Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Andre Breton's "On the Road to San Romano" is a sweeping yet intimate exploration of poetry as an intrinsic part of the human experience, not merely as a form of expression but as a vital force equivalent to love. Breton begins with an audacious declaration: "Poetry like love is made in a bed." This arresting opening defamiliarizes and sensualizes the act of poetic creation, aligning it with the private, the intimate, and the corporeal.

Breton moves fluidly between expansive cosmic metaphors and intimate, personal symbols. He describes the poetic world as one with limitless rooms and ties it to elements as grand as a hawk's gaze and as intricate as a dewdrop. The poem creates a harmonious blend of imageries, suggesting that poetry not only exists in grand landscapes but also in minutiae: "the memory of a sweating bottle of Fume Blanc on a silver tray," or "a thin blue vein down an obelisk poised over the sea." These details not only exist within the realm of poetry but also hold the power to rule an entire "side of the universe."

The poem also hints at the ephemerality of the poetic experience with the line "One pause and it's weeded over." Like a road less traveled, the "mental adventure" of poetry is fragile, demanding constant engagement lest it become obscured. But unlike the proclamation that opens the poem, this warning is offered in a subdued tone: "No need to spread this around. Wouldn't want to frighten the horses." There is a gentle acknowledgment of poetry's delicate nature; it needs to be carefully nurtured to stay alive.

Breton makes another significant point about the nature of poetic and amorous experiences-they both resist alignment with the mundane, the pedestrian, or the routine. The acts of love and poetry are "incompatible / With reading the news at the top of one's voice." They demand a different kind of attention, one that is immediate, fully present, and unmediated by the distractions of everyday life.

The imagery that follows encompasses a broad range of human experiences-everything from "dance steps footed on a summer's night" to "the diligence of lightning" finds a place in this poetic landscape. Such a range suggests that the poetic resides in all things, places, and actions, rendering irrelevant the external trappings of status or material wealth: "A good address is not necessarily part of the action- / Nor a corner office. No, gentlemen-nor gin, leather, and cigar smoke."

The poem culminates in the assertion that the "embrace of poetry," like that of love, serves as a temporary refuge "against all the misery of the world." Both are portrayed as defenses against life's hardships, challenges, and disappointments. While they last, they offer solace, meaning, and a form of transcendence that lifts us beyond the limitations of the earthly and the ephemeral.

In "On the Road to San Romano," Breton masterfully encapsulates the essence of poetry as life-affirming, all-encompassing, and ultimately redemptive, a force as elemental and vital as love itself.

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