Poetry

==History==
{{Main|History of poetry|Literary theory}}
===Early works===
Some scholars believe that the art of poetry may predate [[literacy]], and developed from folk [[epic poetry|epics]] and other oral genres.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1= Höivik |first1= Susan |last2= Luger |first2=Kurt |date= 3 June 2009 |title= Folk Media for Biodiversity Conservation: A Pilot Project from the Himalaya-Hindu Kush |journal= International Communication Gazette |volume=71 |issue=4 |pages=321–346 |doi= 10.1177/1748048509102184|s2cid= 143947520}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last= Goody |first=Jack | author-link=Jack Goody |url= https://archive.org/details/interfacebetween00good |title= The Interface Between the Written and the Oral |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 1987 |isbn= 978-0-521-33794-6 |page= [https://archive.org/details/interfacebetween00good/page/78 78] |quote= [...] poetry, tales, recitations of various kinds existed long before writing was introduced and these oral forms continued in modified 'oral' forms, even after the establishment of a written literature. |url-access= registration}}</ref>
Others, however, suggest that poetry did not necessarily predate writing.<ref name="Goody, Jack 1987 98">{{Cite book |last= Goody |first=Jack |url= https://archive.org/details/interfacebetween00good |title= The Interface Between the Written and the Oral |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 1987 |isbn= 978-0-521-33794-6 |page= [https://archive.org/details/interfacebetween00good/page/98 98] |url-access= registration}}</ref>

The oldest surviving epic poem, the ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'', dates from the 3rd millennium{{nbsp}}BCE in [[Sumer]] (in [[Mesopotamia]], present-day [[Iraq]]), and was written in [[cuneiform]] script on clay tablets and, later, on [[papyrus]].<ref>{{Cite book |translator-last= Sanders | translator-first=N. K. | translator-link=Nancy Sandars |title= The Epic of Gilgamesh |publisher= Penguin Books |year= 1972 |edition= Revised |pages= 7–8}}</ref> The [[Istanbul 2461|Istanbul tablet#2461]], dating to {{circa}}{{nbsp}}2000{{nbsp}}BCE, describes an annual rite in which the king [[Hieros gamos|symbolically married]] and mated with the goddess [[Inanna]] to ensure fertility and prosperity; some have labelled it the world's oldest love poem.<ref>{{Cite web |url= http://www.worldhistory.org/article/750/ |title= The World's Oldest Love Poem |last= Mark |first=Joshua J. |date= 13 August 2014 |quote= '[...] What I held in my hand was one of the oldest love songs written down by the hand of man [...].'}}</ref><ref name="oldest_poem">{{Cite news |last= Arsu |first= Şebnem |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/international/europe/14poem.html?_r=0 |title= Oldest Line in the World |access-date= 1 May 2015 |work= The New York Times|date= 14 February 2006 |quote= A small tablet in a special display this month in the Istanbul Museum of the Ancient Orient is thought to be the oldest love poem ever found, the words of a lover from more than 4,000 years ago.}}</ref> An example of Egyptian epic poetry is [[Story of Sinuhe|''The Story of Sinuhe'']] (c. 1800 BCE).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Chyla |first1=Julia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6u4mDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA159 |title=Current Research in Egyptology 17 |last2=Rosińska-Balik |first2=Karolina |last3=Debowska-Ludwin |first3=Joanna |date=2017 |publisher=Oxbow Books |isbn=978-1-78570-603-5 |pages=159–161 |language=en}}</ref>

Other ancient epics includes the Greek ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]''; the Persian [[Avestan]] books (the ''[[Yasna]]''); the [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] [[national epic]], [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'' (written between 29 and 19 BCE); and the [[Indian epic poetry|Indian epics]], the ''[[Ramayana]]'' and the ''[[Mahabharata]]''. Epic poetry appears to have been composed in poetic form as an aid to memorization and oral transmission in ancient societies.<ref name="Goody, Jack 1987 98" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1= Ahl |first1=Frederick |url= https://archive.org/details/odysseyreformed00ahlf |title= The Odyssey Re-Formed |last2= Roisman |first2=Hanna M. |publisher= Cornell University Press |year= 1996 |isbn= 978-0-8014-8335-6 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/odysseyreformed00ahlf/page/1 1–26] |url-access= registration}}.</ref>

