Rene Char said “A poem is always married to someone.”
When humans are married, this means that they are partners in a legal relationship that has historically concerned with reproduction. According to Google Dictionary, marriage can more broadly refer to a combination, mixture, or amalgamation of multiple elements, such as "the marriage of wood and flame to produce heat."
When Char states that a poem would be married to someone, I interpret this to mean that there is a bond of the poem to the someone, an attachment of the poem to the someone. The specific formulation "married to someone" leaves open the possibility that this isn't a symmetrical relationship. In other words, while the poem may be married to the someone, the someone may not be in a legal relationship with the poem.
When is a poem intimately attached to an individual? There are two ways in which a poem could be married to someone. A poem might be considered married to a reader, and a poem might be considered married to its composer. Both of these scenarios raise interesting questions and conclusions. Both cases introduce plenty of potential for serial polygamy.
If a poem is married to its readers, then what happens when nobody is reading or contemplating the poem at a given moment? If nobody is any longer reading the poem and the poem is thus unmarried, this would imply that the poem is in fact not still married to someone. However, one might say that in order for a poem to truly be a poem, it must be perceived as a poem by an observer. As long as the observer is observing the poem, the observer satisfies the requirements for being a marriage partner of the poem. As a result, "a poem is always married to someone" when it is a poem, and so this statement is considered true.
Given that two human marriage partners are still married even when they don't think of one another, one might consider that a poem could remain married even when it is not perceived by its marriage partner. This would be the case for a poem that is married to its composer. Although the composer is not exclusively attached to any given poem, every poem certainly has a strong and obvious personal connection to its composer.
Is the bond between poem and composer exist between the actual poem and the actual composer, or between the idea of the two in the mind of another? Given that marriage is generally considered a legal concept (society does not consider individuals married based solely on sexual consummation), the marriage is reasonably supposed to exist between the ideas of the two in the mind of third parties. Is a poem always married even if its composer dies? Ah, but just because a composer dies does not mean that the memory of the composer dies. If we can consider a poem to be part of a marriage, so can we consider the abstract concept of the composer an element of the marriage. But then what if the composer is forgotten? What happens to a poem considered to have been written by an anonymous author? These might constitute true cases of dissolution of marriage by death and divorce, respectively, between the poem and its author. The existence of such a situation would violate Rene Char's principle.
Whether a poem is married to a someone who is a reader or a composer seems indeterminate. Perhaps the true answer is both.
While a poem isn't being read or observed by anyone, is it still a poem?
ReplyDeleteWow Even, you really dissected Rene Char's statement in this post. I had originally thought of it a little more simply by believing that the statement is true since every poem would seem to hold a significance to somebody in this world (most certainly the poet). I like how you thought of the prompt from many different angles and you brought up some interesting points. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteYour answer is really thoughtful and well evaluated.I think that the people who read the poem can be considered "married" to it even when they aren't reading the poem. Like you said, even when they aren't thinking of each other, a couple is still married. Someone once told me that if you tell someone else's story three times it becomes your own because you add things and tell it a certain way. I think the same can be true for reading a poem you really like over and over so that it eventually becomes a part of you and is "married" to the person you have become, even when you aren't actively reading the poem.
ReplyDeleteEven, this post is really well thought out and written. I like how you go deep into what constitutes a marriage. You ask interesting questions about how a poem can be married to someone and I really enjoyed that. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteI really liked the end of your post! I do think that a poem is always married to its composer, in life and in death. As a reader, while we may take away something from a poem for ourselves, we will always recognize the poet and their significance in relation to the poem first. Or at least we should. In recognizing the poet, they will always remain alongside, or married to, the poem in life and in death. So, it is a marriage, even in death, despite the infamous line "till death do you part."
ReplyDeleteGood post! you addressed lots of really interesting aspects of both the quote and the concepts implied in marriage. I still have one question, though: Would you say it's possible for a poem to be married to a party other than its readers or writer? Perhaps the person to whom it is addressed (who may or may not read it) or a fictional character the poem describes. Either way, well done!
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