On behalf of
Poetry I have accepted the honor which has been paid to Her, an honor which I
shall now hasten to restore to Her.
Poetry rarely receives public homage. The gulf between poetic creation and the activities of a society subjected to material bondage grows ever wider. This estrangement, which the poet must accept though it is none of his doing, would be the fate of the scientist as well, were it not that science has practical applications.
But it is the disinterested mind of the scientist no less than that of the poet which we are gathered here to honor. Here, at least, it is forbidden to regard them as sworn enemies. Both put the same question to the same abyss: they differ only in their methods of investigation.
When we consider the drama of modern science as it discovers its rational limits in pure mathematics; when, in physics, we see two great sovereign doctrines laid down, on the General Theory of Relativity, the other the Quantum Theory of uncertainty and indeterminism which would set a limit to the exactitude even of physical measurements; when we have heard the greatest scientific discoverer of this century, the founder of modern cosmology, the architect of the greatest intellectual synthesis in terms of mathematical equations, invoking intuition to come to the rescue of reason, asserting that “imagination is the real soil of all fruitful scientific ideas,” and even going so far as to claim for the scientist the benefit of an authentic ‘artistic vision’ – then, have we not the right to consider the instrument of poetry as legitimate as that of logic?
Indeed ,in its beginnings every creative act of the spirit is ‘poetic’ in the proper sense of the word. In giving equal value to sensory and mental forms, the same activity serves, initially, the enterprises of scientist and poet alike. Which has travelled, which will travel, a longer way –discursive thinking or poetic ellipsis? From the primal abyss where two blind figures, blind from birth, are groping, one equipped with all the apparatus of science, the other assisted only by the flashes of intuition – which comes to the surface sooner and the more highly charged with a brief phosphorescence? How we answer this question is of no importance. All that matters is the mystery in which they both share. The high spiritual adventure of poetry need yield nothing in drama to the new vistas of modern science. Astronomers may have faced with panic the idea of an expanding universe: is not a similar expansion taking place in the moral infinite of that other universe, the universe of man? As far as the frontiers of science extend and along their whole stretched arch, we can still hear the hounds of the poet in full cry. For, if poetry is not itself, as some have claimed, ‘absolute reality,’ it is poetry which shows the strongest passion for and the keenest appreciation of it, to that extreme limit of complicity where reality seems to shape itself within the poem.
By means of analogical and symbolic thinking, by means of the far-reaching light of the mediating image and its play of correspondences, by way of a thousand chains of reactions and unusual associations, by virtue also of a language through which is transmitted the supreme rhythm of Being, the poet clothes himself in a transcendental reality to which the scientist cannot aspire. Are there, in man, any more striking dialectics, and which could bind him more? When the philosophers abandon the metaphysical threshold, it falls to the poet to take upon himself the role of the metaphysician: at such times it is poetry, not philosophy, that is the true “Daughter of Wonder,” to use the phrase of that ancient philosopher who mistrusted her most.
Poetry is not only a way of knowledge; it is even more away of life –of life in its totality. A poet already dwelt within the cave man: a poet will be dwelling still within the man of the atomic age; for poetry is a fundamental part of man. Out of the poetic need, which is one of the spirit, all religions have been born, and by poetic grace the divine spark is kept eternally alight within the human flint. When mythologies founder, it is in poetry that the divine finds its refuge, perhaps its relay stage. As, in the antique procession, the Bearers of bread were succeeded by the Bearers of torches, so now, in the social order and the immediacies of life it is the poetic image which rekindles the high passion of mankind in its quest for light.
What a proud privilege is ours! To march forward, bearing the burden of eternity, to march forward, bearing the burden of humanity, and led by a vision of a new humanism: of authentic universality, of psychic integrity! . . .Faithful to its task, which is nothing less than to fathom the human mystery, modern poetry is pursuing an enterprise which is concerned with man in the plenitude of his being. In such a poetry there is no place for anything Pythian, or for anything purely aesthetic. It does not raise cultured pearls, does not traffic in fakes or emblems, nor would it be content to be a mere feast of music. It is intimately related to beauty, supreme alliance, but beauty is neither its goal nor its sole food. Refusing to divorce art from life or love from knowledge, it is action, it is passion, it is power, a perpetual renewal that extends its boundaries. Love is its vital flame, independence is its law, and its domain is everywhere, an anticipation. It never wishes to be absence, nor refusal.
