"Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation"
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The sentence lays out a spectrum of poetic value. At the lower bound stands elegance: a shaped, economical speech, tuned to cadence and proportion, where every word earns its keep. Elegance does not mean ornament for its own sake; it signals rightness of form, the pleasure of language working cleanly, the graceful fit between phrase and feeling. A poem that gives us this has already given enough, because it refines attention and makes language more precise than everyday talk.
At the upper bound stands revelation: not a neat message but an unveiling, a shock of recognition, a clearing of the air through which the world or the self appears newly intelligible. Revelation can be moral, spiritual, or simply perceptual, the moment when a poem opens a door you did not know was there. It is rare, and it cannot be willed into being; but poetry, at its height, can become the occasion for it.
Robert Fitzgerald knew both poles. As the eminent translator of Homer and Virgil, he prized classical tact, measure, and clarity, the discipline that produces elegance. Yet the works he devoted himself to translate are full of vision, scenes that do more than narrate: they disclose an order of things. His phrase balances the formalism emphasized by mid-century criticism with a Romantic insistence that poetry can change how we see.
At least and at most set a floor and a ceiling that are really an ethic. Do the work so the poem is sound, lucid, and shapely; do not pretend every poem must blaze with prophecy. But keep open the possibility that craft can become a conduit. Elegance is the minimum dignity of the art; revelation is its highest grace. Between them lies the practicing life of poetry, where care of language and hunger for truth meet and sometimes, briefly, fuse.
At the upper bound stands revelation: not a neat message but an unveiling, a shock of recognition, a clearing of the air through which the world or the self appears newly intelligible. Revelation can be moral, spiritual, or simply perceptual, the moment when a poem opens a door you did not know was there. It is rare, and it cannot be willed into being; but poetry, at its height, can become the occasion for it.
Robert Fitzgerald knew both poles. As the eminent translator of Homer and Virgil, he prized classical tact, measure, and clarity, the discipline that produces elegance. Yet the works he devoted himself to translate are full of vision, scenes that do more than narrate: they disclose an order of things. His phrase balances the formalism emphasized by mid-century criticism with a Romantic insistence that poetry can change how we see.
At least and at most set a floor and a ceiling that are really an ethic. Do the work so the poem is sound, lucid, and shapely; do not pretend every poem must blaze with prophecy. But keep open the possibility that craft can become a conduit. Elegance is the minimum dignity of the art; revelation is its highest grace. Between them lies the practicing life of poetry, where care of language and hunger for truth meet and sometimes, briefly, fuse.
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| Topic | Poetry |
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