Concept in Definition ABC
Miscellanea / / July 04, 2021
By Javier Navarro, in May. 2014
There is a period in the history of knowledge and culture that is key. We refer to the classical period that developed in Greece from the 5th century BC. C. Its importance is so evident that its study is carried out in all the educational plans of the planet. At that historical moment, the genius of the Greeks promoted culture in all its manifestations: art, literature, philosophy, science...
In each field of knowledge, thinkers like Plato and Aristotle put order and direction to wisdom. A systematization of each one of the knowledge. And literature was one of them. The different literary genres had to respect very specific rules. The desire to standardize affected poetry and, since then, verses, rhymes and stanzas had to comply with established rules. The possibility of breaking the rules or ignoring them was not contemplated.
Art in general and poetry in particular had its own regulation and creative freedom had its limits. Over time, the human being was incorporating a greater interest in freedom, either in the
politics, religion or art itself. The urge and yearning for freedom has free verse as one of the most notable examples. Free verse is a expression poetic with the absence of norms. In free verse the law anything goes. The poet creates his world without having to count the number of syllables or verses, he can combine words with or without rhyme and the number of verses (the stanzas) are no longer relevant. Your ability to create has no limits.Free verse is one of the most widely used poetic approaches in current literature because it multiplies the ability to communicate new ideas and enhances creative options.
It was from the 19th century that free verse began its true journey. At that time, the idea of tradition weakened and art began new paths, mainly through the movements of Vanguard (Dadaism, Futurism or surrealism, just to mention a few of them). Free verse represented a true turning point in the history of poetry, a way of expressing musicality without the rigid scores of the past.
The list of well-known poets who resort to free verse would be endless: Neruda, Lorca, Auster, Bukowski... Each of them creates their own particular poetic reality; a world where the rules disappear and, despite this, there is still rhythm, truth and beauty. The true spirit of poetry.
Themes in Free Verse