"One of the most obvious differences between all the poetry I have ever read and all the straight prose (I say 'straight' to exclude prose which verges on the poetic) is this simple one, hardly ever stated: the poetry contains a great many more adjectives. This is perfectly obvious. From Homer, who never omits to tell us that the ships were black and the sea salty, or even wet, down to Eliot with his 'hollow valley' and 'multi-foliate rose', they all do it. Poets are always telling us that grass is green, or thunder loud, or lips red. It is not, except in bad poets, always telling us that things are shocking or delightful. It does not, in that direct way, attempt to discharge or excite emotion. On the contrary, it seems anxious to bombard us with masses of factual information which we might, on a prose view, regard as irrelevant or platitudinous."
-C.S. Lewis, in his essay The Language of Religion
Faith, Christianity, and the Church, A Collection of Essays by C.S. Lewis, page 257
3 comments:
And your point is...
OK. Now I get it. It appears poets have an amazing grasp of the obvious, eg. "Hey look, a tree!" (for those who've been around Teri for any length of time.) And C.S. Lewis has just explained why Teri sometimes says the things she does - because she's a poet - and maybe is not quite as strange as we thought. Well, maybe still strange, but now we know why. And thus the "thank you" which is really directed at Mr. Lewis.
I love it when I finally understand.
And if people didn't point it out, other people would never notice the beauty in the obvious.
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