Poetry is the Language of Paradox Published on:
05 Oct, 2021
JYOTI
Publishing, Literature, Editing
Poetry is the Language of Paradox
Paradox, apparently is a self-contradictory statement yet is a basis of truth.It reconciles the seemingly opposites.As it can be clearly noticed in Donne's Sonnet:
"Death ,be not proud
One short sleep past,we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death thou shalt die
Paradox is used by almost all poets but is a central device in metaphysical poetry, both in its religious and secular forms.Donne who wrote a collection of paradoxes and problems in prose, exploited this figure in his poetry to a greater extent.
"The Canonization for example is organized as an extended proof, full of local paradoxes,of the paradoxical thesis that Sexual lovers are saints.
If the paradoxical utterance combines two terms that in ordinary usage are contraries it becomes Oxymoron; an example of this is Tennyson's "O, Death in life ,the days that are no more"
The Oxymoron was a familiar type of Petrarchan conceit in Elizabethan love poetry,in phrases like "Pleasing pains, "I burn and freeze""Loving hate" This is also a frequently used figure in devotional prose and religious poetry, as a way of expression in the Christian mysteries, which trascend human sense and logic as in Milton's' Paradise Lost ' the appearance of God is described.
Sometimes,a paradox is the basis of an entire poem,as in Lovelace's "To Althea from Prison" where each stanza describes a different way in which the speaker is free though confined.
New critics extend the application of the term from the rhetorical figure to encompass all surprising deviations from or qualifications of common perceptions or common place opinions. According to Cleanth Brooks - Paradox is not an illustrative device but one of essential characteristics of poetic speech .He says,"The language of poetry is the language of Paradox"
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