The Untranslatable Language

Abstract

ASTRONOMERS establish the height of an unknown star through the process of triangulation. By taking bearings on the star from two points a known distance apart, they are able to calculate the distance of the third point, the star. Poetry, however, remains an untriangulated star. Though many bearings have been taken on it, its exact position is still to be determined. Nevertheless, attempts at triangulating it are useful. Though they do not fully identify poetry for us, they tell us helpful things about it. I shall attempt here to answer one question about poetry by this process of triangulation. The three points of my triangle are three quotations, two of them statements, one a question. Using the statements as fixed points, I shall try to locate an answer to the question. Here are the three quotations, with the question in the middle. (1) Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. (2) If that's what the poet means, why didn't he come right out and say so? (3) Poetry is a language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction, something that cannot be said. The first of these quotations comes from an essay by Robert Frost. The second can be ascribed to thousands of