Institute for Advanced Studies of Arad

English Poetry as Culture Developing Means in Teaching Process

I would like to open my paper with a well-known Shakespearen line, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears…" and answer the question, "Why poetry?" Well-known is the fact that a great number of people who speak English were taught the language without a single touch to English poetry and even do not suspect of its existence. Is there on account of the just said any need to direct one's attention to the poetry when teaching the English language?

My answer is "yes, only yes, and nothing but yes". In my short paper I am going to dwell on but a few aspects of the matter which, on my mind, give proof to the just said. Namely:

1. poetry as a means of man's spiritual perfection;
2. poetry as a means of raising one's culture of speech;
3. poetry as a means of quick and effective increase of one's vocabulary.

All the same, why the poetry? Any poetical work is by no means a language which, as is well-known, has not got any author, but a piece of the art of rhythmical composition (written or spoken) for exiting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts. Any language is just a system of signs used for communication, which, as a rule, has not been put into being by any concrete author. Nevertheless poetry not only has the right to be included in the process of learning English, but more than that it is one of the necessary prerequisites of mastering it. By stating this I do not have in view merely the pragmatic aspect of the problem, since there exists a somewhat more important or even super-important reason for such inclusion.

As early as the middle of the last century there appeared both in popular and scientific literature the term "the language of animals" (the language of birds, bees, ants, etc.). Both then and now from time to time one can learn sensational news about a speaking dog, horse, baby elephant, pig, to say nothing about parrots, ravens, starlings, etc. Not dwelling at length on this most disputable question (the language of animals), there are, however, sufficient reasons to state that up till now we have not got any evidence of even the most unpretentious poem or rhyme created by an animal. And it is vain hopes that in the visible future a dog, monkey, pig or bird could thrill us with something like:

1. Little Robin bent his bow
2. Shot at a pigeon and killed a crow.

Even if we assume that in parallel with the human language there exists the so called "language of animals", we should emphasize that poetry is an inherent characteristic of man. It was in this connection that the outstanding American linguist of the eighteenth century W. D. Whitney declared that was ready to take off his hat to His Pig Majesty in case it could have created even a trivial rhyme.

Poetry is a cultural phenomenon, and in our case the phenomenon of English culture. Language as such, being the means of making culture, the means of expressing it, the means of its objectification, is not culture proper, the latter is impossible without the former though. Just as the marble, the Venus of Melos is sculptured of, is merely the material for objectification of the ancient Greek's aesthetic views of the woman's body, but not culture as such.

It is difficult if not impossible to argue that poetry is purely human attribute. Hence we can draw the conclusion that it can serve as the measure of human in man. Of course the mentioned criterion should not be treated as an absolute one. And what is more, it would be utterly wrong to ascribe to it any axiomatic values. It would be undoubtedly wrong to assume that the man well conversant with poetry is a priori a good man. More than two thousand years ago the Greek philosopher Protogoras said, "Man is the measure of everything". But if man is the measure of everything, what is the measure of the human in man? The answer is spirituality. Since poetry is indisputably a spiritual creative work and a concentrated expression of intellectual, emotional and spiritual nature of man, it should be lawfully considered as being one of the constituent features of homo sapiens. That is why the disregard and neglect of poetry especially at the stage of making man, which is but one of the basic duties of the high schoo l, is, to my deep conviction, fallacious. Unfortunately such is indeed the case. Let us take for instance the English textbook for nine-grade students of high schools. While admitting its undoubted merits, in vain one will try to find at least one English poem or rhyme.

Above it was stressed that poetry is the phenomenon of culture and, what is of paramount importance, of spiritual culture. I consider it axiomatic to state that where there is poetry, there is culture, and where there is culture, there is poetry. This holds good for any ethnos and for any society as well. Hence the introduction of poetry, and in our case English poetry, into the process of teaching the English language immerses the learner quite naturally and unbiasedly into the world of English culture, into the world of its ideas and longing. The latter is the first and the necessary prerequisite to apprehending, appreciating, and understanding the qualitative and spiritual peculiarities of one's own culture, of one's ethnos' culture, of one's society's culture of which everyone is a part.

The outstanding Russian scholar M. M. Bakhtin at one time advanced the idea that "culture reveals itself at boundaries". In other words one's own culture's learning, objectification and, more than that, realization can be attained only when it comes in contact with another unidentical culture. Introducing English poetry into the process of learning English, we thereby stimulate learning appreciation and understanding of our national culture. "When face to face, one cannot see the face: the great is seen when being distant", said once Serghey Yesenin.

Above I mentioned the part poetry could play as a means of spiritual perfection of the learner. At the same time I would like to call attention to another but not less important its part which is dictated by purely practical and pragmatic considerations. As a matter of fact, poetry contributes much in promotion of speech culture. The learner's speech becomes more aphoristic, much more normative, well - composed and emotional. The learner's associative memory strengthens and becomes both more extensive and intensive. In this connection it is worth reminding that for the learner to master a word of a foreign language, the latter should be functionally used in the ratio 1:7. Through the use of poetical works one can reduce it to 1:2 or 1:3 owing to information redundancy of the poetical work stemming from polyphony of its sounding, its assonance, its rationally organized structure, to say nothing of its concentrated emotionality and expressiveness. Everything just mentioned provides convincing evidence in fa vor of a wide use of English poetical works in the process of teaching English. Besides the durability of active storage of conceptual and signed information conveyed through poetry and works of prosaic genre cannot even be compared.

To be sure, the introduction of poetry into both the process of teaching English and training aids poses a number of problems of methodical, socio-cultural, didactic, aesthetic, and moral kind. I have not got any possibility to give an exhaustive coverage of problems and ways of solving them. However I believe as highly advisable, especially at the initial stages of learning, small in size classical poetic works of distinct and clear grammatical structure lacking archaic and traditionally used poetry vocabulary. Take for instance such a fragment from "The Merchant of Venice" by Shakespeare,

"The man that has no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils:

The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted."

Unquestionable priority when introducing poetry into teaching process should be given to poetical works of high emotional richness. It is impossible to overestimate the role of emotions in mastering any kind of knowledge. That is why the most promising, especially at the initial stages of learning, are emotionally rich, humorous, witty and often paradoxical poems and rhymes of small size, such as the epigram by A. Pope:

"You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come -

Knock as you please: there's nobody at home."

It is not a secret that both in English and American poetry there exists a specific genre of so-called "nonsense verse". The authors of such "nonsense poetry" are as a rule people of high mentality capable to see in disharmony a special kind of harmony, possessing aptitude for paradoxical associations. Completely true is the statement: " A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men".

In conclusion I would like to to say that poetry in general and the poetry of "nonsense verse" is a good "shock therapy" for a sluggishly functioning thinking of not a small number of our younger generation that live under condition of book degradation and aggressive expansion of mass-media which stimulate mostly visual, sensory perception of reality. That is why I would like but to repeat well-known words: "Gracia, Musa tibi, nam tu solacia praebes, tu cura requies, tu medicina venis".