Poetic Diction: A Study In Meaning (1928)
By Owen Barfield
Definition and Examples
First, Barfield attempts to define what poetic diction is, then explains it is often a very personal interpretation that defies explanation. What one man finds poetic another does not and so forth. But while people might not agree as to what has poetic diction, they can agree that poetry needs to contain it. That special something that, “an expression as ‘prophets old’ may, and probably will, ‘mean’ something quite different from ‘old prophets‘” (41). He then goes on to give several examples of various kinds. Everything from “Thlee-piecee bamboo, two-piecee puff-puff, walk-along inside, no-can-see” (43) to “Love is a torment of the mind, A tempest everlasting” (44).
The Effects of Poetry
He points out it is possible to “distinguish the intellectual element in poetic meaning from the tonal” (47). He narrows his meaning of poetic diction to mean the former, and explains he will not be covering the concept of sound as diction in the book. He then goes on to define exactly what he means by various words, in order to clarify what can sometimes become foggy when throwing about phrases like “aesthetic imagination” (48). He points out that some poetic diction is caused by archaic or foreign words, and would not be considered poetic diction to those involved directly. Some “stock” poetry such as ballads can become tricky as well, since it is not necessarily the individual poet who seeks to mold the words. He gives various examples, even some from science, to illustrate his point. “Men are habitually insensible to beauty…it is in rare and scattered instants that beauty smiles even on her adorers” (53). He agrees that part of the problem of finding poetic diction is that the aesthetic experience does not come often and seems different in various sorts of people. He then goes on to attempt to define its causes. There is the experience which each person brings, a storehouse of language, memories and ideas. He then begins to examine the history of language, particularly with regards to poetry. He then reminds that criticism has often become just a social custom. That in various circles you condemn one poet and praise another, just as a sort of popular spouting off.
Metaphor
Barfield points out that philologists seem mostly concerned with the forms of words rather than their meaning through history. Why Waet would become What and so forth rather than the difference in meaning between, say, cool in the 1880s and cool in the 1980s. A teacher of mine once pointed this out by using the word prevent as an example. Prevent to the 1600s meant to go before in a sort of protective capacity — walking point as it were. Now it means to stop someone actively. You may be wondering why the chapter on philology is called metaphor. That is precisely because metaphor is inherent in language, “every modern language…is apparently nothing, from beginning to end, but an unconscionable tissue of dead, or petrified metaphors” (63). If you trace words back far enough they have a ridiculous meaning that have nothing to do with the modern interpretation. The concept of a particular word of phrase being attached to the object or idea to which it refers is clearly proved incorrect by history. He gives the example of a poet comparing a straight stick to a feeling, then people calling the feeling by that connection and the idea of the straight stick thus being pushed aside for a deeper purpose. Language naturally and inherently becomes more and more poetic. People may think they don’t care or understand about poetry but indeed they are speaking it every day of their life in a way. Of course the true poets are the ones who carefully craft the language towards diction. Then he turns on his theory. If this is true, that language evolved, then why is even ancient Greek poetry clearly in advance of our own. It is not, therefore, through evolution of language. True language must be in flux, but it isn’t necessarily an upward spiral.
Meaning and Myth
This includes still more philology, mostly redefining classical explanations. He spends most of the time refuting various popular theories on the subject. He then proceeds to psychology as an explanation. But mostly the chapter concentrates on the apparent paradox that language seems to some more poetic going back in time and others more advanced going forward in time. Barfield chose to end this by pointing out perhaps they didn’t evolve at all but were, “latent in the meaning from the beginning” (85). To quote Doctor Who, “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it’s more like a big ball of wiggly wobbly timeywymie stuff” (“Blink” 2007). If that is the case, authorship and appreciation of poetry are inherent in human nature and language. Barfield also objects to dragging words back to “mythical meanings”. Also, meanings in poetry often stay fixed through the ages while general language moves on. Sleep seems irrevocably linked with death, for example.
Language and Poetry
The history of language in poetry begins with the first ancient diction, which eventually came to be written down, and much was of spiritual meaning. For much time, the difference between prose and poetry was a bit more muddled than it is now. He spends some time examining Classical Poetry, particularly Virgil. Poetry went from “organic to a relatively structural character” (99).
