Allen Tate: Tension, supported by Podmeswar
The
concept of tension in imaginative literature is found at many points in modern
criticism and aesthetic theory. This, for example, is a statement by John
Dewey: “Without internal tension, there would be a fluid rush to a straightway
mark, there would be nothing that could be called development and fulfillment. The
existence of resistance defines the place of intelligence in the production of
an object.”
The concept
of tension is related to the organic theory of poetry and fiction especially to
the part of theory that emphasizes the place of mind and intelligence in
imaginative literature. The criticism preoccupied with or aware of tension in
imaginative literature tries to define the relationship between intelligence
and the medium to demonstrate and to evaluate the ways in which an idea is
reconciled with another idea and the appropriateness with which all of it is
expressed in its medium.
Allen
Tate, in ‘Tension in poetry’ has given a somewhat special meaning to the term
which he derives by lopping the prefixes off the logical extension and intension.’
Tate looks, for example at The Vine by James Thompson:
“The
wine of love in music
And
the feast of love is song
……………………………
……………………………”
The language
here appeals to an existing effective state as it has no coherent meaning either
literally or in terms of ambiguity or implication, it may be wholly replaced by
one of its several paraphrases which are already latent in our mind.
Tate
gives an example of his ‘poetic touchstone’ in which we find present such
tension. In the third part of his essay Tate gives a target from Durante
Alighieri’s ‘Inferno’ as an instance of tension.
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