the “true” meaning of concepts, and not necessarily the linguistic intuitions we have about them. My assumption is that the concept exists in some Platonic sense as an idea, and definitions try to hit upon it, and not necessarily upon the existing linguistic usage regarding it. In short, the intuitions that the directive definition tries to hit are not merely linguistic but epistemic (= cognitive). A directive definition tries to hit the concept’s true meaning. From here it follows that even if there are some linguistic intuitions or others concerning that concept, the process of definition and conceptualization may reveal to us that they are mistaken, that is, that they do not hit the concept’s true content. And when contradictions emerge in our linguistic intuitions, this shows that they do not hit the essence of the idea under discussion. An existing idea cannot contain a contradiction, and if our perception of it contains a contradiction, then the perception is mistaken (that is, there is no such idea).
My claim here is based on the assumption that certain terms (not necessarily all of them) are not merely conventions in the community of users, but expressions that point toward some reality that we behold with the mind’s eye. A term is a linguistic creature, but it is supposed to express a concept, which is a creature that belongs to the world (of ideas) itself. Thus, for example, the term democratic state expresses some essence (= concept), and not merely a definition that constitutes the concept. The fact that democracy arose late in history does not mean that the concept is a human creation and that the definition constitutes it. It existed from time immemorial as an idea; it merely took us time to discover it, and the definitions we gave it direct us toward it. The linguistic term points toward the concept and tries to hit it, and therefore it can certainly be judged by criteria of truth or falsehood, right or wrong. Hence when we argue over whether democracy permits limiting freedom of speech, these are not simply different definitions of the term democracy. Otherwise there would be no argument here, only the use of a different dictionary. But it is clear to all of us that this is indeed an argument, and its basis is the question of what follows from the idea of democracy. This is a kind of observation of the idea. Likewise, the argument over whether to send old people out to die in the snow or to care for them in a nursing home is not merely the use of different language or a different meaning of the term morality, but a real moral argument that the language merely expresses. In my book Shtei Agalot (Two Wagons), in the second section, I elaborated on this topic from several additional aspects and brought a number of examples, and here I cannot go into it in detail. I will only say that one who sees concepts as mere conventions will be unable to accept any argument about them. For him, the argument over whether to send old people out into the snow is only the use of different language (a different meaning of the concept morality) and not a moral argument.
If we now return to the argument over what poetry or fiction is, we must decide whether this is a linguistic-conventional argument, in which case there is really little point or interest in it, or whether it is a real argument. My claim here is that this is not an argument over the meaning of conventional concepts, but over the meaning of the ideas reflected by those terms. If I propose a language free of contradictions, then the likelihood is that I am also right, that is, that I hit more correctly the meaning of the ideas themselves. Therefore a lack of fit with intuitions does not necessarily require rejection of that language. The contradictions in those intuitions express the fact that this is a mistaken perception of the ideas of poetry and fiction. In other words, the efficiency of the new definition points to its correctness. Here I have moved from my first claim (the mathematical advantage in my picture) to my second claim (the linguistic-philosophical advantage).
Even in the case of Copernicus, someone could have come and said that he merely changed the language, and that in fact the term “to revolve” is intuitively defined as revolving around me. When I see a body revolving around me, no Copernicus can come and claim that this body is standing still. The learned critic would argue against Copernicus that this is simply a foolish change of language and nothing more. But Copernicus can claim that this is a more correct capture of the meaning of the concept “to revolve.” It does not necessarily refer to one specific origin of coordinates; rather, it is a relational concept that exists only after we have defined an origin of coordinates. Once we adopted Copernicus’s more complex language, it turns out that this simplifies life for us, and this is an indication that we probably had not grasped the concept of rotation correctly (or had grasped it only partially), and that the conception he offers is more correct.
Clinging to the outlook in which I am at the center means adhering to external features that are not necessary to the concept under discussion, instead of going down to the essence. Therefore, after conceptualization, our judgments about who revolves and who stands still can change, even though we began from intuitions and the conceptualization came to clarify them. In the end it changes them and shows that they were mistaken (usually because we clung to non-essential features). That is what I tried to show in column 108.
