> Has anyone here ever tried to write a poem with numerological elements,
> Epithalamion style?
Yes: like meter and rhyme, stanza forms, and so on, I find it's actually
really helpful (both methodologically, and emotionally) as a structuring
element. On the other hand, in all such things I keep to hand the
(remarkably robust) criticism of Tasso on the relations between matter,
form, and meaning:
In our Tuscan idiom Dante beyond all others has enhanced the reputation of
allegory, for there is no part of his major poem that is not allegorical,
although he offers no explanations himself, except for occasional hints
that the veil is very thin. In the canzoni he does make his intention
clear, and in the commentary he tells us that the meaning is fourfold:
literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogic. The first of these is simple
enough and easily understood; the second aims at teaching moral habit; the
other two are directed rather to the intellect, the third conducing to
speculation on lower, the fourth on higher matters, and both serving to
excuse the poet's mistakes in imitating. But if the defence involves some
fault in the first meaning and is combined with a fault in decorum, some
ugliness or unseemliness in the things imitated, it is neither good nor
commendable. That is why Aristotle did not list it among other defences;
and indeed if allegory were an accidental perfection in the poem, it could
not reasonably make defects of art excusable, these being intrinsic
defects. [Torquato Tasso, Discourses on the Heroic Poem, transl. by
Mariella Cavalchini and Irene Samuel]
Perfection of the spherical harmonies does not tend to excuse
unintelligibility. (Alas.)
az
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