Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"The Proof" by Richard Wilbur deals with complex themes of faith, divine creation, and human agency within a framework that reflects a poetic consciousness intensely aware of its own capacity for error and redemption. The poem employs a series of rhetorical questions and reflections to engage with an abstract and divine authority, suggested to be God, regarding the complexities of human existence. The poem grapples with issues like free will and divine grace, using the metaphor of writing and editing as a lens through which to explore these themes.

In the poem, the narrator questions the nature of love and the divine, asking whether he should love God for his own existence, which he compares to "mere utterance." These lines establish the creation of human life as a divine utterance, a metaphysical word spoken into existence. It echoes the idea of God as a writer or creator, sketching out the lives and fates of His subjects. This also puts the relationship between God and man into a context that can be understood as that between author and subject or text.

The poem's tone then shifts from a note of philosophical questioning to one of humility and humanity. The speaker acknowledges his own flaws, the "work to jar and stammer," and praises the divine for His forbearance. Rather than being cast out "in a rage" or obliterated from the cosmic narrative, he finds that God has instead chosen to be patient, suggesting that there is room for growth, change, and redemption. The word "stet" serves as an emblem of divine grace and forgiveness; in editorial terms, it means let it stand, countermanding a previous deletion.

The choice of the word "stet" as an epitome of divine forgiveness is a profound one. In one sense, it reduces the enormity of divine grace to a mere scribble on a manuscript, yet, in another, it elevates human life to a text that is worth editing, worth perfecting. Here lies a delicate balance of humility and grandiosity that defines the human condition: fallible yet capable of grace, insignificant in the grand cosmic scheme yet invaluable to the divine narrative.

The rhyme scheme is AABBCCDD, where each pair of lines rhymes with each other. This tightly-knit structure gives the poem a sense of internal coherence and symmetry, paralleling the philosophical and theological completeness the poem seeks to convey. The rhymes are crisp and understated, embodying the intellectual elegance that often characterizes Wilbur's work.

Overall, "The Proof" stands as a profound meditation on the nature of existence, error, and divine compassion. It utilizes the metaphor of writing to investigate the mysteries of the human relationship with the divine, ultimately affirming the potential for human growth and the boundlessness of divine patience and love.

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