Other forms of poetry, including such ancient collections of religious [[hymn]]s as the Indian [[Sanskrit]]-language ''[[Rigveda]]'', the Avestan [[Gatha (Zoroaster)|''Gathas'']], the ''[[Hurrian songs]]'', and the Hebrew ''[[Psalms]]'', possibly developed directly from [[folk song]]s. The earliest entries in the oldest extant collection of [[Chinese poetry]], the ''[[Classic of Poetry]]'' (''Shijing''), were initially [[lyrics]].<ref name="Ebrey">{{Cite book |last=Ebrey |first=Patricia |author-link=Patricia Buckley Ebrey |url=https://archive.org/details/chinesecivilizat00patr/page/11 |title=Chinese Civilisation: A Sourcebook |publisher=The Free Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-02-908752-7 |edition=2nd |pages=[https://archive.org/details/chinesecivilizat00patr/page/11 11–13]}}</ref> The Shijing, with its collection of poems and folk songs, was heavily valued by the philosopher [[Confucius]] and is considered to be one of the official [[Four Books and Five Classics|Confucian classics]]. His remarks on the subject have become an invaluable source in [[Music theory#China|ancient music theory]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cai|first=Zong-qi|title=In Quest of Harmony: Plato and Confucius on Poetry|journal=Philosophy East and West|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1399898|date=July 1999|volume=49|issue=3|pages=317–345|doi=10.2307/1399898|jstor=1399898}}</ref>

The efforts of ancient thinkers to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form, and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulted in "[[poetics]]"—the study of the aesthetics of poetry.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Abondolo |first=Daniel |title=A poetics handbook: verbal art in the European tradition |publisher=Curzon |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-7007-1223-6 |pages=52–53}}</ref> Some ancient societies, such as China's through the ''Shijing'', developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gentz |first=Joachim |title=Text and Ritual in Early China |publisher=University of Washington Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-295-98787-3 |editor-last=Kern |editor-first=Martin |pages=124–148 |chapter=Ritual Meaning of Textual Form: Evidence from Early Commentaries of the Historiographic and Ritual Traditions}}</ref> More recently, thinkers have struggled to find a definition that could encompass formal differences as great as those between Chaucer's [[The Canterbury Tales|''Canterbury Tales'']] and [[Matsuo Bashō]]'s ''[[Oku no Hosomichi]]'', as well as differences in content spanning [[Hebrew Bible|Tanakh]] [[Biblical poetry|religious poetry]], love poetry, and [[rapping|rap]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Habib |first=Rafey |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofliterar0000habi/page/607 |title=A history of literary criticism |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-631-23200-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofliterar0000habi/page/607 607–609, 620]}}</ref>

Until recently, the earliest examples of [[stressed poetry]] had been thought to be works composed by [[Romanos the Melodist]] (''fl.'' 6th century CE). However, [[Tim Whitmarsh]] writes that an inscribed Greek poem predated Romanos' stressed poetry.
<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.archaeology.org/issues/459-2203/digs/10346-digs-roman-stressed-meter-poetry |title= Poetic License |author= Jarrett A. Lobell |date= March-April 2022 |website= Archaeology Magazine |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207005404/https://www.archaeology.org/issues/459-2203/digs/10346-digs-roman-stressed-meter-poetry |archive-date= Dec 7, 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/08/i-dont-care-text-shows-modern-poetry-began-much-earlier-than-believed |title= 'I don't care': text shows modern poetry began much earlier than believed |author= Alison Flood |date= September 8, 2021 |website=The Guardian |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240118071914/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/08/i-dont-care-text-shows-modern-poetry-began-much-earlier-than-believed |archive-date= Jan 18, 2024 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title= Less Care, More Stress: A Rythmyic Poem From the Romas Empire |s2cid-access=free |author= Tim Whitmarsh |date= August 2021 |journal= The Cambridge Classical Journal|volume= 67 |pages= 135–163 |doi= 10.1017/S1750270521000051 |s2cid= 242230189 |doi-access= free }}</ref>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="220">
File:The oldest love poem. Sumerian terracotta tablet from Nippur, Iraq. Ur III period, 2037-2029 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul.jpg|The oldest known love poem. Sumerian [[Istanbul 2461|terracotta tablet#2461]] from Nippur, Iraq. Ur III period, 2037–2029 BCE. Ancient Orient Museum, Istanbul
File:Confucius the scholar.jpg|The philosopher [[Confucius]] was influential in the developed approach to poetry and [[Music theory#China|ancient music theory]].
File:Manuscript from Shanghai Museum 1.jpg|An early Chinese [[poetics]], the ''Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn'' (孔子詩論), discussing the [[Classic of Poetry|''Shijing'']] (''Classic of Poetry'')
</gallery>

