Best words in their best order.

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Best words in their best order.

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1rrp
May 20, 2013, 7:08 pm

Was a quote from Coleridge.

"I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order."

But it's one of those puzzling things. Is there some agreed standard on what are the best words and the best order? For example, I am puzzled by the two Wordsworths' descriptions of daffodils.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Wandered_Lonely_as_a_Cloud

For the life of me, I can't see how Williams words are the best words. Dorothy's words invoke the scene in a much clearer way and I can imagine her emotional response to the scene. William's words seem obscure and veiled and I have to work hard (using reference books) to get what meaning he is trying to convey. So, surely Dorothy's words are the best words. What am I missing?

2madpoet
May 20, 2013, 8:33 pm

Dorothy's description is beautiful too, but it is a bit clunky, even as prose. William's poem has lines that linger in the mind: 'I wandered lonely as a cloud'. And the poem goes beyond the mere physical description of the scene, to use it as an analogy for the poet's own state of mind, and philosophy of nature and art.

Of course, art is subjective. Critics initially thought little of Wordsworth's poems (as they do of anything new or contrary to accepted taste). If a poet today wrote such a poem, he or she would face scorn from critics too, but for the opposite reason. What can you say? Tastes change. (Personally, I prefer Coleridge or Byron's poems to Wordsworth's.)

BTW, I've used this poem in my English classes, to illustrate the rhetorical devices of personification and simile. Thanks, Wordy!

3rrp
May 20, 2013, 8:57 pm

Why is clunky not better than Byron's description of William's words as "puerile"? Dorothy was writing a journal and clunky words fit the purpose, which was to describe the event. William had another purpose, I am sure, but as it is difficult to know what it was, there is no way of telling whether his are better. They are certainly not better for the purpose of describing the event to the average reader. How is one supposed to know that his purpose was a comment of the philosophy of nature and art and how are we to judge that his words are the bests words to describe his own state of mind?

I know the words "I wandered lonely as a cloud" linger in my mind, but I always remember them as "I wandered lonely as a daffodil" for some reason. Perhaps it's the many parodies there have been.

4madpoet
May 21, 2013, 1:05 am

If you prefer the prose of a journal to poetry, that's your taste. Is Dorothy's description better? Well, if you think that a photo of sunflowers is better than Van Gogh's painting because it is more 'realistic', than perhaps the diary description is better. But Wordsworth, fairly obviously, was trying to do more than just give a utilitarian description. His sister had already done a pretty good job of that.

How is one supposed to know that his purpose was a comment of the philosophy of nature and art...?

Well, it's not hard to see from the poem. Wordsworth isn't James Joyce, and his meaning is never hard to decipher. Plus, he spelled out his philosophy of poetry pretty well in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads.

how are we to judge that his words are the best words to describe his own state of mind?

That's impossible to know. What does that even mean: "the best words"?

BTW, Byron's criticism of Wordsworth should be taken with a grain of salt. He didn't like anybody. He called Keats a 'Cockney scribbler' and Robert Southey he lampooned in his dedication to Don Juan.

5jburlinson
May 21, 2013, 1:27 pm

> 1. Dorothy's words invoke the scene in a much clearer way

That may well be true, and it is certainly intentional on the part of William, whose poem is a little drama in three acts chronicling an emotional experience, not a conventional attempt at nature description. At the beginning, the poet is disconnected from his environment, "wandering", "lonely", vacant as a vapor (cloud). The natural world is vague and described with the generic words "vales and hills." This all contrasts with the flowers that are situated specifically in their natural context ( "Beside the lake, beneath the trees") and are actively, even purposively, integrated in their environment ("Fluttering and dancing in the breeze") -- quite a contrast to lonely wandering.

Act 2 (stanzas 2 & 3) is given over to a description of a process by which the poet externalizes his feelings ("glee", being "gay") onto the flowers, feelings which are contrasted to the more remote and emotionless expanses of outer space and the ocean. Replacing the word "laughing" with "jocund" (as Wikipedia notes Wordsworth doing) is telling, in that it changes a behavior with a state of being, thus intensifying the personification that is taking place.

Act 3 returns the poet to a similar state of mind as the beginning of the drama ("vacant" "pensive mood"). But now he is able to simulate the emotional response through activation of the "inward eye" which stimulates his sensibility, if not his sense.

Dorothy's description is all about the flowers. William's is all about himself.

6barney67
Edited: May 21, 2013, 1:49 pm

1 -- "Is there some agreed standard on what are the best words and the best order?"

No, not in the sense of mathematical objectivity that you probably mean. At the same time, I could give plenty of examples where some words work better than others.

One problem with trying to read poetry today, esp. of the more distant past, is that the world today is dominated almost exclusively by the scientific method. That means that something must be proven empirically before it is accepted as truth or knowledge or information. Anything beyond the physical is dismissed.

Wordsworth didn't think that way. He thought poetically.

7rrp
May 21, 2013, 3:56 pm

#5 I should give some context. I have struggled with poetry for a while. I return occasionally to a book or course that I hope will unlock the mystery. The latest started out quite well but lost me at the second fence with Wordsworth. Your extra words, in addition to Wordworth's poem are needed to begin to understand the poem whereas Dorothy's are all you need. And even with your extra words I still don't get why William's words are better. It seems I have to take your word for it.

8rrp
May 21, 2013, 4:00 pm

#6 If you could give some examples of where some words work better than others, I think it would be useful. But doesn't that also apply to prose?

9barney67
Edited: May 21, 2013, 7:26 pm

Someone started a thread…

http://www.librarything.com/topic/152483

10rrp
May 21, 2013, 11:11 pm

Thanks. I started to read your choices there. Do I have to first learn Italian to understand the Eliot poem? Why are the Italian words the better?

The course I was listening too was How to Read and Understand Poetry by Willard Spiegelman. He used the Carlos Williams Carlos poem "This Is Just To Say" as an example, and I must admit had me baffled by his explanation of why it was a poem in the first place and why is was a good poem in the second. It seems a rather selfish thing to do, to eat someone else's breakfast.

11JNagarya
Jul 22, 2013, 1:26 pm

"Of course, art is subjective."

Nothing is wholly subjective, including art. The artist, regardless medium, provides objective cues which limit and guide interpretation. A poem about dogs is not a poem about horses.

12barney67
Edited: Jul 24, 2013, 2:17 pm

For anyone interested in literary theory and criticism, I made a list.

http://www.librarything.com/list/594/all/Literary-Theory-and-Criticism-What-Happ...

13alaudacorax
Jul 25, 2013, 3:34 am

#12 - I especially like the Chuck Jones ...

14barney67
Jul 25, 2013, 11:16 am

American genius…

15carusmm
Edited: May 19, 2016, 8:32 am

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