However, it begs no favors of the times. Dedicated to its goal and free from all ideology, it knows itself to be the equal of life, which needs no justification. In one embrace, as in one great living strophe, it gathers to its present all the past and the future, the human and the superhuman, the planetary space and total space. Its alleged obscurity is due, not to its own nature, which is to enlighten, but to the darkness which it explores, and must explore: the dark of the soul herself and the dark of the mystery which envelops human existence. It allows itself no obscurity in its terms, and these are no less rigorous than those of science.
Poetry rarely receives public homage. The gulf between poetic creation and the activities of a society subjected to material bondage grows ever wider. This estrangement, which the poet must accept though it is none of his doing, would be the fate of the scientist as well, were it not that science has practical applications.
But it is the disinterested mind of the scientist no less than that of the poet which we are gathered here to honor. Here, at least, it is forbidden to regard them as sworn enemies. Both put the same question to the same abyss: they differ only in their methods of investigation.
When we consider the drama of modern science as it discovers its rational limits in pure mathematics; when, in physics, we see two great sovereign doctrines laid down, on the General Theory of Relativity, the other the Quantum Theory of uncertainty and indeterminism which would set a limit to the exactitude even of physical measurements; when we have heard the greatest scientific discoverer of this century, the founder of modern cosmology, the architect of the greatest intellectual synthesis in terms of mathematical equations, invoking intuition to come to the rescue of reason, asserting that “imagination is the real soil of all fruitful scientific ideas,” and even going so far as to claim for the scientist the benefit of an authentic ‘artistic vision’ – then, have we not the right to consider the instrument of poetry as legitimate as that of logic?
Indeed ,in its beginnings every creative act of the spirit is ‘poetic’ in the proper sense of the word. In giving equal value to sensory and mental forms, the same activity serves, initially, the enterprises of scientist and poet alike. Which has travelled, which will travel, a longer way –discursive thinking or poetic ellipsis? From the primal abyss where two blind figures, blind from birth, are groping, one equipped with all the apparatus of science, the other assisted only by the flashes of intuition – which comes to the surface sooner and the more highly charged with a brief phosphorescence? How we answer this question is of no importance. All that matters is the mystery in which they both share. The high spiritual adventure of poetry need yield nothing in drama to the new vistas of modern science. Astronomers may have faced with panic the idea of an expanding universe: is not a similar expansion taking place in the moral infinite of that other universe, the universe of man? As far as the frontiers of science extend and along their whole stretched arch, we can still hear the hounds of the poet in full cry. For, if poetry is not itself, as some have claimed, ‘absolute reality,’ it is poetry which shows the strongest passion for and the keenest appreciation of it, to that extreme limit of complicity where reality seems to shape itself within the poem.
By means of analogical and symbolic thinking, by means of the far-reaching light of the mediating image and its play of correspondences, by way of a thousand chains of reactions and unusual associations, by virtue also of a language through which is transmitted the supreme rhythm of Being, the poet clothes himself in a transcendental reality to which the scientist cannot aspire. Are there, in man, any more striking dialectics, and which could bind him more? When the philosophers abandon the metaphysical threshold, it falls to the poet to take upon himself the role of the metaphysician: at such times it is poetry, not philosophy, that is the true “Daughter of Wonder,” to use the phrase of that ancient philosopher who mistrusted her most.
Poetry is not only a way of knowledge; it is even more away of life –of life in its totality. A poet already dwelt within the cave man: a poet will be dwelling still within the man of the atomic age; for poetry is a fundamental part of man. Out of the poetic need, which is one of the spirit, all religions have been born, and by poetic grace the divine spark is kept eternally alight within the human flint. When mythologies founder, it is in poetry that the divine finds its refuge, perhaps its relay stage. As, in the antique procession, the Bearers of bread were succeeded by the Bearers of torches, so now, in the social order and the immediacies of life it is the poetic image which rekindles the high passion of mankind in its quest for light.
