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    Alice Corbin Henderson - A Note On Primitive Poetry PDF

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    Victor H Azevedo
    This document discusses the nature of primitive poetry. It summarizes that primitive poetry was originally brief, symbolic expressions used in dances and ceremonies to invoke blessings or desires, rather than narrative storytelling. These symbolic expressions used simple, concrete images that grew and expanded in meaning through repetition in song and accompanying ritual movement. Primitive poetry was an integral part of tribal life, believed to have real power to affect the material world through magic or prayer, rather than being a detached artistic form.

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    Alice Corbin Henderson - A Note On Primitive Poetry PDF

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    Victor H Azevedo
    207 views7 pages
    This document discusses the nature of primitive poetry. It summarizes that primitive poetry was originally brief, symbolic expressions used in dances and ceremonies to invoke blessings or desires, rather than narrative storytelling. These symbolic expressions used simple, concrete images that grew and expanded in meaning through repetition in song and accompanying ritual movement. Primitive poetry was an integral part of tribal life, believed to have real power to affect the material world through magic or prayer, rather than being a detached artistic form.

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    This document discusses the nature of primitive poetry. It summarizes that primitive poetry was originally brief, symbolic expressions used in dances and ceremonies to invoke blessings or desires, rather than narrative storytelling. These symbolic expressions used simple, concrete images that grew and expanded in meaning through repetition in song and accompanying ritual movement. Primitive poetry was an integral part of tribal life, believed to have real power to affect the material world through magic or prayer, rather than being a detached artistic form.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    207 views7 pages

    Alice Corbin Henderson - A Note On Primitive Poetry PDF

    Uploaded by

    Victor H Azevedo
    This document discusses the nature of primitive poetry. It summarizes that primitive poetry was originally brief, symbolic expressions used in dances and ceremonies to invoke blessings or desires, rather than narrative storytelling. These symbolic expressions used simple, concrete images that grew and expanded in meaning through repetition in song and accompanying ritual movement. Primitive poetry was an integral part of tribal life, believed to have real power to affect the material world through magic or prayer, rather than being a detached artistic form.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 7

     

    Early  Journal  Content  on  JSTOR,  Free  to  Anyone  in  the  World  
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    POETRY: a Magazine of Verse

    hope of the race. Out of this will develop, we may hope,


    spiritualfreedomand an indigenous
    and self-expressive
    art.
    It may be that the movement for national and state and
    of wildernesses,little
    municipalparks-for the reservation
    and great, to the use of the people forever-is the most
    important,themostdeeplyimpassioned,
    spiritualand aesthetic
    enterprise
    of our time. H. M.
    A NOTE ON PRIMITIVE POETRY

    The firststriving toward poetry, in the Occident, was in the


    formof narratives sung or chanted by old men, in praise or con
    demnation of kings or warriors, and it became the gilded and
    softened history of a people told to awaken love and pride in their
    hearts. Gradually it spread to narratives of all forms-to alle
    gories written in praise of themorals of Christianity, to dainty
    love episodes recountedin songs by the troubadours,and to satirical
    narratives such as Chaucer's dealing with the frailties of com
    mon people. Maxwell Bodenheim in theNew Republic.
    So writes an exponent of modern verse whose poetic tradi
    tion, it is easy to see, goes no farther back than theHomeric
    era. For the first striving toward poetry, whether in the
    Occident or theOrient,was-and is-a fardifferent
    thing.
    It is not impossible to know what preceded Homer, it is not
    impossible to learn at first hand that symbolism has always
    precededlegendor narrative;and tomake thisdiscovery
    one
    need not project oneself imaginatively
    backward through
    time or immure oneself in a library: one need merely project
    on a two-or-three-days'
    oneselfphysically journeyfromany
    of the principal cities of the United States, and witness a
    dance-drama of the south-western Indians, in order to dis
    cover at firsthand what primitive poetry is like.
    [330]
    A Note on PrimitivePoetry

    It is not story-telling
    poetry. It is not poetrydesigned
    to please. It is designed to accomplishsomething.All
    symbolsin thefirstplaceare of thiskind. The poeticsymbol
    is invocative-itis in a sensea prayer,whetherconsciously
    or unconsciously used as such;whetherconsciously, as in
    thedances,a prayerfor rain, forgood hunting,for food,
    clothesand protection againstenemies(primeconsiderations
    inour ownworld today!); or unconsciously, as in the love
    songs or lullabies,prayersfor requitedlove, or for long
    lifeand happinessforone's own.
    In thebeginningtherefore primitive poetryis brief,stac
    cato, ejaculatory, like a cry or a wish or an aspiration; some
    times a mere mood of longing, or an observation whose
    deepersignificanceis feltby the singerand hearer. It is
    usuallya singleimage,simpleor complex,and thevariations
    are in thenatureof amplifications of this image,through
    with slightchangesor through
    re-statement reiteration.As
    the song progressesin the dance, action accompaniesthis
    image, which seems to grow and expand with a life of its
    own, to be in shorta symbolcapableof creatively
    projecting
    thatwhich itsymbolizes.
    From beingbut a cryof desire,or a crystallized
    wish, the
    song in the symbolicdance becomesceremonialand allies
    itselfto theequally symbolicactionof the dancers,as in
    theNavajo Mountain Chant, a succession of images develop
    ingwith theaction,bothpoetryand actionbeingco-expres
    sive (but not,as inmoderntheatric which
    art,co-illustrative,
    means that either one or the other could be dispensed with!)