My claim here is that the picture I described is not only a more efficient language (that was my first claim). Rather, if we understand that terms like poetry or story reflect a concept that has some kind of existence and is not merely a linguistic convention, then of necessity the picture I proposed is also correct in the directive sense and not only efficient in the constitutive sense. The conclusion is that our former linguistic intuitions should be abandoned and that we should adopt in their place the essential intuitions that we reached with the help of conceptualization. The contradiction between them and the new judgments is not a refutation of my picture but an indication that the intuitions were mistaken. It is merely lazy adherence to a contradictory and vague language that describes nothing outside a linguistic convention (itself problematic and inefficient).
Once we understand that concepts have an existence outside language and outside the agreements between us, the conclusion is that our intuitions do not have absolute standing. Following the conceptualization, our picture of the ideas becomes clearer, and they may turn out to have been mistaken. My claim is that the initial intuitions we have regarding the terms poetry or fiction stem from an incorrect perception of those concepts. We latch onto external features (such as fragmentation, melody, or rhyme) that merely express the essence (the conveyance of a non-literal message), as if they themselves were the definition of poetry, instead of understanding that poetry is the essence itself (the conveyance of a non-literal message), and that the features are not necessary and therefore do not always appear.
On Platonic ideas and reality
It is important to remember that the Platonic idea of Forms is essentially about the difference between a horse and the Form of horseness. The Form of horseness is a perfect horse, but no concrete horse expresses it completely. Understanding the concept of horseness is achieved through contemplating a horse, but in fact the horse is only a medium through which we discern the abstract idea. That is what I tried to do regarding understanding the ideas of poetry and fiction through contemplation of texts that are intuitively perceived by us as poetry or story, while trying to distill from them the abstract ideas that underlie them. The fact that there is a lack of fit between the examples and the theory is essential to the very idea of the Form, and it is no wonder that it appears here as well. The reason is that manifestations of ideas in the world of practice are inherently metamorphic, as is expressed in the model I proposed. There are different degrees of horseness in the horses we see here, and different levels of redness in the red objects we perceive, and so on. The correct way to understand what the color red is and what a horse is, is to rise above the examples and try to distill the idea. Even if, after conceptualization, it turns out to us that the object we observed was a zebra or a donkey and not a horse. That is the purpose of conceptualization: to distill and refine our perceptions. The apparent mismatches point to imprecision in the intuitions and not in the theory or in the ideas that are defined within its framework.
My answer in a nutshell
One must understand that if language is only a convention, then I am offering a better convention. There is no reason to cling to an inefficient convention. If everything is in our hands, why should we not agree on a better, more efficient, and clearer convention?! And if one speaks of an essential error, and therefore refuses to adopt my language because it does not fit the intuitions, then one is implicitly assuming that this is a language that is supposed to hit some idea outside it. But on that plane, as I argued here, it is even less reasonable to adopt a language that offers no alternative at all and cannot describe the ideas in question, since it is full of contradictions and vague. Such a language probably does not hit the meaning of the concepts, and again it should be abandoned. Therefore, whichever way you turn it, those critiques are mistaken. This is the essence of my claim against them.
A note on postmodernism
One of the commenters (I think ShTZL) accused me of surrendering to postmodern winds (from my perspective this is indeed an accusation, because I am truly a sharp opponent of them). Postmodern poetry, according to him, has in effect emptied the concept of poetry of its essence and presents a random text as a poem, just as Duchamp presented a urinal as a work of art. My claim here is that perhaps this is sometimes true, but in our case postmodern and modern poetry actually deepened our understanding of the concept of poetry. They brought to the surface the fact that until now we had been using partial definitions and clinging to features that are neither essential nor necessary (such as fragmentation, rhyme, meter, and the like). Poems that lack those features cause us to understand that the concept of poetry is more complex and abstract than we had thought. One who clings to his linguistic intuitions and is unwilling to see all of these as poems is, in my opinion, simply mistaken. The new poems revealed to us that our intuitions were wrong, since the features on which we relied are not necessary and are not essential to poetry, and therefore the concept must be conceptualized anew and the definitions changed accordingly.