The Poet
This concerns the individual’s contribution to poetic diction. Those who changed the primary or inherent meanings for that of their own creation. “Among a polished people, a taste for poetry is rather an amusement of the fancy, than a passion of the soul.” (104). People enjoy and appreciate poetry in different ways, some in absolute passion, some as simply pleasant and others out of a sense of social duty. Barfield points out an appreciative audience is as important to poetry as the poets themselves. An individual draws upon their own knowledge and experience, which “will obviously be limited” (106). Interestingly, Barfield points out that a poet “cannot even today be regarded as a self-conscious individual, for such consciousness is impossible without rational analytic tought…he is not maker, but comparer, or judge; and he cannot be both simultaneously” (107). At first people believed poets to have divine utterance, then simply inspiration and now people seem to think it is all selfishness. That is incorrect. While poets are clearly not possessed by a demi-god, they do have some sort of creativity that is outside of themselves. They must judge their own work as they write it.
The Making of Meaning (I)
There are two main kinds of poetry — the instinctive sort and the developed sort. While the poet affects the general language, “he has in certain respects to fight against language, making up the poetic deficit out of his own private balance” (112). Poets achieve this by metaphor, and even creating wholly new words. Sometimes the mere sound of a word will add to its meaning. He traces the Latin word “ruo” as an example. He also brings up Greek and French as well. He also has hope for overused words, “no matter how many times it has been carelessly handled for the purposes of false and facile romanticism, the old magic will always be ready to flash out to a touch of true imagination” (123).
The Making of Meaning (II)
This opens with an examination of Goldsmith’s essay on poetry. Barfield also points out that sometimes individual poets have a sort of obsession with a particular word, and bring new depth to it as a result. Sometimes a poet will not so much coin a new word as change the meaning of the old by an unusual juxtaposition. A sort of fresh meaning to the word. “There is really no end to the secrets hidden behind the meanings of single words” (132). Barfield also points out that it is some sort of odd Western thing that scientific words are exempt. After all, science fluctuates as much as language. In fact he goes so far as to suggest some scientific reports could be seen as examples of poetic diction as those scientists push the boundaries of common meanings when they discover new ideas. He often brings up Shakespeare with examples of diction and new word meanings. Science and poetry are not opposites but in fact on the same track. Indeed, even language is put into practice by experimentation and trial and error. Poetry helps language to stay alive and not begin, “crystallizing into a kind of algebra” (144).
Verse and Prose
Barfield basically separates poetry and prose by metrical and un-metrical writing. These are not to be confused with poetical and prosaic. He give some examples and shows how some are verse and prosaic or prose and poetic, etc. He goes into some detail about those words and the difference between ‘prose choice of words’ and ‘prose order’ which gets somewhat technical.
Archaism
The easiest way to achieve poetic diction is through time. Older words and word order in general tend to sound that way. The idea that modern language is not poetry, but rather those words and phrases that went before. Like good wine, they need time. There is old styled grammar alone which will bring interest to the reader, even if modern words are used. One has to be very careful, however, not to become dull, conservative and thus ruin the freshness poetry is supposed to bring, “the earliest poets of all nations generally wrote from passion excited by real events; they wrote naturally, and as men” (160). So be careful that conservative mimicking does not pass for true archaism. There is also the idea of colloquial terms, which can have the same affect as archaism.
Strangeness
Should poets be critics of poetry? While yes, they are often easily moved, a critic that is not poetic is not a good idea either. He wants results, and has no interest in the poetic process. A “non-creative critic can never by interpreter proper; he can only be the collector” (169). The strangeness referenced in the title of the chapter refers to the interior significance a particular poem or poetic diction rouse, “the old, authentic thrill, which is so strong that it binds some men to their libraries for a lifetime” (171). But this does not always have to be there in order to be good poetry. People will always react differently, according to their experiences. Part of the pleasure of the words is their strangeness as well, “at a time when such a word as slumber had first been dropped from ordinary conversational use, its appearance in a ballad or the work of some local poet would no doubt have aroused the pleasure of strangeness in other poets and so have tempted them to continue making use of it themselves” (173). There were also highly technical terms, such as “pulley” or “diapason” which the average person would not be familiar with. But again, despite the fact a word is out of the conversational vocabulary of the time, it can lose its strangeness if everyone else is using it in poetry. We never say ‘jet-black’ but written poems use it.
Conclusion
Intellectual activity so easily dries up and dies, it is important for poetry to keep it alive. Poetry must be living, even though it heavily uses archaism. Movement must be present in poetry, it must always be pushing forward and not stagnating. “Without the continued existence of poetry, without a steady influx of new meaning into language…wither away into a species of mechanical calculation” (181).
Works Cited
Barfield, Owen. Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning. Middletown: Wesleyan, 1973.
