Poetry
Today, we ask, what is Poetry? The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
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Before we talk about poetry, let’s think about the struggle to know just how early humans adopted speech. And that quickly leads to the question of song. When did we first sing? And here we face two more related questions: When did our vocalizations first qualify as speech? And when did we adapt speech to something we could call song?
Well, we’re pretty sure that Neanderthals had what would qualify as language. They had the right anatomy for it. Furthermore, the stepping stone to song is chant. And we know that they did artistic rituals – burials, cave painting, and more. Rituals that were almost certainly accompanied by chants. Indeed, some anthropologists even suggest that music preceded language. They’re sure that the modern humans who followed had well-evolved language and music.
The traditions carried forward by native Americans and Australians suggest how language and music might’ve merged. They provide some of the more elemental forms of ritual music. And here I might seem to be dodging the question of poetry.
(didgeridoo music)
But I am not: Poetry at bare minimum is language enhanced. It’s speech that enhances compresses and intensifies meaning. Chant was very likely an early form of poetry – music riding on a single note with limited digressions to other notes.
Why do I say that? Because, if we wish to define poetry, we can say that it is patterned speech. Those patterns might include rhythm, rhyme, repetition, and other organizing devices. And words set to music must accommodate the patterning of music on which they ride.
Words rode on music in many ways, in the Western world. Certainly in the monasteries and convents where members sang the liturgical hours. Then too, minstrels and jongleurs carried words from hamlet to hamlet in musical rhyme. The great song-writers of the Renaissance brought a certain majesty in using music to enhance words.
I’m drawn to a few lines from an ancient source: The book of Ecclesiasticus. At first, we hear
Let us now praise famous men, ...
Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms,
Men renowned for their power, ...
But then it says,
Such as found out musical tunes,
And recited verses in writing:
It heralds the coming of writing – the separation of verse from its music. But music had once been home to those words.
So: back to my question, what is poetry? It really is the child born of music. The two have gone their own ways in the centuries that’ve passed. But today, as always, we still hear poetry emerging from the music that carries it.
I’m John Lienhard, at the university of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work.
(Theme music)
Some Sources
D. J. Grout: A History of Western Music: W.W. Norton and Co. 1960. See especially the opening chapter: “The State of Music at the end of the Ancient World.” which addresses the relationship between music and poetry in the ancient world.
General background can be found in:
General discussions of Neanderthal vocal capability and language are widely available in current anthropological literature and public lectures. For example, they often explore the idea that interbreeding of Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens would have been unlikely if both lacked some language ability. See, e.g. This Ancient Animal Atlas video about the quality of Neanderthal vocalizations.
Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 44:1-14 – Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.