Finding the Poetic in the Prosaic

Brookes touches on the poet’s ability to use paradox in conveying meaning. The innate ability to find the uniqueness of the seemingly mundane is one such paradox. Writers such as William Wordsworth made great strides in showing “the common was really uncommon, the prosaic was really poetic.” This skill is one utilized not only by Wordsworth, but poets and playwrights around him and in preceding years (Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare, and John Donne to name a few). It also appears in modernist's works, such as Frank O’Hara.

Below are two poems. Brookes discussed one poem in our reading and the other I picked from a collection of poetry by Emily Dickinson. Can you detect where the poets may have used the “language of paradox” to convey meaning? How are the tools they use similar, or different?

Emily Dickinson
"Nature" is what we see —

"Nature" is what we see —
The Hill — the Afternoon —
Squirrel — Eclipse — the Bumble bee —
Nay — Nature is Heaven —
Nature is what we hear —
The Bobolink — the Sea —
Thunder — the Cricket —
Nay — Nature is Harmony —
Nature is what we know —
Yet have no art to say —
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.

William Wordsworth
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802"

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!