As I always argue, postmodernism asks very good questions. My problem is with the “answers” it offers. These questions ought to broaden the boundaries and lead us to examine our concepts in depth and conceptualize them anew. But if it leads to a laziness of the form “art is what is displayed in a museum” or “poetry is something complex and alive that cannot be fitted into a pattern of words,” that is lazy postmodernism (or: the lazy man’s refuge, in Rudolf Otto’s phrase about the unity of opposites). By the same token, to accuse poets of postmodernism merely because they challenge our linguistic intuitions is no less lazy. We simply prefer to remain in our comfort zone and not re-examine the concepts. The picture I proposed here challenges both kinds of laziness. The new poems should cause us to re-examine our concepts and to propose a more up-to-date and more precise conceptualization for the whole semantic field of poetry, fiction, and prose.
A concluding note
Following the move I made in this column, the distinction between constitutive definitions and directive definitions actually becomes quite blurred. We have seen here that there is a directive definition that tries to hit a linguistic intuition, and a directive definition that tries to hit the meaning of an existing idea. The first is supposed to stand linguistic tests (do its results fit the results of the intuitive judgment that preceded it), whereas the second makes use of linguistic intuitions but can also rise beyond them. Now you can see that there is a confusing resemblance between directive definitions of the second type and constitutive definitions. Both types can yield judgments different from those yielded by intuition, and yet my claim is that these are entirely different logical creatures. The critics assumed that a directive definition is supposed to hit linguistic intuitions; otherwise it is a constitutive definition. My claim is that this is a directive definition in the fullest sense, and yet it need not hit the linguistic intuitions we previously had. This despite the fact that it made use of those very intuitions, like Baron Munchausen who throws away the ladder after he has climbed the tree or gotten out of the pit.
[1] I am not entering here into mathematical and physical subtleties. Only so that readers who are knowledgeable will not feel uncomfortable, I will note two points: 1. The orbits of the planets are not circles but ellipses, of course. 2. Physically there may perhaps be significance to the question of who revolves around whom (Coriolis forces, etc. Although Mach’s principle should be discussed here), but mathematically there is not (it is only the choice of a different coordinate system). In the language of mechanics, I would say that dynamically this may perhaps have significance, but from a kinematic standpoint certainly not. People who speak about the question of who revolves around whom do not mean whether there are Coriolis forces, but the kinematic question. Therefore, from their standpoint, everything I wrote above is certainly correct.
Discussion
If you want to discuss the text as a whole, then the fact that it has narrative parts means at most that it is a partial poem on the continuum between poem and story (not a full q). I have no principled problem with that. It definitely fits my model.
As for everything else, like the question of exceptions, I already answered that in the post itself.
Why is it less postmodernist to say that Copernicus did not discover that the earth revolves around the sun than, for example, to say that no discovery proves anything about the future?
(Just as it is pleasant/reasonable/intuitive to say that the earth is essentially at the center, because only then are the form of the motion and the order beautiful and symmetrical, so too it is pleasant/reasonable/intuitive to say that for no apparent reason what has been will be.)
As for the matter itself, I haven’t read everything (bli neder I’ll try), but it is clear that nobody disputed the logic (as the rabbi himself noted), and nobody disputed the principled legitimacy of the definition either. Everyone is simply saying that it is completely unnecessary (apart from demonstrating logic), because nobody is going to start calling poems stories, etc. (unlike other posts that really changed the way people look at certain things, the definitions regarding poetry are detached from reality. Literally mamash.)
