Poetry expresses all people's feelings and thoughts, and expresses his reaction to everything happening in the world around him. Throughout the ages, poets always try their best to transform their understanding of political views into artistic forms, or record their observations on important political changes in the form of poems.
Although the writing of political poems can be found in all historical periods and never confined to a certain region or country, more and more political poems will emerge in the times and regions where political activities are fierce and frequent. For example, although there were few political poems in the Middle Ages as a whole, due to political turmoil, a large number of political lyric poems appeared in Germany and France at the end of 12 and the beginning of 13. The history and politics of this era are dominated by some important struggles-the struggle between feudal lords in France, the struggle between States in Germany that supported the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and the continuous struggle between the Pope and secular rulers. This era produced two famous poets: Bertrand de, who was born in the south of France, and Walter von vogel Wade, a German poet. They all wrote a large number of political lyrics, some of which were responses to major events, and more of which were attacks on some political figures, showing strong partisanship and pragmatism.
Similarly, the subsequent national struggle and national revolution also produced a large number of political poems. The French Revolution provided the theme of the times for British and German poets. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley in Britain, Hodelin, Novalis and Schiller in Germany all used poems to reflect the development process of major French events-from the lofty hope of restoring paradise on earth to the growing pain and disappointment. Greece's struggle for national independence from Turkish rule, from the end of18th century to the beginning of19th century, not only inspired Greek poets such as Regas Ferrer and Dionysius Solomos, but also inspired British poets Byron and Shelley and German poet Holderlin. In Russia, the October Revolution also inspired Alexander Brock and Andre Belle to write political poems. A stronger reaction can be found in the works of futurist poets. Many people regard this revolution as the realization of their future dreams. The reaction caused by the Spanish civil war was equally strong, but different in nature. Pain, indignation and criticism of the country promoted the writing activities of Spaniards Leon Felipe and Luis Sernoux Quetta.
Generally speaking, the attitude and situation that can inspire poets to write political poems are nothing more than their love for the country and their reaction to the war. Unfortunately, patriotism often produces arrogant and noisy writers who distort the national spirit like Italian Gabriele Dannunzio, while rational patriotism like aristophanes's poem or implicit and gentle patriotism like Rupert Brooke's poem The Warrior is often rare.
The pressure of war often makes poets change their writing direction. In response to the Spanish Civil War, Raphael Albiti, a talented poet, gave up writing surreal poems with inner contradictions and turned to conventional methods to better express real events. Similarly, the fall of France and German occupation influenced French surrealist poets Luis Aragon and Paul éluard, and made them turn to writing anti-fascist poems. Aragon in particular, his poems about political activities are far more powerful than those about personal experiences. Robert bly, a contemporary American poet, has always been concerned about social and political themes, but the Vietnam War prompted him to give up his early expressionism and write protest poems in a more direct and radical way.
The perfect combination of politics and art in a poem depends not only on the poet's ability, but also on his writing method. When political attitude enters poetry, it may be integrated into the structure of poetry, resulting in a complex mixture of personal and public expressions, such as Ye Zhi's "19 16 Easter". Another feature of political poetry is its concrete, direct and clear language, such as Karl Shapiro's war poem Wrath of Bombing, Bly's recent works, especially The Last Mother of Teeth (1970), most of Evtushenko's poems and some of Aragon's poems. Aragon's eyes and memory (1954) begins with:
I salute you, dear Party, for you have eliminated suffering and made people become brothers arm in arm.
In addition to the obvious difference between a good poet and a bad poet, there is another question: what is the factor that determines the success or failure of political poetry? Both of william wordsworth's poems are successful to varying degrees. Taking this as an example, we can explain the influence of the relationship between politics and poetry. These two poems were created with the encouragement of politics: one is "Overture" (discussed below) and the other is "Ode to 18 15".
In Ode to 18 15, he expressed the nationalist enthusiasm aroused by General Wellington's victory over Napoleon by shouting to God:
However, when expressing a pure intention,
Your most terrible means is people,
-let them fight each other,
-Yes! Your daughter is a massacre.
Although Wordsworth later deleted these lines, the prophetic tone and static irrational attitude in them show that poets can easily fall into this trap when creating poems with political themes.
