This essay builds on the belief that poetry as art is one of the most intense forms, combining the traditions of the past with innovation. In fact, it is common for authors to imitate idols, but for a poem to be socially and culturally relevant, it must bring something new to the agenda. This essay summarizes the reading, reviewing the harmonious symbiosis of tradition and innovation in three animal poems.
The first work for analysis was a short poem by the Fly, in which the author of the chapter consistently discovered and discussed necessary rhetorical devices. These included the even ring rhyme, the personification of the fly, and the comparative method: all in order to convey to the reader the idea of the complexity and insignificance of human life. In this sense, it is emphasized that one of the critical poetic traditions is the anthropomorphic vision as the desire to give inanimate nature the characteristics of humans. This mechanism was probably used as a natural human desire to explore the real world, with the easiest way to do so being to consider its forms through the prism of one’s perception. In addition, an essential thought of the section is the need for a qualitative reflection on the biography and vision of the author in an attempt to explain the meaning of the poem. Thus, a more thoughtful analysis that summarizes the various aspects of the rhymes created can be accomplished by combining personal feelings about the work with the facts of the poet’s historical legacy.
The second poem was Flea’s work, whose syntax and semantics seem much more complex when compared to the Fly. Analysis of stanza structure led the author to a nine-line form ending in a rhyming triplet: this portrays the poet’s vigor and expressiveness. The poem’s message also differs: Flea does not try to convey the spiritual connection between man and insect but tries to induce the listener to a sexual connection through a series of analogies characteristic of the poetic tradition. The combination of the intellectual and the sensual is also noticeable, forming a metaphysical conceit.
The third poem was also titled the Fly, but unlike the first work, it was translated from Czech, which was subjected to severe pro-Soviet censorship. Notable in this work is the conscious departure from the tradition of rhyme and the use of the free verse form instead. The potential for bias in the English translation in this section was eliminated by comparing three translations from different authors. Regardless of the translation, however, the Fly retains its uniqueness in the syntactic set of rules that divide stanzas into semantic units and lexical forms. Simultaneously, the departure from tradition is also evident in the unorthodox description of war, the complete neutrality, and the absence of glorification of military action. The fly of the Czech poet retains anthropomorphic motifs, which means that we cannot express a complete rejection of tradition.
Thus, poetry as an art form has the critical property of dualism, combining facets of classical traditionalism and innovative ideas. The essay discussed only three poems out of a large variety of animal works, in which the authors used traditional and revolutionary rhetorical methods to form a greater persuasiveness. The appeal to the animal world was oriented toward a desire for an instinctive perception of nature, sexuality, and beauty (as was the case with D.H. Lawrence) and the authors’ attempts to explore the natural world through the use of human categories.