Chapter 36 Poetry
POETRY
Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.
Aristotle, On Poetics
Claudia can’t remember the last time she experienced a deep, uninterrupted, restful sleep.
Days? Weeks? Time doesn’t feel real anymore.
Muscle memory carries her to Professor Lamour’s class where she feels heavy in her seat at her desk.
Cassius sits across the room and makes no effort to hide the fact that he’s staring at her.
She can barely keep her eyes open. All she wants to do is leave.
Ever since her lessons with Lamour ended, she’s hated being in his class.
She can’t look her professor in the eye.
Shame keeps her head down and her mouth shut.
Lamour hasn’t spoken a single word to her since their last night in the observatory, which is why Claudia is so surprised when he approaches her desk.
He lays down a stack of papers. “Congratulations, Miss Jolicoeur. Your dialogue was excellent. You’ve earned the highest grade in the class.”
She turns the paper over to find it marked up in green. A perfect grade is penciled in the upper right-hand corner. “Thank you,” she says without looking up, her voice hollow.
“A blessing may be in your future,” he says. Still, she does not look up.
He sighs. “As further reward, you’re dismissed for the day. Go to your room and rest.”
“I don’t want to,” she says, a biting whisper. She just wants what’s left of her life to be as normal as possible. She needs her routine to keep the impending fatalistic spiral at bay.
“You’re exhausted.” He closes the book before her—Plato’s Ion—and gives her a soft smile. “Go on, dear. Go get some sleep.”
Another student walks by her desk. She waits for them to walk out of earshot before she says, “What do you see in your nightmares, Lamour?”
Eyes softening, he says, “Ghosts.”
Ghosts? She almost laughs. That’s nothing. That’s a fucking bedtime story.
Claudia sees the devil.
“Is anything nearer to vital truth than history?” Olivier asks the class the next day.
“History is vital truth. It is the treatise on being human,” George says.
“But even historical accounts are rhetorical,” Florence says.
“How so?” Olivier asks.
“A soldier on the ground does not see war from the view of a king in a castle. I’m sure a soldier would account history quite differently if he survived long enough to tell it.
Choosing what information from the past to include in the narrative involves an inherent argument shaped by perspective.
Even if an argument is not stated explicitly, it’s clear that every story of war has a hero and a villain.
Historical narratives are not immune from persuasive language. It is all a story, after all.”
“What could be more honest than history?” George snaps.
“Poetry,” Cassius interjects. Claudia loves the sound of his voice so close to her ear. She revels in the soft echo.
“Why?” Olivier asks.
“It expresses the universal truths, while history is an account of the particular. Poetry is an exploration of what may happen, or what could’ve been. It’s humanity without limitation,” Cassius says.
“Interesting. Plato had a loud disdain for poetry. He claimed poetry to be the mother of what?”
“Emotion?”
“No.”
“Tragedy?”
“Poetry is the mother of lies,” Claudia says, eyes locked forward.
“Correct, Miss Jolicoeur,” Professor Olivier says entirely too enthusiastically.
It’s the first time Claudia has verbally participated in class in weeks.
“There is something to be said for the power of poetry. It can be the mother of lies. It can be the nurse of abuse. It can drive men to madness. Some believe that poetry’s destabilizing influence left Athens vulnerable to Spartan conquest, despite the significant advancements of Athenian society. Why is poetry so powerful?”
“It’s evocative.”
“Mm-hmm. More.”
“It’s not always grounded in truth.”
Olivier shrugs. “Why does it matter? Why should poetry be true?”
“Because truth is good.”
“More.”
Why is no one else saying the right thing? This is one of the first things Lamour instructed them to read about in Rhetorical Theory this semester. “Because poetry guides the soul,” Claudia says.
A smile tugs at the corner of Olivier’s mouth. “What is the soul?”
“Plato says the soul is split into three: reason, spirit, and appetite. The logistikon, in the head; the thymoeides, in the heart; and the epithymetikon, in the stomach. One is rational, one is emotional, and one is hungry. This illustrates why it’s possible for the soul to want contradictory things at once—the logical reasoning to uphold the law can coexist with the desire to commit a crime that goes against it.
” Another example: A girl can think about killing the man she loves for the desire to save herself, despite knowing that losing him would make everything—from life to godhood—feel like a punishment.
Claudia rejects that thought and continues.
“Poetry emboldens emotion and hunger, potentially leading them to consume rationale, resulting in an inharmonious soul. But, of course, Plato’s disdain of poetry largely comes from the assertion that poetry is mimetic—merely imitative of life, not reflective of it—which, in his eyes, makes poetry untrue.
This is where he and Aristotle disagree, for Aristotle says that mimesis is cathartic as it serves as a vehicle to express universal truths. ”
Scribbling sounds through the room as the class takes notes.
Are they… are they taking notes from her? Are they writing down her ideas? Her heart warms.
