The Poet

"What we term Indo-European poetry was rather a society's sum of knowledge, which was orally transmitted. The features which our western tradition ascribes to poetry (feeling, inspiration, individualism, participation, etc.), and which the aesthetics of romanticism has particularly underscored, were for Indo-European poetry only a side issue, although they were present. The main thing was to preserve and increase cultural elements which presented something essential to the well-being, collectivity, and stability of the society. We are speaking of the magic spells which heal the sick, the legal formulas which settle disputes, the prayers which extort worldly goods from the gods, the genealogies which give to people consciousness of their past and pride in it; the eulogies which legitimatize rulers by the celebration of their greatness. He who fulfilled such important functions held a position of the first rank in his society, but his traffic with the Muses was neither particularly frequent nor paticularly necessary. For this kind of poetry one could prepare oneself only by years of study; what the Middle Irish Metrics texts tell us about the training of the Early Irish poet is basically valid for the Indo-European one as well." [Enrico Campanile, "Indogermanische Dichtersprache," 1987, Innsbruck, p.26]

The clues from the Vedic texts, older than Homer, match the Irish poetic system, ancient by the time it emerges into the light of writing in the 7th century and stunningly stable for the next thousand years. Poets were a hereditary caste and closely associated with priests.

Five thousand years of tradition comes unglued relatively quickly; Wordsworth turns to natural language. Romantics chafe at rhyme and meter, the artificial aids to remembrance in an oral culture. Stendhal or someone like him says rhyme was fit for cavalry orders, not for great thoughts.

A modern poet is not doing what Homer did. Would Homer contribute to a "Poets Against the War" anthology? If they wonder why he was the basis of a national education system for a millenia, and they seem as ephemeral as crickets on the lawn, consider what, or whom, is served in the verse.