"The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality"
About this Quote
John Barton's quote, "The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality", discuss the fragile balance poets should attain between psychological credibility and overindulgence in sentimentality. At its core, the declaration recommends that while poetry is naturally a psychological art kind, reliable poetry needs a specific discipline and restraint.
To "impose his feelings" implies that a poet might enable his/her personal feelings to dominate the verse, possibly overshadowing the axioms or experiences that might resonate with readers. When a poet enforces too heavily, the work can end up being more about the poet's own emotional journey instead of a shared human experience. This debauchery can result in sentimentality, which, in literary terms, describes an overstated and typically superficial expression of emotion. Sentimentality risks pushing away the reader, who may feel controlled instead of really moved.
Barton's guidance can therefore be viewed as a call for poets to keep a level of detachment and objectivity, allowing the poem to promote itself without overt emotional signaling. This does not suggest that poetry ought to be without sensation; rather, it needs to stimulate emotion through imagery, metaphor, and nuanced language that engages the reader's own feelings and insights, instead of dictating what they should feel.
In crafting poetry, the poet's difficulty is to weave personal experience with universal appeal, creating a connection with the reader that feels genuine and profound. By not enforcing their individual emotions too powerfully, poets open up area for readers to insert their analyses and feelings, making the work more impactful and long-lasting.
In amount, Barton's quote highlights the significance of emotional restraint and universal connection in poetry. It encourages poets to rely on the language and type of their work to communicate depth and meaning, enabling readers to find their emotional reality within the poem.