Smiling brightly, Olivier says, “And what do you think, Miss Jolicoeur? Is poetry catastrophic or cathartic? Is it good or is it evil?”
Who is she to weigh in on good or evil? She is neither; she is both.
“It’s necessary,” she says. “Even Plato indicates in The Republic that poetry has theoretical potential for good if it contains truth and guides the soul toward virtue. Not all poetry is the same—some is good, some is Platonically Good, some is bad, and some is Platonically Evil. But it can be good and Good. If it is done well, it is good, and if it is honest, it is Good.”
Cassius chimes in, affectionately murmuring, “You and Plato.”
Claudia almost smiles.
“Truly excellent, Miss Jolicoeur.” Olivier turns back to the rest of the class. “Let us focus on epic poetry for the moment. We will discuss the Comedy and Tragedy, for the Dithyramb is best left in the hands of our Musices students.”
A few soft laughs sound through the room.
“We’ve already discussed Oedipus Rex, which Aristotle claims as the greatest Tragedy ever written. Now, let’s talk about Comedy. Can anyone tell me which group claims invention for both of these modes?”
“The Dorians,” Cassius says. The name sends a shiver down Claudia’s spine. She hasn’t heard it or said it since she unmasked Dorian as Sidarphion. She almost forgot his given name.
“Correct. And what distinguishes Comedy and Tragedy?”
“Their representation of man,” Cassius says.
“I am of the belief in complete opposition to Plato. Poets are not and have never been liars. They are forthright in their mimetic approach, and their imitation is not impassively colored by biases. A poet actively chooses to depict man as better, worse, or real. And by the declaration of their mode, be it Tragedy or Comedy, we suspend our disbelief accordingly to understand the truths being told. Tragedies depict man as better, for a man must be good in order for ill fate to be tragic. If the man is not good, then ill fate is not tragic; it is just. As for Comedies, they depict man as worse than real life, for the only way we can stomach our own faults is through exaggeration. We cannot laugh at honest faults that are too true to the self.”
“Is that why we create poetry? To view man from a gods’-eye view?”
“We do it because it’s instinctive,” Florence says. “Even as children, we engage in mimesis. We play pretend, play dress-up and the like.” She tosses her blond hair over her shoulder. “It’s how we first come to engage in the act of learning. Through play.”
Her rival, George, clearly can’t help but interject.
“But poetry is not always playful, is it? Think back to Oedipus Rex. He gouges out his own eyes when confronted with the truth that he is the one who murdered his father and married his mother. That alone is evidence that poetry can be grotesque and painful.”
“And yet we find beauty in it, even in Tragedies. Through art, even grief and gore can be delightful. Poetry turns pain into metaphor. It makes it mean something.”
“Precisely.” Olivier returns to her desk and stands behind it.
“Nothing is more persuasive, or as potent, as poetry. It’s powerful and dangerous and thus excellent for spellwork.
Now that we’re closing in on the end of term, I want to prepare you for what will come next.
In your second year, you will be able to commune with Malevimus without supervision, and you will begin to exercise your power.
As Rhetoric scholars, you are gifted with linguistic magic.
This comes in many forms—poems, essays, even one simple sentence can be a spell if built with the right words. ”
“Is it dangerous?” someone asks from the back of the room.
Olivier arches a brow. “Of course it is. That’s why we have an entire year of instruction separate from magic.
But so long as you have a strong understanding of the academic discipline that serves as the medium of your magic, you’ll be fine.
” She casts a smile over the room. “I have faith in every single one of you.” Her stare lingers for a moment on Claudia.
“Could you show us an example?” Claudia asks, ever curious.
Judging by Olivier’s pause and pinched face, Claudia assumes she’ll say no.
But to her surprise, the professor smirks and shrugs.
“Why not?” Leaning against her desk, Olivier says, “Obviously, poetry has grown since ancient times. It doesn’t have to be epic.
It can be something as simple as…” She ponders, turning toward the board and tapping the chalk against her chin. “Ah!” On the board, she writes:
The sun meets the moon
Where I wed a spill of gold
To my silver spoon
Holding up a cup of tea in one hand and a tiny teaspoon in the other, she reads the poem aloud. A golden light shines in the dip of the silver. When the light leaves, honey is left in its wake. Olivier stirs it into her tea. She sips, moans, and smiles. “There. Nice and sweet.”
The class applauds. Awestruck murmurings sound through the room, but Olivier waves away all praise. “You’ll be able to do much grander things than that. But you’ll start with much simpler. Physical manifestations like that are no easy feat. Next semester, we’ll first focus on…”
Claudia can hear nothing over the hot blood rushing in her ears.
While everyone else is taking notes and listening closely, she can’t take her eyes off the poem on the board. She’s enraptured by a sudden storm of realization.
This is what Odette was trying to do in her diary.
Poetry in the shape of constellations. Magic at the intersection of Rhetoric and Astrologia.
The final pages in her diary are not signs of madness at all.
They are spells.