From
The structure meant is a structure of
meanings, evaluations, and interpretations; and the principle of unity which
informs it seems to be one of balancing and harmonizing connotations,
attitudes, and meanings. But even here
one needs to make important qualification: the principle is not one which
involves the arrangement of the various elements into homogeneous groupings,
paring like with like. It unites the
like with the unlike. It does not unite
them, however, by the simple process of allowing one connotation to cancel out
another nor does it reduce the contradictory attitudes to harmony by a process
of subtraction. The unity is not a unity
of the sort to be achieved by the reduction and simplification appropriate to
an algebraic formula
It is a positive unity, not a negative; it represents not a
residue but an achieved harmony.
*****
The essential structure of a poem (as distinguished
from the rational or logical structure of the 'statement' which we abstract
from it) resembles that of architecture or painting: it is a pattern of
resolved stresses. Or, to move closer
still to poetry by considering the temporal arts, the structure of a poem
resembles that of a ballet or musical composition. It is a pattern of
resolutions and balances and harmonizations,
developed through a temporal scheme.
Or
to move still closer to poetry, the structure of a poem resembles that of a
play. This last example of course, risks
introducing once more the distracting element, since drama, like poetry, makes
use words. Yet on the whole, most of us
are less inclined to force the concept of 'statement' on drama than on a lyric
poem; for the very nature of drama is that of something 'acted out'—something
which arrives at its conclusion through conflict—something which builds
conflict into its very being….
*****
The conclusion of the poem is the
working out of the various tensions—set up by whatever means—by propositions,
metaphors, symbols. The unity is
achieved by a dramatic process, not a logical; it represents an
equilibrium of forces, not a formula.
*****
Yet there are better reasons than that
of rhetorical vain-glory that have induced poet after poet to choose ambiguity
and paradox rather than plain, discursive simplicity. It is not enough for the poet to analyse his experience as a scientist does, breaking it up
into parts, distinguishing part from part, classifying the various parts. His task is finally to unify experience. He must return to us the unity of the
experience itself as man knows it in his own experience. The poem, if it be a true poem is a simulacrum
of reality—in this sense, at least, it is an 'imitation'—by being an
experience rather than any mere statement about experience or any mere
abstraction from experience….