Breaking Through: Essays, Journals, and Travelogues of Edward F. Ricketts

Chapter 4. “A Spiritual Morphology of Poetry”

The shortest of Ricketts’s three philosophical essays—the 1939 version reproduced here is a fourteen-page typescript—”A Spiritual Morphology of Poetry” represents an attempt to “work out” his notions about breaking through and non-teleological thinking “in an actual, practical way in life” (“New Series Notebook No. 1,” 9). Though classifying poets according their ability to convey or to trigger transcendence is undoubtedly subjective, it can be seen as an exercise, an experiment in how to implement Ricketts’s philosophical modus operandi. The essay itself—particularly his discussion of the four “growth stages” of poets —is the most detailed analysis of literature he ever wrote and reveals his scientific impulse to group and categorize objects in a world before his gaze, from intertidal specimens to poets. Indeed, the significance of a scientist venturing a detailed discussion of poetry becomes apparent when “A Spiritual Morphology of Poetry” is placed in the context of Ricketts’s body of major writings: he sought to heal the breach between the seemingly disjointed worlds of the sciences and the humanities—as C. P. Snow did later with in his seminal The Two Cultures—championing instead a more integrated viewpoint. • • • • • • • • • chapter 4 “A Spiritual Morphology of Poetry” 105 This draft typed July 1939. I This near contradiction in terms is as close as I have been able to come in working toward the one-phrase abstract which all good titles comprise. Considered evaluations of the spirit of poetry are, so far as I know, entirely lacking—at least rare—although there have been many analyses of form. These terms may be contrasted as follows: “Spirit” is the difficult106 “A Spiritual Morphology of Poetry” Figure 10. Ricketts, circa 1933. Courtesy of Ed Ricketts Jr. to-define essence or breath, used in this case largely as a phase of content and as opposed to the more physical aspects of “form.” Verse form, style of presentation (ponderous, tender, facetious, etc.), diction, even the separate words themselves, are thought of merely as vehicles or as a vehicle, however lovely, of content. What is conveyed, relates to content; how it is conveyed, to form. Spirit content is similarly considered as something which motivates or enlightens a given work, or as the motivating aspect of that which is poured into a given vehicle. A related picture is suggested by the archaic Latin origins of the word spirit, literally “a wind,” so a form receives or is acted upon by a breath of life, the spirit. Although how is commonly considered at the expense of what, poetic content as the expression of a metaphysical (more frequently implied than stated explicitly) seems to me one of the fine features of fine poetry. Content which is conceptually significant, or which transcends concept, may be unlovely in architecture and diction—although the converse is far more likely to be true. But usually, great rates great, and thought, moving “as the wind bloweth,” more frequently is clothed well and carefully, even inspiredly. In any case, most of the examples chosen seem to me world-great both in form and spirit, and they usually , furthermore, either hint toward, or actually work out, definite symbolic or concrete thought patterns. II A Since the emphasis is on content, form, as comprising the following, will be considered only in outline: A. Architecture—the structural pattern by which the work is built. In any consideration of work as a whole, the architectural plan necessarily is intricately interwoven with content also, as the purpose for which the building is intended, for instance, but ideas relating to style, and words such as sonnet, epic, lyric, etc. suggest a superficial architecture of form. B. Diction—the choice of words and the manner of putting them together. C. Beat—conventional rhythm where present (many studies of poetry are devoted exclusively to this) or the subtle beat of Whitman. D. Rhyme, if present. “A Spiritual Morphology of Poetry” 107 E. Alliteration, if present—the sound alliteration of Poe, etc. Alliteration of Hebrew poetry is, partly at least, one of content. Nonwestern poetry may have additional qualities, such as the Chinese tonal patterns (see Encyclopedia [Britannica], 13th ed., 6:223, for scansion diagram which can be intoned wordlessly with no knowledge of Chinese), their probably automatic and half-conscious analysis of the pictograph origins of the written characters, even when the poem is read aloud, and their alliterative pattern whereby corresponding words in consecutive...