In ancient Greece, poets regarded themselves as typical members of society, and poetry gained social status, which was enough to become a decisive factor affecting social and political forces. Only in this case can poetry become a powerful voice representing the interests of the public and the people. In later times, especially after18th century, when the poet wrote poems about public events, the audience he faced might not agree with his beliefs, and the series of actions and events he described were beyond his understanding based on personal experience. For example, when Wordsworth wrote Ode to 18 15, in order to overcome these obstacles and communicate with readers, the poet may choose some stylized reactions and beliefs as the content of his writing, and rely on performance and artistic techniques to attract readers. The public position he took made him put on a coat, just like an important person whose speech was credible. According to the average person's concept of political life, since a poet has such an identity and credibility, there is no need to explore the actual credibility.
Political poems with this feature include many works by French poet victor hugo in the first half of19th century, and works by English poets Tennyson, Browning and Swinburne in the second half of19th century. Most of these poems show an attitude of paying attention to the public interests, using cliches and prophetic words, and using artistic techniques to achieve the effect of preaching. Some western poets in 1930s and many former Soviet poets (such as Aseyev, Andre Voznesensky, Mezhnov, etc. ) also uses vague rhetoric and cliches. These poems also show the poet's attitude of being close to the people and expressing their voices. But at the same time, it also shows that if poetry conforms to the trend of the public and embodies the recognized principles, it may damage the quality of poetry itself. To sum up, of course, it is not to say that there is an insurmountable gap between poetry and politics, but to point out that political poetry written stiffly regardless of the artistic laws of poetry itself is difficult to succeed.
In order to understand what successful political poetry needs, we can now simply look at Wordsworth's overture poems about political and social conflicts. The outstanding feature of these poems is that they present a completely personalized but very broad vision. In this context, the poet measured the political, economic and social beliefs at that time and evaluated the great event of that era-the French Revolution. Because Wordsworth examines political principles and events according to personal values, the political chapter in the Overture successfully avoids the static or hazy views in Ode to 18 15 or Victorian political poems, but expresses the sensitive feelings of touching experiences and shows the poet's intelligence. Shelley once said: "Poets are legislators of the world, although they don't have the title of legislators" (the defense of poetry, 182 1), and this is exactly what he thought of here.
Shelley seems to mean that poets can influence politics because they can spread ideas that ultimately determine the course of human history. Whether the poets who write political poems put forward important questions of mankind and finally answered them, whether the poets have great power to predict the future thoughts of mankind, the success of political poems depends on the influence of the poets' personal insight on public issues and their vision beyond any specific problems or events.
Excellent political poems of past dynasties obviously adopted this way, such as the poems of Homer and Aeschylus; Dante's poem goes like this. His divine comedy is both theological and political. The same is true of Shakespeare's poems, especially his later political dramas, such as Richard II and Cory Ollanu. Milton's political sonnets are sometimes flawed because of dogmatism, but Paradise Lost successfully integrates political issues such as freedom and tyranny with some more grand questions about human nature raised in this poem. A school of American romanticism can be said to be the most successful poet who seeks to control politics by poetry. They can generally express their responsibilities, ideals and ability to face conflicts in political poems. 18 and a large number of political satirical poems in the 20th century seem to draw a line for themselves, because these political poems always try to make readers accept some one-sided arguments at the end. Whether political satire is powerful and mature depends on whether the poet can express a feeling or feeling when attacking something, that is, he is defending the values of society and civilization, not just the values of a cause or an organization. In this sense, Pope's political poems are more successful than Dryden's, and Auden's political poems are more successful than Aragon's. Generally speaking, contemporary political poets, especially those with "clear attitude", seem to wander between the two extremes represented by Wordsworth's two poems quoted above. Spender, Ginsburg, Nie Luda, Mayakovski, Evtushenko, Zbignev Hubeiyate and other poets, their poems are sometimes political words refined without imagination, and sometimes their poems have extraordinary power, which can penetrate the abstract puzzles that cover up modern political life.
Lionel trilling said: A poet who writes poems on political issues must be able to combine political ideas and poetic imagination into a whole; If he wants to do this successfully, he must pay close attention to values outside the political field. In the final analysis, politics itself is also related to "the binding distribution of value" (D Easton: the framework of political analysis); The poet's task is to coordinate specific political facts with the ultimate value that politics serves.