What a proud privilege is ours! To march forward, bearing the burden of eternity, to march forward, bearing the burden of humanity, and led by a vision of a new humanism: of authentic universality, of psychic integrity! . . .Faithful to its task, which is nothing less than to fathom the human mystery, modern poetry is pursuing an enterprise which is concerned with man in the plenitude of his being. In such a poetry there is no place for anything Pythian, or for anything purely aesthetic. It does not raise cultured pearls, does not traffic in fakes or emblems, nor would it be content to be a mere feast of music. It is intimately related to beauty, supreme alliance, but beauty is neither its goal nor its sole food. Refusing to divorce art from life or love from knowledge, it is action, it is passion, it is power, a perpetual renewal that extends its boundaries. Love is its vital flame, independence is its law, and its domain is everywhere, an anticipation. It never wishes to be absence, nor refusal.
However, it begs no favors of the times. Dedicated to its goal and free from all ideology, it knows itself to be the equal of life, which needs no justification. In one embrace, as in one great living strophe, it gathers to its present all the past and the future, the human and the superhuman, the planetary space and total space. Its alleged obscurity is due, not to its own nature, which is to enlighten, but to the darkness which it explores, and must explore: the dark of the soul herself and the dark of the mystery which envelops human existence. It allows itself no obscurity in its terms, and these are no less rigorous than those of science.
So, by his
absolute adhesion to what exists, the poet keeps us in touch with the
permanence and unity of Being. And his message is one of optimism. To him, one
law of harmony governs the whole world of things. Nothing can occur there by which
its nature is incommensurable with man. The worst catastrophes of history are
but seasonal rhythms in a vaster cycle of repetitions and renewals. The Furies
who cross the stage, torches high, do but throw light upon one moment in the
immense plot as it unfolds itself trough time. Growing civilizations do not
perish from the pangs of one autumn; they merely shed their leaves. Inertia is
the only mortal danger. Poet is he who breaks for us the bonds of habit.
In this way, in spite of himself, the poet also is tied to historical events. Nothing in the drama of his times is alien to him. May he inspire in all of us a pride in being alive in this, so vital, age. For the hour is great and new for us to seize. And to whom indeed should we surrender the honor in our time? . . .
In this way, in spite of himself, the poet also is tied to historical events. Nothing in the drama of his times is alien to him. May he inspire in all of us a pride in being alive in this, so vital, age. For the hour is great and new for us to seize. And to whom indeed should we surrender the honor in our time? . . .
“Fear not”,”
says History ,taking off her mask of violence and raising her hand in the conciliatory
gesture of the Asiatic Divinity at the climax of Her dance of destruction. “Fear
not, neither doubt – for doubt is impotent and fear servile. Listen, rather, to
the rhythm that I, the renewer of all things, impose upon the great theme which
mankind is forever engaged in composing. It is not true that life can abjure
life: nothing that lives is born of nothingness, or to nothingness is wed. But
nothing, either, can preserve its form and measure against the ceaseless flux of Being. The tragedy is
not in the metamorphosis as such. The real drama of this century lies in the
growing estrangement between the temporal; and the un-temporal man. Is man,
enlightened on one side, to sink into darkness on the other? A forced growth in
a community without communion, what would that be but a false maturity? . .
. “
It is for the poet, in his wholeness, to be witness to the twofold vocation of man: to hold up before the spirit a mirror more sensitive to his spiritual possibilities; to evoke, in our own country, a vision of the human condition more worthy of man as he was created; to connect ever more closely the collective soul to the currents of spiritual energy in the world. In these days of nuclear energy, can the earthenware lamp of the poet still suffice? Yes, if its clay remind us of our own.
And it is enough for the poet to be the guilty conscience of his time.
It is for the poet, in his wholeness, to be witness to the twofold vocation of man: to hold up before the spirit a mirror more sensitive to his spiritual possibilities; to evoke, in our own country, a vision of the human condition more worthy of man as he was created; to connect ever more closely the collective soul to the currents of spiritual energy in the world. In these days of nuclear energy, can the earthenware lamp of the poet still suffice? Yes, if its clay remind us of our own.
And it is enough for the poet to be the guilty conscience of his time.
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