(Points r just 4 guidance)REDRESS OF

POETRY QUESTION NUMBER 1;

Criticism;
Right from the beginning, poets have been condemned as
idle people. They are generally considered to be
worthless. Some are of the view that the poets are
worthless people and some consider them an essential
need of life. However, Heaney is a defender of poetry and
he gives some lively ideas to prove his view-point and he
has been quite successful in defending poetry.
Plato and Republic;
To demand a utilitarian (useful rather than attractive) and
the pragmatic approach from poetry has been as old as
Plato. Plato had banished the poets from his
Republic
. But ironically, his argument was that poetry took us
away from the idea, while poetry is in fact is the world of
the ideal. He is among the haters of poets and poetry.
Plato conceived this world as a world of illusions. This is
not the real world. It is an imperfect copy of an ideal
world. That ideal world exists in our idea that is why it is
called ideal, belonging to the idea. In his ideal Republic,
Plato would allow only those people who may take us to
perfection.
Aristotle opposition;
The poet takes us away from the ideal, so he does not
allow the poets to enter his Republic. Aristotle opposed
his teacher and said,
The poet had a vision and in our appearance he saw our
ideal. When he makes our portrait, he does not simply
copy the features, he actually draws the character.
Aristotle was of the view that poet was essential to keep
balance in society. He insisted that the poet takes us
towards the ideal not away from it.
Thus Plato opposed poetry but Aristotle supported it.
Redress of Poetry;
The subject that Seamus Heaney has treated, the redress
of poetry, is not a new subject. The nature and purpose of
poetry has been a subject of practical importance to
everyone who has an interest in poetry.
Definition;
By redress Heaney means
Reparation, satisfaction and compensation for wrong
sustained (provide sth enough to exist)
.our lose resulting against
.and to rise again to an upright position.
This is the dictionary definition of what he proposes to
say about poetry. The word redress means to correct
something that is unfair or wrong. By redress we also
mean consolation, compensation (payback), comfort or
reassurance. So redress of poetry means to remove or
correct those false notions that have been created in the
mind.
Heaneys Theories;
In his easy, The Redress of Poetry, Heaney builds
different assumptions (theory) for the redress of poetry.
The question about the redress of poetry means;
Whether poetry can give man confidence? Whether
poetry can give man some assurance? Whether poetry is
the useful activity? Whether poetry is an aesthetic
(artistic) work or pragmatic (realistic) work? Whether
poets and poetry are any use in the complexities and
miseries of life or not?
Answer of all these questions can be found in Heaneys
book Redress of Poetry
Defender of poetry;
Heaney makes a f r esh at t empt t o def end
poet r y i n t hi s age of sci ence and technology
when everyone is becoming a utilitarian and even
education has been commercialized. Poetry and
philosophy are now considered idle mental luxuries
while commerce computer and business administration
have been given the name of education. Therefore,
Heaney thinks that in the present world only poetry
can save man. This he calls redress of poetry.
There were others also who kept defending poetry
against all kind of objections. For example,
Sydney
asserted (emphasized) that
t h e p o e t t a k e s u s t o t h e i d e a l .
S h e straight forwardly wrote in Apology For
poetry, A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings
to cheer its own solitude with sweet songs; his auditors are
axmen and trance by the melody of unseen musician who
feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not
whence or why.
Shelley
supported poetry because
they reach the perfection
.

Oscar Wilde
said that
life should imitate art because art presents the perfection
.
Mathew Arnold
went to extend that all that now goes in the name of
religion orphilosophy will be replaced by poetry. Poetry
will perform the role of religion. It willshow man the right
path and it will bring consolation to man. Poetry has a
power of sustaining man in difficulties.
Matter-of-fact to imagination;

Squarings
Heaneys start his thesis by distinguishing two
planes of existence. He refers to his own poem,
Squarings
, which tells the story of anapparition that comes on the
earth but could not stay here because it wouldhave been
drowned in the human element. The world of
apparitions is oneplane of existence, while the human
element is the other plane of it.

Pulley
The next poem he quot e i s Geor ge Her ber t s
Pulley.
I t i s a parable, a moral story. There is a mystic and
religious touch in this story. God created restlessness in
the mind of man in spite of all the pleasures and pains of
life.

It suggests that the mind and aspiration of the human
beings turned towards the heavenly in spite of all the
pleasures and penalties of being upon the earth. The two
above mentioned poems show that there are two
dimensions of reality but there is a relationship
between them. They can be brought to reconcile with each
other. This can be done by poetic sixth sense which
provides a passage from
the domain of the matter-of-fact into the domain of the
imagination.
Heaney is of the opinion that the world of reality and the
world of imagination are two different worlds but they
depend upon each other and they reinforce each other.

We al so see Heaney s myst i ci s m when he
t al ks of t he si xt h sense. He believes that beyond
the five senses that we have, there is also a six sense,
whichis a mystery to us. We know things mysteriously.

