How To Read A Book- A Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading - Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren [108]
Our point is that all of these definitions, and a dozen more that we might mention, are too narrow, just as the definition discussed in the last paragraph was too broad ( for us ) .
Between such very broad and such very narrow definitions lies a central core that most people, if they were feeling reasonable about the matter, would admit was poetry. If we tried to state precisely what the central core consisted in, we would probably get into trouble, and so we will not try. Nevertheless, we are certain that you know what we mean. We are certain that nine times out of ten, or perhaps even ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you would agree with us that X was a poem and Y was not. And that is fully sufficient for our purposes in the following pages.
Many people believe that they cannot read lyric poetryespecially modem poetry. They think that it is often difficult, Suggestions for Reading Stories, Plays, an.d Poems 229
obscure, complex, and that it demands so much attention, so much work on their part, that it is not worthwhile. We would say two things. First, lyric poetry, even modem poetry, does not always demand as much work as you may think if you go about reading it in the right way. Second, it is often worth whatever effort you are willing to spend.
We do not mean that you should not work on a poem. A good poem can be worked at, re-read, and thought about over and over for the rest of your life. You will never stop finding new things in it, new pleasures and delights, and also new ideas about yourself and the world. We mean that the initial task of bringing a poem close enough to you to work on it is not as hard as you may have believed.
The first rule to follow in reading a lyric is to read it through without stopping, whether you think you understand it or not. This is the same rule that we have suggested for many different kinds of books, but it is more important for a poem than it is for a philosophical or scientific treatise, and even for a novel or play.
In fact, the trouble so many people seem to have in reading poems, especially the difficult modem ones, stems from their unawareness of this first rule of reading them. When faced by a poem of T. S. Eliot or Dylan Thomas or some other
"obscure" modern, they plunge in with a will, but are brought up short by the first line or stanza. They do not understand it immediately and in its entirety, and they think they should.
They puzzle over the words, try to unwind the complicated skein of the syntax, and soon give up, concluding that, as they suspected, modern poetry is just too difficult for them.
It is not only modern lyrics that are difficult. Many of the best poems in the language are complicated and involved in their language and thought. Besides, many apparently simple poems have immense complexity under the surface.
But any good lyric poem has a unity. Unless we read all of it, and all at once, we cannot comprehend its unity. We cannot discover, except possibly by accident, the basic feeling or 230 HOW TO READ A BOOK
experience that underlies it. In particular, the essence of a poem is almost never to be found in its first line, or even in its first stanza. It is to be found only in the whole, and not conclusively in any part.
The second rule for reading lyrics is this: Read the poem through again-but read it out loud. We have suggested this before, in the case of poetic dramas like Shakespeare's. There it was helpful; here it is essential. You will find, as you read the poem out loud, that the very act of speaking the words forces you to understand them better. You cannot glide over a misunderstood phrase or line quite so easily if you are speaking it.
Your ear is offended by a misplaced emphasis that your eyes might miss. And the rhythm of the poem, and its rhymes,