Role of Poetry in Our Life

18/07/2020

Literature is the discipline that plays a very vital role in everyone’s life and molds the directions of people. It is broadly divided into two different categories; fictional and non-fictional or pure and applied literature. Literature is largely written in the form of poetry, drama, novel, prose etc. From these all forms, poetry occupies the very special seat because it reflects the thinking and perception of writer and becomes ambassador of his/her feelings and emotions.

As Aristotle says, “Poet is the creator who creates something out of nothing”. However, Plato, teacher of Aristotle, does not agree with Aristotle’s opinion therefore, he does not give place a poet in his famous UTOPIA, an imaginative state that he made. He is of views that poets exaggerate the subject and are far away from reality. They spoil our youth too. Despite this harsh criticism that Plato carried out about poetry, yet poetry is loved, admired, read, recited, written and cherished by massive amount of population in the world since creation of this universe.

History celebrates most beautiful and creative poets who teach us the art of playing with words and have given a very different dimensions to share our feelings. According to Sidney “The poetry is an art of imitation, a representation, counterfeiting, or figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight”.

It is not only one perception that makes the definition of poetry, but poetry in its lapse, carry lot of definitions. As you get lot of meanings through bunch of mere words, we might call it verses, they always give new theme and idea, which is actually the nature of poetry, likewise, poetry itself gives lot of definitions, depends on the wit of person. It is complete philosophy. And this describes the significance of poetry in this world. If you ponder! world’s each and everything is poetry or everything in the world recites poetry, carrying a lot of hidden meanings and messages.

As human beings are the masterpiece creation that God has ever created, born with certain feelings and emotions, having intellect, and sense of judgment, soul and physical existence. Poetry deeply influences the masses. As it evokes the feelings. Emotions, conscience, spirit etc. Many poets use it as the evoker of conscience, like poet of subcontinent Allama Muhammad Iqbal did. His poetry often defines the humanity and morality.

We all have pure conscience by birth, but when we get surrounded by culprits, our soul gets stained. As poetry is beautiful in its structure, mostly people prefer to read it, and through poetry more people receive and get the message of the poets that can shake the doomed feelings of man. In earlier times many poets wrote about humanity, religion and morality. And through their poetry they unveiled many culprits and spread the true message to the people. As poetry does not hit anything directly but through metaphors, similes and symbolism, things are being said, so it does not hurt anyone’s ego, as it plays role of knock to the door. There are many English poets, who unveiled the cruelty of people and kings through their poems and brought revolutions, like in the poem of John Milton “Paradise lost” , he used religious theme to let everybody know about the cruelty of Charles II. Alexander Pope used satire to reveal the lifestyle of the people belonging to the upper class.

For me, poetry increases the charm of words and it adds the glory in it. through poetry, we can have a lot of meanings, extract knowledge and information. Moreover, it is the source of awareness and educate people to experience things from multiple perspective. With its beautiful structure, one can grasp the attention of the reader and can easily transfer the message. In my opinion, poetry spills soul in words, which comes from soul and directly touches the reader’s soul. It is like revelation that comes to the poet from God. Mollana Rumi did not intend to become the poet but love of God and appearance of Shams of Tabrez made him poet. As Rumi says, “One heart needs to break so the light can enter in the heart”. if we read the poetry of Sufis, we would come up with the conclusion that their poetry suits every person regardless of religion, caste, gender and age.

Poetry sparks the fire in our soul. It makes us believe about things that our mind sometimes cannot accept. As admirer of Allama Iqbal, I always feel enthusiastic and motivated after reading his poetry, his poems and ghazals embark the fire in my spirit.

In the end, Socrates, the great Greek philosopher once said: “Poet utters great and wise things which they do not themselves understand”. And he is right because poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Sometimes, when poets are in solitude, they write the things, they never imagined or intended to write and sometimes when they come out from that solitude, they contradict with their own words and feelings. As poetry is something left open-ended, it can change its themes according to situation and perception of a person. However, we all grow with each second, our ideas and perceptions also get changed. When any poet writes poem or ghazal or couplet, it can go far because every reader relates that according to their own way. It can go from general to specific and vice versa at the same time.