===Western traditions===
[[File:Aristoteles Louvre.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Aristotle]]]]
Classical thinkers in the [[Western culture|West]] employed classification as a way to define and assess the quality of poetry. Notably, the existing fragments of [[Aristotle]]'s [[Poetics (Aristotle)|''Poetics'']] describe three genres of poetry—the epic, the comic, and the tragic—and develop rules to distinguish the highest-quality poetry in each genre, based on the perceived underlying purposes of the genre.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Aristotle's ''Poetics'' |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-14-044636-4 |editor-last=Heath |editor-first=Malcolm}}</ref> Later [[Aesthetics|aestheticians]] identified three major genres: epic poetry, [[Greek lyric|lyric poetry]], and [[Verse drama and dramatic verse|dramatic poetry]], treating [[comedy]] and [[tragedy]] as [[Genre|subgenres]] of dramatic poetry.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Frow |first=John |title=Genre |publisher=Routledge |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-415-28063-1 |edition=Reprint |pages=57–59}}</ref>
[[File:John keats.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[John Keats]]]]
Aristotle's work was influential throughout the Middle East during the [[Islamic Golden Age]],<ref>{{cite journal |last= Boggess |first=William F. |title='Hermannus Alemannus' Latin Anthology of Arabic Poetry |journal= Journal of the American Oriental Society |year= 1968 |volume= 88 |issue= 4 |pages= 657–670 |doi= 10.2307/598112 |jstor= 598112}} {{Cite book |last=Burnett |first=Charles |title=Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: A Festschrift for Peter Dronke |publisher=Brill Academic Publishers |year=2001 |isbn=978-90-04-11964-2 |pages=29–62 |chapter=Learned Knowledge of Arabic Poetry, Rhymed Prose, and Didactic Verse from Petrus Alfonsi to Petrarch}}</ref> as well as in Europe during the [[Renaissance]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Grendler |first=Paul F. |title=The Universities of the Italian Renaissance |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8018-8055-1 |page=239}}</ref> Later poets and aestheticians often distinguished poetry from, and defined it in opposition to [[prose]], which they generally understood as writing with a proclivity to logical explication and a linear narrative structure.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kant |first=Immanuel |translator-last=Bernard |translator-first=J. H. |title=Critique of Judgment |publisher=Macmillan |year=1914 |page=131}} Kant argues that the nature of poetry as a self-consciously abstract and beautiful form raises it to the highest level among the verbal arts, with tone or music following it, and only after that the more logical and narrative prose.</ref>

This does not imply that poetry is illogical or lacks narration, but rather that poetry is an attempt to render the beautiful or sublime without the burden of engaging the logical or narrative thought-process. English [[Romantic poetry|Romantic]] poet [[John Keats]] termed this escape from logic "[[negative capability]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ou |first=Li |title=Keats and negative capability |publisher=Continuum |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4411-4724-0 |pages=1–3}}</ref> This "romantic" approach views [[form (disambiguation)|form]] as a key element of successful poetry because form is abstract and distinct from the underlying notional logic. This approach remained influential into the 20th century.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Watten |first=Barrett |title=The constructivist moment: from material text to cultural poetics |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8195-6610-2 |pages=17–19}}</ref>

During the 18th and 19th centuries, there was also substantially more interaction among the various poetic traditions, in part due to the spread of European [[colonialism]] and the attendant rise in global trade.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Abu-Mahfouz |first=Ahmad |year=2008 |title=Translation as a Blending of Cultures |journal=Journal of Translation |volume=4 |issue=1 |doi=10.54395/jot-x8fne|doi-access=free|pages=1–5}}</ref> In addition to a boom in [[translation]], during the Romantic period numerous ancient works were rediscovered.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Highet |first=Gilbert |title=The classical tradition: Greek and Roman influences on western literature |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-19-500206-5 |edition=Reissued |pages=355, 360, 479}}</ref>