    [331]
    POETRY: A Magazine of Verse

    There lie the black mountains,


    There lie the black sticks;
    There lie my sacrifices.
    There lie theblue mountains,
    There lie the blue sticks;
    There liemy sacrifices.
    Or this from the same source:
    Where the sun rises,
    The Holy Young Man
    The great plumed arrow
    Has swallowed
    And withdrawn it.
    Where the sun sets,
    The Holy Young Woman
    The cliff rose arrow
    Has swallowed
    And withdrawn it.
    The moon is satisfied.

    Nor has Indian poetry ever the emptiness of the merely


    decorative motive-it is sufficiently decorative indeed, but
    always the image has been born of the emotion and so has
    not the still-born aspect of the purely "decorative" word
    painting which exists only for and of itself and has no future.
    As my eyes
    Search the prairie
    I feel the summer in the spring

    could never have been born save of longing and sheer sensi
    tiveness to nature, the responsive quiver of a man's being to
    the quiver of nature itself. (Is not this intimacy lacking in
    much modern poetry, which feels itself to be so largely be
    yond nature, even as much modern art also has divorced itself
    from nature, and is proud of the fact?)
    Indian poetry is very honest. It does not belong to the
    [332]
    A Note on Primitive Poetry

    "romantic"school. It is almost literallyreal. It accepts


    life as a whole, and puts the most concrete commonplace
    things on the same footing as things of the most spiritual
    and delicate values. And itmust not be supposed that Indian
    song can not encompass the latter.
    The Chippewas, having salt, make a song of it. And a
    Tlingit is able to express very subtle things through concrete
    means:
    About himself, that thought he had died, the man thus dreams:
    "To my home I've got at last is how I always feel!"

    And a Pawnee warrior sings in battle:


    Let us see, is it real,
    Let us see, is it real,
    Let us see, is it real
    This lifewe are living?
    It is easy to see why Indian poetry has a tribal value and
    significance,why it counts with the tribe as it does not count
    with us: it has the magic power of projecting physical and
    spiritualresults-evenmaterial results. (If it has not this
    same power with us today, it is only because we do not realize
    it!) Of course this ismost obviously true of the poems sung
    in the green-corn dance, to make the corn grow, or in the
    hunting dances performed to attract the game; but it is
    equally true, one may say, of the genesis of all Indian poetry.
    Indian poetry is not for an instant regarded as an escape
    from life or a sedative-indeed one would think that this
    idea should have been discarded with the 'nineties! The
    notion is so far removed from the Indian's conception of
    art that I doubt if he could have any understanding of it.

    [333]
    POETRY: A Magazine of Verse

    Instead,poetryis regardedby the Indian as a heightening,


    an intensifying,
    of life.
    Poetry as a criticism of life equally does not and can not
    exist for theIndian,becausepoetryand lifeare not divided.
    Poetryis lifeand theonlyway one can know life is through
    poetryand thedance; it is throughthesethatone approaches
    the sources of life, and that iswhy poetry has for the Indian
    thecompletefulnessof lifeand never theemptyhollowness
    of themerelydecorative phrase. As a symbolit fulfilsitself.
    It is true that to understandmuch Indian poetryone
    must know somethingof Indian life and psychology, just
    as onemust knowsomething of Japaneselifeand psychology
    to appreciatethe finershadesof the JapaneseNoh. But
    thereare many Indian songswhich need no special inter
    pretation;theyspeak theuniversallanguageof poetry,the
    love of nature,sorrowof parting,love, friendship,war
    eternalthemes.
    Primitivepoetry,howevercrude, is almost always art,
    because it has not been made to please the public, but the
    art, and that it is under
    poet. It is not "communicative"
    stoodby anotheris simplydue to the fact thatwe possess
    emotionsand instinctsin common. The song is forhim
    who feels it. Art as communication, art as addressed to an
    audience,belongsto a laterperiod. The finethingabout
    Indianpoetryand about Indianart, includingthebeautifully
    symbolicdance-dramas,is that it is not addressedto any
    audience save that in the sky-it is a magic projection of the
    self that is beyondself,createdout of distress,longing,or

    [334]
    A Note on PrimitivePoetry

    trulyaestheticaspiration;and it is out of thisprimitive


    gropingtowardart, throughprimitivegraphicsymbolsof
    art and of song, thatlanguageand thoughtitselfevolved.
    Ifwe wouldwish toknowanything thenabout thegenesis
    of poetryor art, it is thoroughlyessentialthatwe should
    go back to thebeginnings, so far as thesebeginningsare
    available to us, and not takeHomer as a starting-point.
    Incidentally,the"savage" peoples,as we call them,are far
    lesscrude thanwe imagine,far lessunsophisticated. They
    have refinements thatwe have forgotten.And theyare
    a repositoryof ourmost basicmeanings. A. C. H.

    REVIEWS
    IN THE OLD FASHION

    Motley and otherPoems, byWalter de laMare. Henry


    Holt & Co.
    of "magic" inopeninga book
    One is a bit over-informed
    byMr. de laMare. The critics, far and wide, have accepted
    thehintwith gratitude,
    and thefamiliarword confronts one
    opinions,itbecomes
    on theslip-cover.Like otherre-asserted
    a challenge-one searchesthebook forproofof theclaim.
    There ismagic incertainlyricsby thispoet: The Listeners
    and the"beautifullady"songhave surprisesin theirpattern,
    like waves that break into foam; and a few of the child
    naive as Hilda Conkling's.
    poems are almostas exquisitely
    But Mr. de laMare's style is as fragile as it is delicate, and
    inworkingouthiseffects by inherited
    he is impeded formulae.

    [335]

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