A Poet Philosopher or a Philosopher’s Poet?

Within these two disciplines of philosophy and poetry the potential for connections does indeed exist. Despite the vastly differing forms, and the fact the Plato dismisses these imitators of reality, there are indeed poets who have attempted to account for this same account of ultimate reality in a form not based on argumentation and logic, but rather a mystical connection to the world of things as they are experienced, as opposed to the way by which they are articulated. Seeing as neither of these disciplines can be reduced to a paraphrase, but instead must be experienced to fully appreciate what meaning, or significance the poet or the philosopher is attempting to convey, which in general stands as an attempt to understand the fundamental essence of things.

In the chapter of William James' Psychology concerning the stream of consciousness he describes the nature of any perceivable thing as having an inarticulable element, which he refers to as the “Fringe”. Now there are plenty of different means by which one can attempt to understand this quality, as it can indeed be explored through a cognitive means, but it can never be accessed. There is no means to access these notions through the qualities of our everyday experience, as they are steeped in symbolic meaning. Therefore a number of attempts have been made by philosophers and poets alike to all for the experience or at least the understanding of these distant notions through language.

For the poet Wallace Stevens the necessary means by which to access this notion, or at least come close to this pre-symbolic truth, is to abandon all previous notions of the faculties by which we navigate reality. In his poem “Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction” Stevens suggests that:

You must become an ignorant man again

And see the sun again with an ignorant eye

And see it clearly in the idea of it.

Never suppose an inventing mind as source

Of this idea nor for that mind compose

A voluminous mater folded in his fire.

Now this poem for the most part essentially establishes Stevens' account of reality, wherein he sees truth in its purest primordial form as being isolated from humanity's understanding of it. This poem is functioning like a philosophical treatise, but because of the form it's philosophical merit could be widely dismissed. If it were to be considered by philosophically and literately conscious individuals, who are willing to appreciate what these two disciplines can offer, and entertain the possibility that the coalescence of these two disciplines has the potential to access this truth that we are all in pursuit of.