In 1880 Mathew Arnold wrote: `Much of what passes with us as religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry`

He also considered that poetry should express `high seriousness`

Well, the first prediction didn`t last very long, Since T.S Eliot passed away there has been hardly anything resembling religion or philosophy in modern poetry.

But what about the other quotation? Is there anything at all in the poetry of the present day which could be honestly described as any kind of `high seriousness` whatsoever?

What could be defined as `high seriousness` in poetry today anyway

Define 'high seriousness.'

Is there a difference between 'low' and 'high' seriousness?

Does high seriousness preclude humour, irony, pop-cultural references (Geoffrey Hill referencing Jimi Hendrix for instance), the demotic language of the street, and if so why?

Maybe when we've determined what high seriousness is we can decide whether contemporary poetry has it or not.

That and humorous pieces can be no less serious.

That's that then.

Modern poetry is full of 'religion' and 'philosophy'! It is, perhaps, simply not stereotypical of tight, traditional ideas. That is a very strange statement, Harry. Would you enlarge upon it a bit.

IMO, 'high seriousness' is one of those nonsense phrases coined by self-important academic types, full of hot air and meaning nothing. Let them throw such conversational gambits at each other in cloistered closets, like chattering monkeys, vocally grooming each other. Such a phrase is a denial of real wisdom.

At this moment - I breathe - and that is high seriousness.

I greatly appreciate and honour academic types who have good sense, which they also exercise by sporting no halo of superiority.

I think that perhaps Harry threw out a loose theme to stimulate debate - 'high seriousness' being very subjective - after all, it was a quote or a paraphrasing, not Harry's own statement.

For me it all ties up with memorable poetry again. What I see in modern poetry is an enormous trend towards introspection - poetry that maps the poet's personal journey through life - interesting if you know the poet, but not much of a knicker gripper if you don't... after all, most people's lives follow not dissimilar patterns - the same ups and downs and disappointments.

'High seriousness' would for me be a step beyond all this soul searching and experience crunching - a look outside at the world beyond.

Don't take me too seriously in my criticism. I write plenty of poetry inspired by my own experiences of life - it's how we relate to the world - I do it as a hobby though - with no expectation that it will stay in the memory of anyone, beyond a couple of days.

Highly serious poetry for me has to say something worthwhile and in a way that makes it poetic and what makes a poem poetic - you could argue about that till the cows come home...

The quote was from Arnolds `The study of Poetry`.

Arnolds definition of the presence (and absence) of his high
seriousness is:

`So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet’s
matter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high
poetic stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and
manner. In proportion as this high stamp of diction and movement,
again, is absent from a poet’s style and manner, we shall find, also,
that high poetic truth and seriousness are absent from his substance
and matter.`

His (English) examples are:

`Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy`s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge…`

`If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story…`

`Darken`d so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench`d, and care
Sat on his faded cheek…`

`And courage never to submit or yield
And what is else not to be overcome…`

`…..Which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world

His (best?) Scottish example is:

`To make a happy fireside clime
To weans and wife,
That`s the true pathos and sublime
Of human life`

Hilariously - in going down the high and serious scale Arnold
laments the loss of the `delicate and evanescent` in Chaucer`s
tale of a child who had it`s `throte cut into my nekke – bone `
in Wordsworth`s attempt to `modernise` it.

Of religion, he says:

`There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma
which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition
which does not threaten to dissolve`

Of philosophy:

`our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings about causation
and finite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows and
dreams and false shows of knowledge? The day will come when
we shall wonder at ourselves for having trusted to them,`

(which makes one wonder what`s going to happen to the theory
of Evolution)

Prophetically he ends:

We are often told that an era is opening in which we are to see multitudes of a common sort of readers, and masses of a common sort of literature; that such readers do not want and could not relish anything better than such literature, and that to provide it is becoming a vast and profitable industry. Even if good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never will lose currency with the world, in spite of monetary appearances; it never will lose supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not indeed by the world’s deliberate and conscious choice, but by something far deeper,—by the instinct of self-preservation in humanity.