A Tired Hebronite is going to sleep
And you are very unfaithful to the truth when you set up a straw man as the alternative. Nobody here proposed an alternative definition of poetry (and if someone had proposed a definition as long as what you wrote, you probably wouldn’t have read it either), and it is quite clear that you also did not look for a definition in the relevant literature (which of course did not stop you from saying that literary scholars never even thought of defining it). The claim is that your definition does not express human beings’ intuition as to what poetry is, and even if it were true that nobody proposed another definition, that still would not make your definition a good one. You are like the wise men of Chelm who built ovens out of butter because they had no other material.
To Yishai and the tired Hebronite,
I too am already tired. I explained very clearly why my definition meets every reasonable criterion, including intuitions (even linguistic ones). I showed that there are no exceptions and that the picture succeeds in explaining everything in a wholly logical and reasonable way. Whoever chooses to insist, without an alternative, to repeat again and again recycled claims that I have already answered several times (such as that I call a poem a story, or the postmodernism involved in the self-evident heresy that Copernicus made a factual claim, and other misunderstandings and nonsense of that sort), to accuse me of baseless accusations (that I didn’t look in the literature), and thus to continue holding on to the holy and contradictory vacuum as a better alternative to the magnificently logical picture I am offering here—good for him. It is a bit hard to argue with a wall, and even if it weren’t hard, it definitely is not among my preferred hobbies.
To my mind, this is like someone hearing a logical argument and rejecting it on the grounds that maybe after all it is not correct, and maybe in the (unknown) literature there are better arguments (since you didn’t look), or maybe it is simply a scriptural decree. I think that by now the truth will make its way, and whoever listens will find it pleasant. And whoever does not listen—let it be pleasant for him as well. And may the pleasantness of the Lord be upon you… good night to all of us.
Indeed, a wall—and it is not new that you are a wall, especially in matters that touch on syntheticity.
Your definition probably fits your intuition, and therefore from your perspective it is perfectly fine and you can enjoy it. Your intuition is different from that of most human beings (not only in this), and in their view the definition does not hit the intuition. It is more like someone who has not looked into a certain issue (because it does not really interest him), and then someone comes along who really made an effort to think a lot about it (but without trying to open the right places where discussion of the topic can be found) and proposes a poor argument, and cannot understand why people prefer for the time being to remain without an argument rather than accept his poor one. The truth is that I already wrote what it is like—to the oven of the wise men of Chelm.
I too, the undersigned, join the good wishes!
Regarding Copernicus: if mathematically there is no significance to preferring the heliocentric model over the geocentric one, but physically there is a difference (forces, epicycles, curvature of space, etc.), then how do we know which model is the correct one? If we go by convenience and what is computationally simpler, that involves creating new entities. Actually this relates to every fictitious force and changes of reference frame. Is that evidence that forces are not physical entities?
Not necessarily. It may be that the magnitude of the force changes depending on the frame one is in. There are systems in which the force is 0, but there is still a force—this is simply its magnitude. For example, there is a body whose velocity is X. Of course, in a moving frame the velocity will be different, and there will be a frame in which the velocity is 0. Does that mean that the concept of velocity does not exist in actual reality? It certainly exists there, but its value changes according to the observing frame.
Why not say that this is simply an abstraction and not an existing entity? How can it be that there is a force but its magnitude is 0? There simply is no force, no?
Precisely because of the assumption that this is something rooted in the objective world. Otherwise, what produces the force that we feel? But if it exists in the world, then why is it not felt in another frame? That is why I brought the example of velocity. In your opinion, is velocity merely something subjective and not something that exists in the world itself? And yet there is a frame in which the velocity is 0.
Velocity is only a name for the derivative of position with respect to time, not an entity or a concept in itself. If dx/dt equals zero, then there is no change in position—not that the velocity exists potentially rather than actually. Why assume that it exists in the world itself?
Velocity is not an object, but it is something that happens in the world. My sensation that there is velocity is not a hallucination, but is caused by something in the world.
By the way, see my article here, where I showed that it is incorrect to define velocity as the derivative of position. That is the way to calculate velocity, but not its definition:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A6%D7%95-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%96%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%95%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA1/
Thank you very much. I am greatly enjoying the lesson in logic, and am looking forward to the conclusions regarding Hasidism (poetry itself is not really my cup of tea).