Responsibilities of The Poet

Heaney keeps moving between the worldof matter-of-fact
and the world of imagination. He quotes from the
differentcritics and poets to support his arguments. He
quotes another writer, Pinsky,in
Responsibilities of The Poet
says that the poet has a responsibilities toanswer. He
is to answer the question raised by life.Life raises
questions and poets give their answers. this makes
Heaney a verydidactic poet. He believes that poetry
gives lessons. On the one hand, he believes inthe mystic
sixth sense given by poetry, and, on the other hand, he
believes in thedidactic responsibilities of the poetry
and poets. This approach of Heaneys is ablend of the
romantic and the classical.

Delight to wisdom;
Heaney defends poetry by describing its advantages.
Beside a number of advantages of poetry, it also
has another advantage because of its rhyme
andrhythm and a pleasurable art of words. Roberts Frost
explains it like;
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom
Man comes to wisdom through delight, not to delight
through wisdom. Manstudies poetry to amuse
himself and to satisfy his soul but in this
psychologicalstate he gets wisdom as well. Thus poetry
is a pleasurable study of life as WilliamWordsworth says;
Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge.
Poetry answers the questions that life raises. When
children make a playhouse, it is their answer to the
question what a house should be. Art shows what
lifeought to be. Heaney gives precise examples to
support his statement. Here hegives an example from
Thomas hardys poem,
Afterwards
. He says that the poet tries to answer the questions
raised by life. Life creates anxieties; poetry tries
torelive them.
Hypnological state
Life disturbs but poetry consoles. The frontier of writing
is the state in which art iscreated. It is when the poet is in
between the outer world (face) and the inner
world(imagination). The poet becomes creative when
he is half asleep and half awake. This is a creative
art and is also known as ecstasy. Neither he is too
much boundwith reality nor much detached from it. This
state of mind is called the hypnologicstate of mind. In
this state of mind, the poet is aware of the fat and at
the sametime he is aware of the ideal things. This is
what Richard Wilbur, an American poet, called the
marginal area of creative mood. In his poem
Marginalia, he describes that the best things can
beperceived in a hypnological state of mind.
Imagination actually colors the realityand gives it an
artistic vision. Therefore, the best art will be both full of
life as wellas embellished of with imagination.
Poetry shows the way;
Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.
Heaney agrees with Novalis in this quote and says
that poetry is comprehensive,that is not merely a
product of events. Poetry gives us understanding of life.
Poetrydoesnt charge life; it only shows what should be
changed. It shows what changesshould be brought in life.
It tells that man is savage, cruel, good or bad but it does

not tell how these qualities can be removed or controlled.
In simple words, poetry shows the way. Novalis says;
Differences between poetry and politics;
Moreover, poetry is about man. Poetry promotes, love of
man. Politics divides men. Poetry shows that all men are
human beingand they deserved sympathy. But politics tells
that some people deserve our sympathy and some deserve
our wrath. Poetry speaks of love for all people; politics
forces people to kill other people. If poetry becomes
politics then it will not remain poetry, it will becomes
propaganda and in this way it will divides humanity into
friends and foes. Philip James Bailey quotes it very
beautifully that;
Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, and tell
them: and the truth of truths is love
Poet as a spokesman;
To defend poetry, Heaney makes another point which
appeals to us. He says that poetry is a joint effort of the
reader and the writer. It means that the poet must be the
spokesman of the reader, he should feel and say what the
readers feel and wants to say. The poet echoes the
feelings of the reader i.e. t he poet must be
integrated with his society. He must feel what others feel.
Heaney here quotes Jorge Luis Borges who says
the taste of the apple lies in the contact of the fruit with
the palate. Sweetness of the fruit depends upon the
fruit as well as upon the Palate. The beauty of poetry
depends upon the poet as well as upon the reader. John
Keats represents it as,

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which
enters into one's soul,and does not startle it or amaze it
with itself, but with its subject.
And Salvatore Quasimodo says;

Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes
to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as
his own.
Analysis;
To conclude, Heaneys tries to demonstrate that poetry
has a function in life,though not ostentatious. The poet
does nothing on purpose, but poetry is a mediumwhich by
its very nature serve as a purpose. This can be understood
with reference to a statement by Wordsworth thathis
poetry has a purpose. It is not meaningless activity.
But this purpose is notimposed on poetry. Since
Wordsworth lives a purposeful life, therefore whatever
hedoes has a purpose in it. Heaney follows a similar line.
He believes that redress of

poetry is inherent in poetry. Redress emerges from poetry
as purpose emerges fromthe heart of Wordsworth and
informs his poetry.Poetry is an imitation of an imitation
twice removed from reality. Poetry is also acreative
work.William Blake saysNature is a balm Poetry is
man rebellion against being what he is James Branch
Cabell
The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life
meaningful. And in the end, thepoem is not a thing we see-it
is, rather, a light by which we may see-and what we see is life.

Robert Penn Warren The poet is a liar who always speaks
the truth.

Jean Cocteau