The poems Arnold has used to `put his money where his mouth is` are commonly used as examples of `high and serious` poetry…Arnold hasn`t really said why…
anybody else got any idea?

Isobel, can you explain what a highly serious "knicker gripper" is?

...........baited breath etc etc!

I'm still waiting to find out Graham ;)

In truth, I think language just evolves. All this classical poetry that Harry favours gives me a headache if I read too much of it. I like modern poetry because, on the whole, it is much easier to understand. There IS highly serious stuff out there - in with the less so - for me variety is all.

For a poem to stand out, it just has to say something in a different way.

Now I'm rambling... enough...

Hmmm... seems to have less to do with the seriousness of your poetry and more to do with the pompous pretentiousness of your poeticisms...

Chaucer spoke of: "High style, as when folk speak to Kings"
Which makes me suspect that one element of 'high seriousness' is elitism.
Another side to it is taking writing seriously, on the other hand. Well written poems have little or no floundering language that looks redundant.
Redundancy in spoken language is very useful, because when we are listening to speech there are distractions, and if we miss a point once, it needs to be repeated so we don't miss it again. If you are giving instructions you are encouraged to repeat the points in several different ways so people get the message. In speeches you get lots of repetition, so that the words become mantras or sound bites. 'Yes we can'
So if poetry is to be read aloud, repetition is useful. Good poetry builds the repetition into the patterns of the poem so it belongs. Thats why folk songs have choruses too.
However, 'serious' poetry is by implication the stuff you read in a book in a quiet place, so you can concentrate. It is possible therefore to develop a style which needs concentration, so that no word will be lost. In fact words can be condensed and ideas encapsulated in phrases that are difficult to understand, because you have time to work it out, and can feel that you have a common culture with the writer if you can construe what they have written. This leads to an elitism about cultural references, so lots of readers are put off, because they don't get the references, and reviewers can interpret the meanings, and show off their share of the culture.
Actually any shared culture can be used in this way. Ezra Pound used Greek for example, but street slang can be just as exclusive if you want to create barriers or make people work hard to understand you.
You don't have to be hard to understand to write seriously of serious topics. The 'high' bit is what suggests elitism.

Freda, you have given this topic considerable thought. I like best the point that 'serious poetry' is well-written, whether it flows quickly in performance or requires a few moments of introspective contemplation over the printed page. Harry's extensive revisit of the quotation is superb. Maybe 'high' zeros in on elitism, as you infer; or maybe Arnold meant the quality of the writing itself, whatever the subject. And that, of course, infers 'elitism' also, as persons 'judge' what is good by their particular values usually shared/enforced by 'think-alikers'.

The arts have been proletarianized. Plebeian culture cannot address the highest issues.

How do you define 'today' Harry? Lots of high seriousness (however defined) in poets who've been around since Eliot. R.S.Thomas (d.2000) Jorge Luis Borges (d. 1986) and many others.

Many many song lyrics which have some poetic merit deal with 'serious' themes, although some may see the treatment as simplistic. Beatles 'Across the Universe' Dylan - 'Every Grain of Sand'. Much of Leonard Cohen. It's endless.

Dave,A good `definition` challenge.Of your suggested examples Dylan`s `Every Grain Of Sand`seems (to me) the best `goer` for a modern definition of `today`High Seriousness.So I`ve done an explanation of why I think This extract is High and serious. Maybe if you did a similar one on Dylan`s Lyric we could get down to the nitty gritty.(I appreciate that Dylan` lyric is what some would call `spiritual`but I think a comparison would be valuable.


`Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy`s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge



The words are those of a responsible ruler (high and serious status)to a personified sleep. (a high and serious personification) Who is complaining of not being able to sleep at a time of danger. The Ship boy is physically in a high position with a serious responsibility for the safety of the ship and crew and is therefore in a high and serious analogous situation to the king, and yet he is able to fall asleep. the words `giddy` and `imperious` and `surge` `rock` `brains` plus `rude imperious surge` all refer to the perilous situation and responsibilities of both the boy and the king. (the king politically, the boy ` physically)

The extract is from the start of the second part of King Henry 1V. and comes in the midst of that superb section that contrasts the luxurious (but sleepless) situation of a king in a palace with the situation of those who sleep soundly in `smoky cribs` or `vile` in `loathsome beds`…the section- high and serious in itself – is a marvellously tense beginning to the high and serious business of the play itself.The section is fairly short and rewards close reading.

It ends with the now famous `Uneasy lies the head which wears the crown`

It would be wonderful if a modern poet could write something similar about Obama`s present dilemma.

Hi Harry

Yes, what would poetry about Obama's dilemma be like!

To me, high and serious poetry has to deal with big questions and has to hook the reader into engaging with those questions.

In Every Grain of Sand Dylan is asking questions - he is "hanging in the balance". He asks whether God can be experienced - "I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea, Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other time it's only me".

He is exploring how to deal with what chokes the "breath of conscience and good cheer", and how God can be involved in that - at the deepest psychological level (the "dying voice" from the "deepest need").

He is also opening up the tension between knowledge and experience. Understanding that every hair is numbered is all very well (verse 4), but what about wealth and poverty, loneliness and lost innocence (verse 5). This is what leaves him "hanging in the balance".

R S Thomas is full of questions. A Welsh Testament explores national identification and feeling and the extent to which our heritage shapes our lives. It asks what is to be done with uneconomic Welsh uplands and whether, if they are to be treated as drab, grey museums, 'authentic' Welsh people should be condemned to live there.

There's no shortage of big questions in modern poetry though there may not be anyone with the stature of Shakespeare writing in English.

Dave,
(I`ve been trying to `catch up` with R.B.Thomas.)

Regarding the `today` definition,
Thomas` austere landscape and `peasantry` poetry is
a million miles from the `Save our earth/global warming` movement, but neither the desire to live in pleasant green fields or in an aborigine landscape qualify I think
rank as Arnolds `high and serious`…His equally austere `religious` poetry needs more thinking about.

Thomas is well aware that he lives in that `post religious` society Arnold feared. (given the huge numbers of religions in the rest of the world we sometimes forget
that it is arguably a minority and parochially `scientific` society) two of his quotes:


Life is too short for
Religion; it takes time
To prepare a sacrifice
For the God. Give yourself
To science that reveals
All, asking no pay
For it. Knowledge is power;
The old oracle
Has not changed. The nucleus
In the atom awaits
Our bidding. Come forth,
We cry, and the dust spreads
Its carpet. Over the creeds
and masterpieces our wheels go.

and


I am alone on the surface
Of a turning planet. What
To do but like Michelangelo`s
Adam put my hand
Out into unknown space
Hoping for a reciprocating touch.

Exhibit this knowledge

Myself as a Christian and probably a sizable number of poetically `savvy` non- believers would `get` Thomas` method of holding his readers eyes hard up to fact that God does not explain himself. But -in `today` terms –I don`t think his poetry would be thought high or serious


DYLAN`S LYRIC


"Every Grain Of Sand"
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break
In the fury of the moment I can see the master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other time it's only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.


Initially gives old codgers like me the warm feeling that the young idiots haven`t gone completely to the dogs….But it`s just a feeling:……`Flowers of indulgence` `steps of time`…`always hear my name`…`every hair is numbered`… `grain of sand`…`wintry light`…`broken mirror`…`ancient footsteps`…`hanging in the balance`…`sparrow falling`. Poetically (to me) it`s a bundle vaguely remembered plagiarisms about crises that other poets have written about in the past.

I`m sometimes jealous of those who were young enough to take part in the whole Beatles and flower-power heady music thing, but if it lasts it is the music, not the Poetry.

