Ars Poetica Essay Questions

How does the image of the moon climbing in the sky convey the poem’s theme?

At any given point in time, the moon is at a fixed position, but as the earth rotates, the moon’s position changes relative to the viewer. Nevertheless, the moon itself is timeless and unchanging; it is an example of something that exists, whatever we may think of it and whatever meanings we may try to assign to it. This imagery suggests that a poem can create movement and embody stillness—perhaps in that the poem moves the reader but lasts beyond the end of human life. In another sense, a poem can remain what it was at the moment of composition, but also create multifarious experiences for those readers who encounter it.

“Ars Poetica” is often considered an example of a poem as paradox. What does this mean?

The underlying message of the verse is that a poem should simply be and not have any meaning. From this assertion it can be extrapolated that for a poem to meet this criteria, it must refrain from didactic instruction or any attempt to feed the reader with a clearly stated or intended meaning. In reality, “Ars Poetica” consists almost entirely of such didactic instruction: the word “should” appears six times. The great paradox of “Ars Poetica” is that it both emulates and contradicts every quality that it advocates for.

What might the poet be suggesting is the difference expressed in the final lines of the poem: “A poem should not mean / But be.”?

The imagery of the moon or the trees looking different depending on perspective likely gives a hint here. Meaning is a concept that is applied externally, but perspective, experience, sensation or impression is mobile and amorphous—felt within the mind. As the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan would say, words as signifiers have no meaning alone; it is only through the process of signification and the interpretation by humans that meaning is created. By contrast, the state of being for anything exists independently of human interpretation or even human observation, for that matter. The moon exists as a being at all times; its meaning as a heavenly body, or portent of doom, or engine casting a romantic light over proceedings, is created by the meaning different people make of its impression on them. Being and meaning are not linked in the way we imagine: without meaning attached, the moon will continue to be, just as a poem will.