09-13-2016, 01:48 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-13-2016, 01:53 PM by RiverNotch.)
There is an objective way of knowing what is poetry, even if its very definition is subjective -- gathering consensus. Accept what culture you live in now (no point in being all archaic or foreign or anything), then define poetry by how your culture defines poetry -- read popular (or at least beloved) poems, read critical analyses, ask the average joe (or, if you live in a country where classism is law, the average joe-scholar) what he thinks poetry is. Then, statistics: examine what common patterns there are in the language (certainly, compression of data plays a part), combine all the answers you got from interviews, etc, etc. Poetry (with a capital P) isn't an exact science -- thus, the existence of Arts and Humanities colleges -- but at least its interaction with society, and thus what it means to society, and thus what you can consider its, er, current meaning, can be treated as such.
*BUT it seems R.L. Stine put what I am ultimately trying to say most succinctly. As a relatively casual reader/critic/scholar, or as a writer, what Poetry is is irrelevant -- it's only really useful for proper critics/scholars/philosophers, or for those wanting to sell shit.
Do note that studying humanities is not a wholly impractical gesture, but often getting into the practicalities does make Poetry seem more icky. Poetry with a capital P is usually more effective at sparking revolutions, after all.
*BUT it seems R.L. Stine put what I am ultimately trying to say most succinctly. As a relatively casual reader/critic/scholar, or as a writer, what Poetry is is irrelevant -- it's only really useful for proper critics/scholars/philosophers, or for those wanting to sell shit.
Do note that studying humanities is not a wholly impractical gesture, but often getting into the practicalities does make Poetry seem more icky. Poetry with a capital P is usually more effective at sparking revolutions, after all.