Ars Poetica Essay

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Archibald MacLeish – Ars Poetica This is a poem that explores the views that the poet has about what constitutes a good poem and what the ideal qualities are that a poem should strive for. The title of this poem is a Latin phrase and is borrowed from the classical Latin poet Horace. In the first century A.D., Horace wrote an essay called “Ars Poetica” or “The Art of Poetry”. In that treatise Horace advised poets (amongst other things) to be brief and to make their poems lasting. By making use of the same title as Horace, it is clear that MacLeish wants to link the classical with the modern as a way of implying that the standards of good poems are timeless. In “Ars Poetica”, Archibald MacLeish then proceeds to specify what he believes those timeless standards to be. The poem is written in three stanzas, with each stanza consisting of four couplets. In the first stanza, the first line of each couplet is used to identify and name a specific quality that MacLeish feels the ideal poem should possess, namely that it should be “palpable”, “mute”, “dumb”, “silent” and “wordless”. The rest of the couplet is then devoted to a simile with which the chosen attribute is compared. MacLeish believes that a poem should be easily comprehended by the senses and the mind (be “palpable”) and so each simile is used as a means of conveying a concrete sensory image. In order to fully appreciate what the poet means by “palpable”, “mute”, “dumb”, “silent” and “wordless”, the reader is asked to imagine these traits as they would relate to “globed fruit… old medallions to the thumb…sleeve-worn stone…[and] the flight of birds”. In this way the poet compares the metaphysical qualities of the ideal poem to visible realities that can be experienced in the physical world. By using these uncomplicated images, MacLeish makes it easier for the reader to gain an understanding of the
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