The Poet and the Scholar

For a long time I have argued with a poet and a scholar, both whose opinions and work I value immensely, on the significance of the vocation of studying literature. Being argumentative by nature and training, I have, on several occasions, defended the pursuit of writing over criticism with the scholar, and the importance of critical reflection as an independent form with the poet. I am sure it is possible to align a balance between the two pursuits in one’s engagement with literature, and my double- speak is perhaps indicative of the need to recognize this complementarity.

I have rarely doubted the merit of learning the skill to read effectively and with insight. I am good with anwers and can manipulate a linguistic game effortlesslessly. But one afternoon I was asked to explain the difference between a story and an argument and sometime later was asked to tell a lie that will make one happy. The scholar asked me the first question, and the poet posed the knotted - riddle to me one difficult evening. The questions have bothered me ever since.

I have no satisfactory answer to the first question though there are many possible, tentative suggestions- for instance; an argument rests on details that ultimately cohere whereas in a story they need not. An argument needs a defining consciousness; a story can have no center at all. But these suggestions are very provisional and can collapse at the slightest intellectually rigorous nudge.
And how does one tell a lie that can make you happy?
How does one begin to address this demand?
The vocation of writing and studying literature, perhaps, rests on the difficulty that these two questions pose. The object and objective of literature have always been regarded with some suspicion and cynicism. Astronomers do space, historians do the past, sociologists do society, engineers do bridges, but what do you do, poet? And critic, what the hell do you do?
Critical practitioners having found a space in the university have tried to defend their jobs by responding to the question value in varying degrees of confidence, tentativeness, self-righteousness and surrender.
Poets being generically more stylish than critics often say-“nothing” or “is there anything else worth doing” to the question of doing. Many being loners, hardly get into conversations and so the question of value remains unasked.
The question of value, nevertheless, is an important one. The social relevance of writing and reading can be calibrated in terms of literature’s relationship to politics. Though complex in itself, the politics of relevance is a well-documented and enquired one.

But when one chooses literature as a life-vocation as a writer or a reader, the issue of value perhaps also needs to be philosophically and existentially relevant. And this brings me back repeatedly to the questions that the scholar and the poet threw at me.

How does one explain the value of writing a poem or the pleasure one derives from reading it?
Interestingly, both the poet and the scholar suggested to me, at different times, to read Joyce’s “Dead” to understand the process of writing and reading literature.

It would be easy to write a long meditation on the story. I can do it and do it very well. But I am not sure any more if it is the story that I would be explaining. And why do I need to explain the story at all? Can it be done in the form of an argument or a story? And is the story a lie that made me happy?

These difficulties remain.
The poet and the scholar are my constant companions. Sometimes as people, sometimes as voices and sometimes as my selves.