The beauty of poetry is capturing a tiny moment in your life and saying it in such a unique way that other people can relish it as well, either through appreciation or empathy.
Many people only know of the classic works of poetry—the Illiad, Shakespeare’s sonnets, or Edgar Allan Poe. The topics handled by these masters are massive, talking about such sweeping subjects like war, loss, and love.
But the most beautiful poems are about tiny, almost forgettable things—a fallen log that you saw on a walk around a pond, the insignificant dew drop that trickles down the window when your father is driving the car, or that pleasurable feeling you get when you finally eat the chocolate chip cookie you’ve been craving since lunch.
The details are so specific to the speaker that only the speaker could be going through them at that particular moment—but an accomplished poet can take those details and articulate them in a manner enjoyable to their intended reader.
It is, first of all, subjective interestedness. Interestedness requires sympathy, so poetic beauty might be defined as the result of subjective sympathy: paying enough attention to a poem for it to teach us how to read it and (crucially) feeling that it fulfills the terms it lays out.
Answers & Comments
Hope it helps
The beauty of poetry is capturing a tiny moment in your life and saying it in such a unique way that other people can relish it as well, either through appreciation or empathy.
Many people only know of the classic works of poetry—the Illiad, Shakespeare’s sonnets, or Edgar Allan Poe. The topics handled by these masters are massive, talking about such sweeping subjects like war, loss, and love.
But the most beautiful poems are about tiny, almost forgettable things—a fallen log that you saw on a walk around a pond, the insignificant dew drop that trickles down the window when your father is driving the car, or that pleasurable feeling you get when you finally eat the chocolate chip cookie you’ve been craving since lunch.
The details are so specific to the speaker that only the speaker could be going through them at that particular moment—but an accomplished poet can take those details and articulate them in a manner enjoyable to their intended reader.
Answer:
It is, first of all, subjective interestedness. Interestedness requires sympathy, so poetic beauty might be defined as the result of subjective sympathy: paying enough attention to a poem for it to teach us how to read it and (crucially) feeling that it fulfills the terms it lays out.