Poetry is a concentrated excess of language.
Concentrated because it always means more than it says. Excessive because it always says more than it needs to say, because in many cases it need not be said at all.
Concentration: “The Lord is my shepherd” unlatches a window on an alternative world, in which God is a shepherd, men are sheep, lives are pathways, providential discipline is a rod, etc etc.
Excess: Marvell could have said: “It’s late, and we’re going to die, so let’s make love now.” What he said was, “Had we but world enough and time,/ this coyness, Lady, were no crime” etc. etc. etc. And we get the Ganges, the conversion of the Jews, worms and decaying corpses, and the cherubic (or Apollonian) chariot of time pressing close.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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