It is really a shame to me that I cannot manage to draw you into a discussion of Plato and his Ideas. Every time I tried to open a discussion about this, you shut me up. It would add a great deal for me if you would clarify the concept of “the Platonic existence of Ideas,” just as you clarified here (with great expertise, in my opinion) the concepts of poetry, literature, and prose. It is hard for me to believe that you do not see what needs clarification here. To me it looks like a logical contradiction: existence that is not existence.
I do not remember those questions. But I do not see what can be said about the existence of Ideas beyond the claim that they exist. It is not existence that is not existence (if only because there is no such thing). It is existence. Period. Just as God exists even though He is not matter and does not occupy space. And similarly light. So according to Plato, Ideas also exist. Others will say that Ideas do not exist outside the human mind, but even within it one may say that they exist in some sense (that is, this is built into us even before there was a human being who actually thought them).
There is a logical discussion of this topic in book 11 of the Talmudic Logic series. But that seems a bit too heavy and subtle for the site.
In light of the comments, and after a bit of reflection on the matter, and as a continuation of the rabbi’s attempt at a definition, it seems in the rawest possible way that there is an inseparable connection between a poem and melody. In a certain sense, it seems that any text that “stands ready to be set to music” will, among other things, be called a poem/song. It is a bit complicated, but it seems that indeed a story that has been set to music—then, when it is sung with the tune, it functions as a song (perhaps not a very successful one). Therefore those pieces the rabbi concluded are stories—indeed, because of the context of refrain and tune and melody, they will be a song (like the song “Giv’at HaTahmoshet” [Ammunition Hill]—which according to my intuition, even after the critique that followed the rabbi’s definition, still seems to me to be a song). They will be narrative songs. And when their text (without the refrain, “At two-thirty…”) is read without a tune, then it is indeed a story. The rabbi himself told me that people tried to set Yehuda Amichai’s poems to music. That is, even with regard to modern poetry there is a potential for musical setting (and perhaps this is lyricism itself). For rhythm too is a kind of melody (melody of order zero), like someone who reads with intonation. I heard from a drummer that there is musical notation for drums. And in ordinary notation too there are marks for rhythm and tempo (quarter notes, eighth notes, staccato). In the ancient world rhyme and meter served rhythm. Today enjambment/line-breaking serves this purpose. So indeed, if you read a line-broken text (with columns and lines that simply represent stronger breaking) and ignore the breaking, it will be a story. But if appropriate pauses are inserted according to the breaking so that a rhythm is heard, then indeed the text will function as part of a song (the other part is the rhythm). But one must examine what the difference is between this and a dramatic reading of a story, but this is not the place to elaborate.
If after all we pointed to the poem as bearing poetic content beyond the meaning of the words (what the rabbi calls sensations and emotions, and I think it would be more correct to call it a “state of mind” (of the poet, which is difficult or impossible to convey in the form of prosaic information, and that is what he is trying to convey in the poem)), it seems to me that the carrier of the state of mind is the melody, whose most primitive form is just a kind of rhythm. In the ancient world it indeed seems that they did not distinguish all that much between song and story, but the Song of Deborah and the Iliad etc. are indeed songs that tell a story. These were all the songs of praise and miracles and wonders of those days. They recounted the general’s conquests and his heroic deeds. They are narrative songs. I have no idea whether there were lyrical songs. But there were story-like stories, like the rest of the book of Judges and Joshua. Even if the pure concept the rabbi distilled became separated from story over the course of history (I think so too), one must look at its early evolutionary sources and see where the poem-ness was there.
