Contradiction and the Poetic Image

HOWARD 89 ROGER HOWARD CONTRADICTION AND THE POETIC IMAGE Extracts from a talk delivered at Peking University in 1974 The poet's vision is a part of the whole vision man is capable of, a suggestion of it. It is not the whole itself. No man can be universal, any more than he is "an island unto himself." The poet's vision has a direction. The poet who uses the poem "as a weapon" (Mayakovsky) has an angle of seeing things, an angle directed toward the bringing of a society ofjoy. Where joy is concerned no one can suffer. But joy is so scarce in our world that we may be forgiven if we say that suffering is the general order of things and joy an astonishing phenomenon. The poet works toward the day when the energy ofjoy is fully released in every life and the normal condition, called suffering, fades to a vanishing fear. Joy to this extent is no ideal. It is a material requirement without which the society of workers cannot fulfiU itself. It is the final purpose of aU our aims. It remains ideal only if the vision of it stays within the imagination of the poet, of the revolutionary. If it remains at the level of the idea and does not inform the actions ofmen "who dispose of a certain practical force," then joy is latent only. And latent joy is denial. What is this angle of vision with which the poet may hasten the era of joy? Let me take a poem ofmy own to show one angle. REPLY TO MA CHIH-YUAN In his song, "Wind entering the pines," the Yuan dynasty poet Ma Chih-yuan wrote: "When morning comes the mirror clearly shows/ more snows have fallen / into bed I climb and bid fareweU to shoes and socks." John Scott comments, "The possession of expensive bronze mirrors in China was limited to the wealthy leisured class. . . whereas the custom of old men to say goodbye each night to their footwear in the hope of finding the sweet solace of death in sleep was a practice exclusively confined to the work-worn peasantry. . . . Thus in Ma's poem an affinity of the human condition is conveyed by the antithesis of rich and poor, Taoist 'recluse' and peasant toUer." Not believing in this "affinity," I have separated again the 90 MINNESOTA REVIEW characters whom Ma Chih-yuan religiously joined, and restored reality to the unity of opposites at low temperatures. The palace is cold, ice tightens it. The princess is still looking in her mirror: "Time's passing," laments a grey hair. Time enough to look in the mirror. Straight from the fields, "A rat shares my lantern. In my house every night I say fareweU to my shoes and socks." The old peasant lies dead at dawn in his frozen bed. I separated the characters whom Ma Chih-yuan had joined because I cannot agree that the suffering of the princess is of the same order as that of the old peasant. They have no affinity, though they have a connection. It is true that neither the princess nor the peasant feels any joy. But the joy open to the peasant is conditional upon the humanity permitted him by the princess. His suffering arises from the sterility of the life of one whose humanity is governed by others. With the princess, however, her suffering arises from the sterility of the life of one who governs others' humanity. We cannot equate the suffering of the governor and governed, though both may be joyless. For a poem to find a shape sufficient to release energy, the contradiction contained in the image must convey the contradiction contained in the object . In my poem, "Reply to Ma Chih-yuan," I have tried to convey the contradiction -"the unity of opposites at low temperatures"-in such a way that the two opposites wUl be seen as mutually incongruous, opposites whose unity is expressed only in the bondage of the one to the other. When the contradiction explodes in the listener's or reader's mind, the energy of the peasant is released. When the idea in the mind...