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Of Polysemy and Poetry

 The poet James Matthew Wilson says in an interview:  

A steady focus of my work over the years—and I am not alone in this—has been the contemplation of things in their being, existence, mystery, and meaning: the way in which, not only Scripture and poetry are polysemous, but the multiple meanings of things in general help us understand human activity and also the natural order of the world. It is a three-step theme. Seeing things as they are and discovering that, when seen in this way, their depths open up. They reveal their connections to other things. These connections in turn lead us not only to see the natural order with all its parts, its congeries of beings. As Thomas Aquinas says in the introduction to his Commentary on the Divine Names of Pseudo-Dionysius, they lead us up to the creator of all things, God himself. This attempt to perceive the intrinsic being and goodness of things is part of the general literary quest. It is not particular to me. It is the reason people read books in the first place: to hear news of God and know the order and cause of all things. 

Polysemous is a good word.   It is the capacity of a sign (such as a word)  to have multiple meanings.    Something that sometimes boggles logical discourse actually enriches and deepens poetry or even ordinary conversation.     

Natural things can be signs in this manner.   Today we are celebrating the solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord, which in the revised calendar ushers in the Octave of Epiphany.   In Baptism, water becomes the matter of a sacrament, without losing what it already is by nature.  

God can make natural things into signs in this manner, because he made the natural things.   He makes history work this way too, where things prefigured in the prophets and in historical events gain resonance and fulfillment in the Incarnation and Redemption.  

Poets and artists reflect Creation in their sub-creations, as Wilson points out and as Tolkien said in the poem referenced yesterday.    

 Even families do this -- almost every functional family has a collection of words or jokes that have meaning within that family but would puzzle someone hearing them.    In fact, it seems to me that a kind of word-life is one trait of a healthy community.   Not in the sense of vague language, like mission statements full of jargon that can meaning anything or nothing -- quite the opposite, in fact.     





 

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