In general, I cannot shake an intuition of many years that there is a kind of continuum that begins with prose, passes to story, from there to poem, and ends with melody. That is, story is stuck in the middle between poem and information. (The rabbi will say that this is in terms of a continuum of poeticity, but for the rabbi story is a new dimension. But perhaps these are not orthogonal axes.) I liked to make of them a kind of four sefirot of wisdom, understanding, beauty, and kingship (wisdom being melody, understanding poem, etc.). Quite similar to what Rabbi Ginsburgh did with the four levels of plain narrative, parable, riddle, and hint. But this is only a game.
With God’s help, 28 Tevet 5778
To Rabbi M. Abraham—greetings,
It seems to me that there is no room to seek a categorical definition of the question “What is poetry?” since “poetry” is not a natural phenomenon but a cultural creation, and it is very likely that every society and culture will have its own definition.
And as I described in my comment “And Yet Poetry Does Not Depart from Its Plain Meaning,” poetry began as poetry in its literal sense, a text that is sung; and in an age when writing and reading were not the possession of a broad public, poetry was a principal means of conveying information that would reach wide strata and be preserved throughout the generations.
As writing and reading spread, and it was discovered that prose is better suited to conveying information, poetry became more a matter of expressing feelings, while the formal characteristics—rhythm, wordplay, and the language of images and parables—made it easier to cast emotion into a concentrated form.
And until the 1950s, the component of rhythm was a central characteristic of poetry. Even if they did not “sing” the poem, they read it with intonation, and rhythm facilitates intoned reading. Even when rhythm was given up, line-breaking remained as a suggestion for the vocal reading of the poem.
It may be that your definition, which places everything on the expression of feelings and would allow even line-breaking as a suggestion for vocal reading to be dispensed with—you may perhaps have established here the next development in the world of poetry.
With blessings, S.Z. Levinger
You mean the previous development. It has already happened. I did not establish it but described an existing situation. Except that in my view this was the meaning of poetry even earlier; it merely became crystallized, sharpened, and entered consciousness and awareness only in recent generations.
It seems to me that everything you said here is also included in my picture. The question of where to cut the metamorphic concept and call it a poem or a story is already a personal question (from when is a pile of stones called a heap?).
I was interested to know why in your eyes this is a topic for such broad and deep discussion, and whether it is relevant to anything. In addition to Miri Mesika, there is a song called “Sunday” that tells about infidelity. Is that too a linguistic mistake, or is it indeed a song/poem?
It is an important topic, but I do not deal with topics according to their importance. This was an opportunity, following the discussion about Hasidism and Torah study, to return to it in the next post, and with that I will probably conclude the series.
I have no idea. I do not know the song. Based on what I wrote, you can diagnose it, and if you have a concrete comment you are welcome to raise it.
Perhaps the rabbi will find interest in the little book by John Stuart Mill that was recently published by Dkhak, Thoughts on Poetry and Its Varieties, which tries to make similar distinctions, though in formulations that in my humble opinion would not satisfy the rabbi.
Many thanks
Do your definitions not exclude many famous poems/songs such as “Yedid Nefesh,” “Lecha Dodi,” “Ki Eshmera Shabbat,” etc. etc., as well as “Hatikvah,” and of course many children’s songs like “Yonatan HaKatan,” “The Rabbit Has a House,” etc. etc. (in all of them, as far as I understand, all the meaning is in the words)?!
I think not. On the contrary, I included them on the continuum. It is not true that all the meaning in those passages is in the words. Absolutely not.
Obviously I asked because I do not find meaning beyond the words—and I think that is a refutation of the thesis. So I would be happy for elaboration, for example in “Yedid Nefesh” (a very spiritual and deep poem in my eyes, but I think the deep meaning is really in the words that describe exactly the longings of the poet):
Beloved of the soul, compassionate Father, draw Your servant to Your will. Your servant will run like a deer; he will bow before Your majesty. Your friendship will be sweeter to him than flowing honey and every taste.
Beautiful, splendid radiance of the world, my soul is sick with Your love. Please, O God, please heal it, by showing it the pleasantness of Your radiance. Then it will be strengthened and healed, and it will have everlasting joy.
