Poetry is not just a genre of literature that includes mere words which rhyme when sung aloud in proper tone and rhythm, projecting the beauty of sounds that the particular set of words posses when put in a certain way that makes a meaning as well; poetry is neither all just about the powerful words that provoke one’s imagination and provide pleasure by alluring the readers with an enticing embellished language; poetry is nor all just about the rigid structure, form and pattern of arrangement of the words, the classical poets canonized long ago and expected to be held firm by generations all younger. Poetry is all this and much more too.
The conventional notion about poetry or the verse as that which is not prose is no more relevant today after the inventions William Shakespeare and other Romantics brought into the world of literature. Shakespeare created a castle of plays built with the bricks of poetry, asserting that poetry need not be in verse form but can reside in any other structure too. The essay of Shelley “A Defense Of Poetry” is no less than a poetry for it contains not mere rules for poetry but his philosophical assumptions about poetry, The language of fascination used in the essay or in the plays of Shakespeare, qualify the texts as poetic substantially.
MUSARD 