This is a big update! I am sorry if Romi's pov disappoints you but the woman is *faaaar* from perfect. Romi's write up has been italicized for an easy read. I hope you like it! Happy reading! Also, I am working on another Wattpad story which is going to have a completely different theme. I hope you'll read that one too! More about that later. :)
Romi placed the notebook in front of Samay. He looked at her questioningly. She sighed. Well, he wanted to read something she had written. He had read her blog but somehow he wasn't happy with that. In essence, he wants to know something personal. What it is that he reads is dross. She opened the notebook to a particularly favorite part of hers. If he was going to read something, might as well make it entertaining, she thought. He lifted the notebook and started reading. She saw his eyebrows fly to the ceiling as he read on. Mission accomplished, she thought. Surprising him was the essence. What he thought of it was dross.
"That was..." Samay exhaled heavily.
Romi waited patiently. It matters not, she told herself.
"...really good. And I still haven't understood most of it. Can you explain?"
Romi smiled. He still didn't know how differently a piece of writing was understood when read out loud. She asked him to do so as she leaned back in the chair and heard him read her work.
"What is the worst thing for a writer? When the hero the writer worships fails to understand the art itself. It is exactly how I felt when I read Plato's views on poetry. Now Plato remains to be one of the greatest human minds ever. He was a brilliant philosopher, theorist and mathematician. He has been bestowed with such brilliant poetic sense. And yet, no one disparaged poets as much as him. This, I believe, was the reason behind my heartbreak.
In his theories, Plato vehemently rejects poetry. Why? He supplies one with an answer that is so befuddling and simple at the same time. 'Take a chair for example' he says. A chair is conceptualized by a carpenter. He then sets to work on that concept and makes the actual chair. The concept, he believes, is far more real than the article created. And then a painter sets to imitate the chair in his painting. This chair, therefore, is twice removed from reality. Thus, the concept or the idea or the philosphy, Plato says, is far greater than the art. The art, he thinks, is twice removed from reality. It is an imitation of an imitation. Plato calls it 'The World of ideas Or The Ideal World' as opposed to 'The Real World Or The World of Everyday Reality.'
Somewhere, I do agree with the man. We poets take the artistic license too far. What right do we have to write about those wars in which we never fought? What right do we have to describe those deaths we have never seen? What right do we have to glorify love without ever feeling any? It's an insult to all those people who fought in the war or died or fell in love. And yet, a part of me is willing to accept the idea because if we don't write about it, people will forget. All that love, that victory and that glory will be lost. No one will remember the martyrs or the Romantics. But I'm still outraged about the wrathful nature we writers bestow upon the Gods such as in the Iliad. Was God meant to be so wrathful? Is mankind infested with madmen?
Plato rejected poetry on moral grounds. He rejected it on philosophical grounds. Emotions govern those who have a weak disposition, he believed. I wonder if that is true. Do emotions really weaken us? Is that why we are destroying those very elements that give us life? Can we be trusted? It is when I ask myself all these questions that I feel so ignorant and so... human. Because it's what we do. We ask questions without waiting for an answer. By the time we have one, we have already moved on to the next question."
Samay closed the book as he finished reading. The essence of this exercise was to help him understand her views better by giving them a voice. Now, she wondered, does what he think of it matter?
"Well, I understand it much better now," he announced.
Romi felt a glow of satisfaction. She was rarely ever wrong about the essence of the matter. She wondered if his curiosity had been sated. She got up and returned the notebook back to its original place. Samay finally spoke again as she returned to the table.
"So then? What are the answers? Does emotion destroy us according to you?" he asked.
Romi smiled, "Oh you can't know yet. You have only read 1 side of the argument yet."
"There's another side?" Samay asked incredulously.
"Yep," Romi replied.
"Can I see it?" Samay asked. She had known this question was coming. But she rather enjoyed making him wait.
"Maybe later. How about we get down to a little bit of Paris planning for now?" She wanted a bit of the trip ironed out and she was going to discuss some more with Keshav tomorrow. She fired up her laptop as they started surfing through some of the places they could visit. She decided to add Monaco and Monte Carlo to the list. Yes, she was a teacher and a reader and a poet and a critique and all that, but she was a sucker for all Bond movies and she absolutely had to visit the Monte Carlo Casino. She knew Samay found this quite amusing. Once they had made the list, he turned to her with a serious look.
"So now can I see the other side?" he asked.
"How about tomorrow?" she replied.
"Alright," Samay agreed. "But at least tell me what argument do you make?"
"Who says I argue at all? I'm not the one defending the poets."
"Who is, then?" Samay inquired, confused.
"Oh. Plato's protege. Aristotle."
YOU ARE READING
Poetic Sensibility
General FictionA round table. 5 poets. 1 teacher. May the muses be ever in your favour. Samay hates any kind of disruption in his life. He hates being curious about things because then he loses all common sense and has to sate his curiosity. But he can't stop hi...