Ancient One, let Your mercies be stirred, and have pity on the child of Your beloved. For this is how intensely I have longed to see the splendor of Your might. These my heart desired; please have pity and do not hide Yourself.
Please reveal Yourself and spread, my beloved, over me the shelter of Your peace. Let the earth shine from Your glory; we will rejoice and be glad in You. Hurry, beloved, for the appointed time has come, and favor us as in days of old.
It is difficult (and in my opinion also unnecessary) to explain such a thing, but I will try by way of demonstration. I will write the second stanza differently:
Beautiful creature, I’m crazy about you. Satisfy my longing by revealing yourself to me, and then I’ll be pleased and happy.
Do you think that is the same thing? What is there in the original text beyond the superb translation I have offered here?
And beyond that, is there really a simple prosaic meaning to the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, is my beloved friend? And what exactly are the Lord’s majesty and beauty? And what does it mean that He is the radiance of the world? And how exactly is the Holy One, blessed be He, supposed to show him the pleasantness of His radiance? I think there is hardly a single piece of prose here.
The superb translation omitted all the important words: first and foremost God, then the soul, and love. The language is very low, and slang is used; likewise the use of the words “beautiful” and “creature” is very material. And still, what you wrote (with a bit of refinement and style) is a poem: Beautiful one, I’m lovesick for you, fulfill my longing by revealing yourself, forever I shall rejoice with you. (Take the poem wherever you like.) One can take the original paragraph and make it not a poem: The Holy One, blessed be He, is splendid and beautiful; He is the radiance of the world. A Jewish soul is sick with love of Him, and its cure is in the revelation of His radiance. Etc.
In my opinion the definition of a poem is as its name implies: a text meant to be sung (not necessarily the melody). Something short and pointed that a person can repeat to himself as he goes along, and therefore it penetrates him and affects the person and his feelings. Naturally the words will usually be short and conceal much content and the like, but that is not the definition. Therefore the Torah is poetry, because a person must absorb and internalize the verses in his heart and write them on the tablet of his heart. This is quite similar to the definition of art as something that should reach a museum. And that is apparently the intent: art is something that people are supposed to remember and be influenced by—therefore good art reaches a museum.
If one insists, even a broom can shoot. And even a toilet bowl is a work of art (see Duchamp).
What would you say about songs like “David King of Israel lives and endures,” “Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem,” “Who has kept us alive and sustained us,” and many more songs made of a single verse or sentence? They had a deep meaning beyond the words as part of the sanctification of the moon or the Passover Seder (or the blessing over something new), and the like, but clearly they were not songs before. The moment they were given a melody and people sing them on various occasions and draw inspiration from them and repeat them, they became songs.
“David King of Israel lives and endures” conveys no information to us. After all, he is not alive and does not endure. It is a hope and a poetic statement that in a certain sense he is still alive. In that sense there is a poem/song here.
I completely agree that sometimes prose can be set to music, and then it really is prose set to music and not a song. Who said a melody turns something into a song? I explained here at length that the melody really does not determine it (as the saying goes: “and only the melody determines”…). Sometimes attaching a melody hints that the prose is being used in a figurative and poetic sense, and then it really does become a song. And when people repeat such a text and draw inspiration from it, that itself turns it from prose into song, because it indicates that they do not see in it mere information.
Before there was a melody (the melody does not turn something into a song, it only changes people’s attitude to the text; I also admit there are many songs without a melody), you certainly would not have regarded the sentence “David King of Israel lives and endures” as a song, even though the very deep meanings existed beforehand. “When people repeat such a text and draw inspiration from it, that itself turns it from prose into song”—that is an admission against interest that the text itself does not necessarily have a definition as to whether it is a song or not—what turns a song into a song is actually the environment and the human attitude toward the text. (From here one can of course expand that an object placed in a museum becomes art. The truth is that almost every debate between us ends with your trying to see every definition as objective—physical—and my seeing many definitions as subjective, dependent on and created by human cognition—interesting.)
