난해성과 (현대)영시

Difficulties and (Modern) English Poetry

  This study examines the difficulties of (modern) English poetry, and makes a polemical assertion of the difficulty"s necessity and its value. There has been a general sense that difficulty is one of modem poetry"s central characteristics, and have been arguments about the decline of poetry"s academic and cultural importance. First, this paper classifies the types of difficulty following George Steiner"s argument, and explains each type of difficulty-"contingent," "modal," "tactical," "ontological"-taking some examples from several poetry courses such as "Modem British Poetry," "Modem American Poetry," and "Special Topics in British American Literature." Second, a survey presents how students who might have felt anxiety, fear of inadequacy, or indifference towards difficult English poetry actually responded to it at the end of the course, "Modern British Poetry" in 2007. Interestingly enough, the students could experience complex pleasures and rewards throughout the seemingly difficult and demanding course. Third, it discusses the value of difficulty which is the most noted characteristic of modem English poetry. The difficulty can function to educate readers, to add value and pleasure to their lives if we try to make difficult texts less strange, more accessible, assimilable to our society and culture with proper strategies. Finally, this paper suggests that students should be ready to open themselves to potentially difficult poems and reconsider their way of thinking and feeling. More importantly, teachers need to reassert the value of poetry that is a process of thinking, effectively poses the demands of experience, and resists the reduction of experiences to formulas. To reconnect poetry with intellectual readers is not only a starting point to have a broad audience but also an urgent matter for the better future of poetry, the intellect, and society in general.