The king Henry quote is perhaps too much of a political-power thing and completely play - dependent for it`s full understanding for it to be fairly contrasted with the two
poets you mention Dave. But, in the light of the way the rhythmic and typographical form of poetry has changed since the time of the so-called `greats` it would be very interesting to ask whether `high and serious` poetry is possible in the present `almost anything goes` poetry world?

If you want hight seriousness, it doesn't got more serious than this from Paul Celan:

Death Fugue

by Paul Celan
translated by Jerome Rothenberg
Black milk of morning we drink you at dusktime
we drink you at noontime and dawntime we drink you at night
we drink and drink
we scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie
There’s a man in this house who cultivates snakes and who writes
who writes when it’s nightfall nach Deutschland your golden hair Margareta
he writes it and walks from the house and the stars all start flashing he whistles his
dogs to draw near
whistles his Jews to appear starts us scooping a grave out of sand
he commands us to play for the dance

Black milk of morning we drink you at night
we drink you at dawntime and noontime we drink you at dusktime
we drink and drink
There’s a man in this house who cultivates snakes and who writes
who writes when it’s nightfall nach Deutschland your golden hair Margareta
your ashen hair Shulamite we scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie
He calls jab it deep in the soil you lot there you other men sing and play
he tugs at the sword in his belt he swings it his eyes are blue
jab your spades deeper you men you other men you others play up again for the dance

Black milk of morning we drink you at night
we drink you at noontime and dawntime we drink you at dusktime
we drink and drink
there’s a man in this house your golden hair Margareta
your ashen hair Shulamite he cultivates snakes

He calls play that death thing more sweetly Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland
he calls scrape that fiddle more darkly then hover like smoke in the air
then scoop out a grave in the clouds where it’s roomy to lie

Black milk of morning we drink you at night
we drink you at noontime Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland
we drink you at dusktime and dawntime we drink and drink
Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland his eye is blue
he shoots you with leaden bullets his aim is true
there’s a man in this house your golden hair Margareta
he sets his dogs on our trail he gives us a grave in the sky
he cultivates snakes and he dreams Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland

your golden hair Margareta
your ashen hair Shulamite
-

CELAN`S POEM


As the poem is originally in a foreign language I obtained a summary of what it is `about`

Deathfugue Summary

The speakers of this poem are Jewish prisoners. They describe drinking "black milk," a symbol for the un-nourishing life of a concentration camps. They drink this toxic brew all day long. They also dig mass graves under the orders of one of the Nazi guards.

The guard lives in a house and thinks about classic German literature a lot. He has a thing for Marguerite, the innocent blond-haired heroine of Goethe's Faust. He also beats the Jewish prisoners and makes some of them play music while the others work: the "Deathfugue" or "Death Tango."

The poem begins repeating itself – this is the "fugue" form. Each stanza sounds faster and more disorienting. Marguerite is compared with Shulamith, a symbol for a Jewish feminine ideal. References to death and the Nazi crematoriums add a sense of menace. The speaker claims that "Death is a master from Germany."

The guard executes some of the prisoners with gunfire and turns his vicious dogs on others. The poem ends with a repetition of three mysterious phrases that explore the fractured identity of the German and Jewish cultures.

Is it `high and serious`?

The intended and partly realised attempt by the Nazis physically exterminate an entire and named species of the human race called Jews is without doubt a horrific and uniquely serious theme….In terms of man`s inhumanity to man
it is an enormity.

Arnold says:
`So far as high poetic truth and seriousness are wanting to a poet’s
matter and substance, so far also, we may be sure, will a high poetic
stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his style and manner.In
proportion as this high stamp of diction and movement,again, is absent from a poet’s style and manner, we shall find, also, that
high poetic truth and seriousness are absent from his substance
and matter.`

The `matter` and `substance` of this poem is hugely serious.

(The poem is a translation so some of the linguistic nuances in the original German I can`t deal with.)