Yonatan the Little,
ran to the garden in the morning
he climbed up a tree
looked for chicks
woe to the naughty one
a big hole in his pants
from the tree he rolled down
and got his punishment
Aside from a moral lesson, I find nothing here beyond the description of a story—it could have been a story, but clearly it is a song. Because everyone knows it by heart and sings it; the child goes around reciting it even when he does not really grasp the melody at all. His vocabulary grows, it amuses him, perhaps he grasps a moral lesson (I hope that won’t become the definition of poetry)—and it is a full-fledged song in every interesting sense.
Sometimes people do not understand that what stands before them is a poem. The melody helps them notice that. The melody also draws attention to the poetic meanings, and without it the text would be read differently. In that sense it even turns it into a poem. And still, this is a completely objective definition.
I completely agree that this discussion is a misunderstanding. You are saying exactly what I am.
a. I am not saying what you are. (Perhaps what is placed in a museum merely reveals that this was art all along.)
b. If there are many texts that are really poems but we simply do not know it until they are set to music (and then from then onward retroactively they become poems), then what is the definition worth?
c. If every sentence that contains something beyond the words is merely waiting to be set to music and therefore is really a poem, then you have defined every sentence that has meaning beyond the words as a sentence that has meaning beyond the words—that is not a definition of poetry. You shot the arrow and then marked the target.
d. You did not answer about Yonatan the Little.
e. Is the fact that there is no reply button a hint that I should have taken?
a. To the best of my understanding, you are saying exactly what I am. When it was put in the museum, it became art, because now this is not a toilet bowl but a work of art. The context changes the meaning of the object, and thus it becomes a work.
b. The definition says exactly that: after the thing is a poem, what exactly makes it such?
c. Obviously I shot the arrow and then marked the target. I am not creating the concept of poetry ex nihilo; I am trying to characterize it.
Not every sentence set to music is a poem, because there are sentences for which the musical setting will reveal nothing beyond the text. But sentences like that usually will not be set to music.
d. I did answer. There is something in it beyond the words. The fact that Yonatan the Little caught a cold, in itself, interests nobody. When one makes a song out of it, a meaning beyond the fact is exposed.
e. One replies on a thread with the reply button that appears after the first message in the thread. Your reply will appear at the end of the thread.
It seems to me that we have exhausted the discussion.
I did not challenge “Shir HaTisa.” And the examples in that comment were not meant to attack your distinction. I wrote two separate comments: in one I attacked you, for the fact that your criterion is insufficient and has too many exceptions (“Shir HaTisa” is an example of something like that because it is called a “shir” [song/poem], though precisely there I am willing to accept that it is really not a poem; the problem is that there are too many things called poetry that according to the definition are not poetry, for example the Song of Deborah and the Iliad, especially since these are not negligible details but very central cases whose classification the definition is supposed to change). The second comment was further reflections that contribute to the discussion and indeed prove that your criterion is definitely meaningful (but in my opinion still not sufficient).
By the way (there, I’m giving a transition word so it will be clear that there is no logical connection between the two paragraphs), in a children’s poetry book called Golden Chain, it says in the introduction that various kinds of poems were included: lyrical poems, narrative poems, and also rhymed stories (not an exact quote). Among other things it has Eliezer and the Carrot and Uncle Simcha. Now notice: in the opening clause it says “poems” in general (and that is also in the book’s subtitle), while in the specific closing clause it also says “rhymed stories,” and the opening clashes with the ending; one should consult the books on the hermeneutical rules, but this is not the place to elaborate. One should also note the sequence: a. lyrical poems – poem-like poems; b. narrative poems; c. rhymed stories – story-like stories. I agree to place the Iliad as a narrative poem.
Another note – the fact that regarding the Song of Deborah you wrote “parts” also proves the problematic nature of your claims. Obviously one is supposed to relate to the work as a whole (of course it is possible for a song to be embedded within a story), and the fact that part of a poem describes a plot does not turn it into a story. I think that even if the whole poem described a plot, that would not necessarily make it a story (though it would incline it in the direction of story).