Poetry, though it dominated literary studies for centuries, has declined in recent years for various reasons. From Homer and Virgil to T.S. Eliot and Walt Whitman, poetry was a literary mode held in greater regard by the general public than mediums such as the novel and theater. While one may argue, this decline results from verse being an obsolete mode of expression, the more likely cause for poetry’s growing obscurity takes the form of growing elitism that excludes anyone who has not studied poetry from enjoying verse.
The modern era has brought with it a culture that values brevity and efficiency over the long epics that once carried John Milton to literary greatness. Poetry mirrored this affinity by abandoning the epic for sonnets and other, shorter, poetic structures that would presumably suit the tastes of the public so that poetry could maintain its dominance over literature. However, instead of cementing its supremacy, making poems shorter resulted in reduced interest in reading populations.
While poetry varies in quality according to the poet, the subject matter, and the format employed, modernist poetry and its descendants have primarily used shorter formats, trading in rhyme and meter for blank verse, and the full line for strategic fragmentation. These tradeoffs helped to condense the writing, but had the effect of condensing ideas and tangling them such that no clear, cohesive purpose communicated itself through the writing. While logistically, there were fewer words to read, the poet forced the reader to utilize more cognitive energy than poets had done in previous generations.
In shifting the labor of making meaning from the number of printed lines to the reader’s cognitive faculties, the poet requires the casual reader to spend more time thinking about the writing than previous generations have done. If the amount of time spent on one subject or theme, such as a poem, includes how much time a reader spends on finding the meaning of what he or she has read, then reading poetry has become longer as the lines have gotten shorter.
Furthermore, due to the condensed nature of poem’s meaning, it has become necessary for the reader to possess the proper tools to “interpret” the verses to find the reason it was written in the first place. As the casual reader does not usually possess this specialized training, the meaning of a poem can become lost or misinterpreted, making it less likely that a first-time reader will engage in poetry reading a second time. Some modern poets have managed to avoid overworking the reader, and therefore reach a wider audience than their peers do. However, the majority alienate the casual reader by creating a system too complex for leisurely enjoyment without first obtaining the necessary skills to interpret poetry’s meaning, thereby reducing the population that would enjoy poetry.
Joseph Epstein notes how poetry has come to live in a “vacuum,” whereby poets train poets in one creative writing program, all of which contain a poetry component, to become teachers in another creative writing program in his commentary “Who Killed Poetry?” (14). This circularity reinforces the complexity of modern poems and their limited audience. The next generation of poets is writing for an audience that already has specialized training in understanding poetry, and therefore must push their poems into a new realm of complexity and profundity, so they distinguish themselves from the plethora of other writers seeking to outdo their peers (Epstein 13).
Drama has replaced poetry as the dominant literary form because of poetry’s elitist approach. Where poems require special skills for understanding, film and television are simple and straightforward, or otherwise accessible to the casual reader. A television show does not condense its message at the expense of clarity, but rather spreads out whatever message it seeks to convey over a season, resulting in less cognitive work on the part of the reader. The viewer does not have to think about what the writer or director was trying to convey in his or her show because the ideas come ready-packaged and easily consumed by the viewer.
Furthermore, writers and directors have reduced the complexity and experimental nature of drama—particularly in cinema and television—so Hollywood can market it more easily to the public for consumption. The History Cooperative notes how proposals for new projects have been boiled down so they can be “easily described in 25 words or less,” which does not allow complex ideas to be explained and detailed in the form of film. While being able to describe the film in less than twenty-five words can be seen as degrading the quality of the movies and television shows produced, it has the added benefit of preventing the elitism that plagues poetry (“History of the Hollywood Movie Industry” 1).
While many today might lament the passing of quality movie and television concepts, the movie and television industry became ubiquitous by the 1960s, according to the History Cooperative, which allowed for convenience that does not exist with poetry. Watching a television or movie screen does not require specialized training or deliberate thinking the way poetry does, and therefore the industry became favored over that of traditional literary forms.
Further, the “degradation” of movie and television concepts might not be as depressing as the idea might first appear. Stephen Krashen in his address “The ‘Decline’ of Reading in America, Poverty, and Access to Books, and the Use of Comics in Encouraging Reading” as late as 2005 suggests that movie-going and other forms of light entertainment were useful tools for improving overall literacy (Krashen, 3). Though he looked at comic books rather than television or other forms of drama, the fact that movies could improve literacy despite the apparent “degradation” of concepts allowing for greater marketability shows that the accessibility of drama fulfills the needs of literary interests in the audiences it reaches.
Poetry itself plays a significant role in human history, making up more than half of all literary engagement across history. The fact that it has only relatively recently fallen out of favor shows that a recent development caused the decline in poetry’s popularity. This cause took place in the 20th century when many poets sought shorter works with greater cognitive effort and specialized training required to understand adequately the message the poet was conveying, and universities saw the advent of creative writing programs, which Epstein credits for the vacuum that has contributed to poetry’s downfall.
Drama has replaced poetry as the dominant literary form only because of this void. The need for literary engagement illustrates itself in the rising literacy associated with movie-going that Krashen cites (1), and by extension shows that America did not voluntarily surrender its desire for poetry. The cause needed to be external, one possibility being the creative writing programs and specialization of poetry that keeps the casual reader from fully understanding what the poet attempted to communicate.
While Americans might not miss something, they were raised without, failing to engage with poetry regularly may have unexpected consequences. It is difficult to foresee what damage society might suffer if Americans are deprived of a literary form as old and respectable as the poem. Poetry still lives, but without becoming more accessible to the casual reader, it is hard to know how long it will continue to do so.
Drama has shown that “degrading the quality” of the medium so it can reach wider audiences and have the unintended consequences of not only increased popularity for the medium itself but also increased interest in general literacy. This is a lesson poetry must relearn if it wants to survive.
Works Cited
Epstein, Joseph. "Who Killed Poetry?" Commentary 86.2 (1988): 13.
Krashen, Stephen. "The “Decline” of reading in America, poverty, and access to books, and the use of comics in encouraging reading." Teachers College Record 14 (2005).
"The History of the Hollywood Movie Industry | History Cooperative." History Cooperative Atom. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 July 2016.