The question (Arnolds) is; does the diction and movement in this poem do
justice to the High seriousness of his theme.

I think not…because:

Although the poem was published in the late forties and was therefore a very early (maybe the original) prefiguration of the appalling conditions of labour and the gangster-like brutality of the camp regimes, which later became a regular part of the depiction of life therein. As such it`s modern impressionistic style is quite effective. The dogs the bullets the snakes the sword all place the reader where it is actually happening, wearily over-arched by dismal dawntime and dusktime.

Where I think it fails Arnolds test of diction and movement are those parts of the poem: Margareta, Shulamite, and the inclusion of music – and dance (as a macabre danse of death ?) etc; which – to me- somehow place the main shame of
the Nazi brutality in a decline from some sort of formerly shared
culturally artistic height. To me such brutality is not primarily a crime against culture or artistry, it`s a crime against Human Nature itself.

Perhaps a quote from Shakespeare might `get` at what I mean:

`I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge`

It seems to me that Celans diction and movement would have been truer if he had included something, in his own style akin to this basic and
genuinely `high` human reality.

I'm not bright enough to offer any sort of definition, fellas, but I can recognise it. It gives me goosebumps. "Every grain" does this in spades.

It happens mostly for me with music. It made the kids laugh when they were little. I told them it was when the music kissed your soul.

Interesting reading, Harry. Not sure he just puts the blame on culture though - except that German cultural icons and anti-semitism run side-by-side in German culture up till the 2nd World War. So although it's definitely a human failing, it's also a cultural failing and he's coming at the human failing through the culture. I think a lot of German art post-war is also heavily sarcastic (Baselitz turning his paintings upside down, novels like the Tin Drum). As if the only kind of honest reaction was a kind of savage hysterical laughter. As well as being highly serious it's probably also a rejection of 'high seriousness' in the Arnoldian sense, which for many post-war writers and artists had completely failed.

Now they may have been right or wrong to do that; but I for one can't blame them. When you've just seen civilisation collapse into barbarism because some Austrian house-painter's hypnotic speeches have convinced the majority of God-fearing, clean-living citizens that whole races are less than human and need exterminating, you aren't in any mood to be conciliatory or noble.

Paul Celan rejected this early relatively clear style for something much more gnomic. His later poems are much more difficult to get a handle on. He also became increasingly paranoid and depressed and he ended up drowning himself in a canal.

"High seriousness" in an Arnoldian sense, possibly not. Highly serious? You bet...

Well I think this discussion thread is achieving a high seriousness itself. Good going. Great examples.

About high and serious poetry again:

It seems that rhyme has almost completely vanished from any modern poetry which aims to be either high or serious (or even merely earnest).

This is an excerpt from a poem called `The Mistress of Vision`

But woe's me, and woe's me,
For the secrets of her eyes!
In my visions fearfully
They are ever shown to be
As fring-ed pools, whereof each lies
Pallid-dark beneath the skies
Of a night that is
But one blear necropolis.
And her eyes a little tremble, in the wind of her own sighs.

I think that the power of this comes even more from the rhyme than from the imagery.

Can anyone `match` the power of this with a similar quote from a past or present-day un-rhymed, free verse quote from one of their own favourites?

And could they use the quotes to point out the strengths or the weaknesses of either?. It might help to explain something about the mysterious absence of rhyme in modern serious poetry.

I am interested in the fact that this extract is almost all one sentence, so that the rhymes, although placed at the end of lines, are very much internal to the structure. As the lines are not conforming to a rhythm pattern, the effect is not as repetitive as it would be in a regular rhythm, so the rhymes seem to slide in quietly. I think it is regular rhythm which these days seems contrary to seriousness.imho

It has a pre raphaelite feel about it.

Sorry Harry but it just sounds like a parody of seriousness to me. 'But woe's me' sounds like a sulky Victorian teen. Written to metronome not to music.