===20th-century and 21st-century disputes===
[[File:Archibaldmacleish.jpeg|thumb|upright|[[Archibald MacLeish]]]]
Some 20th-century [[Literary theory|literary theorists]] rely less on the ostensible opposition of prose and poetry, instead focusing on the poet as simply one who [[creation (disambiguation)|creates]] using language, and poetry as what the poet creates.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Wimsatt |first1=William K. Jr. |title=Literary Criticism: A Short History |last2=Brooks |first2=Cleanth |publisher=Vintage Books |year=1957 |page=374}}</ref> The underlying concept of the poet as [[creative work|creator]] is not uncommon, and some [[modernist poetry|modernist poets]] essentially do not distinguish between the creation of a poem with words, and creative acts in other media. Other modernists challenge the very attempt to define poetry as misguided.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Jeannine |title=Why write poetry?: modern poets defending their art |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-8386-4105-7 |page=148}}</ref>

The rejection of traditional forms and structures for poetry that began in the first half of the 20th century coincided with a questioning of the purpose and meaning of traditional definitions of poetry and of distinctions between poetry and prose, particularly given examples of poetic prose and prosaic poetry. Numerous modernist poets have written in non-traditional forms or in what traditionally would have been considered prose, although their writing was generally infused with poetic diction and often with rhythm and [[Tone (literature)|tone]] established by [[Metre (poetry)|non-metrical]] means. While there was a substantial [[New Formalism|formalist]] reaction within the modernist schools to the breakdown of structure, this reaction focused as much on the development of new formal structures and syntheses as on the revival of older forms and structures.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Cambridge companion to modernist poetry |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-521-61815-1 |editor-last1=Jenkins |editor-first1=Lee M. |pages=1–7, 38, 156 |editor-last2=Davis |editor-first2=Alex}}</ref>

[[Postmodernism]] goes beyond modernism's emphasis on the creative role of the poet, to emphasize the role of the reader of a text ([[hermeneutics]]), and to highlight the complex cultural web within which a poem is read.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barthes |first=Roland |author-link=Roland Barthes |title=Image-Music-Text |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |year=1978 |pages=142–148 |chapter=[[Death of the author|Death of the Author]]}}</ref> Today, throughout the world, poetry often incorporates poetic form and diction from other cultures and from the past, further confounding attempts at definition and classification that once made sense within a tradition such as the [[Western canon]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Connor |first=Steven |title=Postmodernist culture: an introduction to theories of the contemporary |publisher=Blackwell |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-631-20052-9 |edition=2nd |pages=123–28}}</ref>

The early 21st-century poetic tradition appears to continue to strongly orient itself to earlier precursor poetic traditions such as those initiated by [[Walt Whitman|Whitman]], [[Ralph Waldo Emerson|Emerson]], and [[William Wordsworth|Wordsworth]]. The literary critic [[Geoffrey Hartman]] (1929–2016) used the phrase "the anxiety of demand" to describe the contemporary response to older poetic traditions as "being fearful that the fact no longer has a form",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Preminger |first=Alex |title=Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics |publisher=Macmillan Press |year=1975 |isbn=978-1349156177 |location=London and Basingstoke |pages=919|edition=enlarged }}</ref> building on a trope introduced by Emerson. Emerson had maintained that in the debate concerning poetic structure where either "form" or "fact" could predominate, that one need simply "Ask the fact for the form." This has been challenged at various levels by other literary scholars such as [[Harold Bloom]] (1930–2019), who has stated: "The generation of poets who stand together now, mature and ready to write the major American verse of the twenty-first century, may yet be seen as what Stevens called 'a great shadow's last embellishment,' the shadow being Emerson's."<ref>
{{Cite book |last=Bloom |first=Harold |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_wS0rbeF72QC |title=Contemporary Poets |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1604135886 |editor-last=Bloom |editor-first=Harold |editor-link=Harold Bloom |edition=revised |series=Bloom's modern critical views |location=New York |date=2010 |page=7 |chapter=Introduction |quote=The generation of poets who stand together now, mature and ready to write the major American verse of the twenty-first century, may yet be seen as what Stevens called 'a great shadow's last embellishment,' the shadow being Emerson's. |author-link=Harold Bloom |access-date=7 May 2019 |orig-date=1986}}
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