Music, Poetry and the Human Connection

Music is yet another added gift of God to Adamite which stamps the distinction of Chosen Seed on him. It is an outlet to channelize his emotions, excitements, grief and joy, which his other terrestrial matter are denied. Hence music needs more than just a passing reference to appreciate it properly.

Music is a strong medium to express human emotions and passions. Language is no bar is no in its consummation. Wordsworth was enchanted b y the song of the Solitary Reaper and broke out:

“Will no one tell me what she sings?
Whet’er the theme, the maiden sang
I listened, motionless and still;…”

However as music is an essential channel of expressing human emotions, excitements, etc, its nature and style vary from person to person, race to race and from place to place, depending on the kind of emotion and excitement it is employed to bring about. Hence it is clearly related to lifestyle which in its turn is governed by various factors and conditions i.e. Geographical, Social, and Economical Culture etc. In spite of this heterogeneity, basic human emotions have a common kind of musical expression. The tune of all lullabies are same everywhere. An oarsman in Volga river hums the same notes as does one in Padma.

All pervading influence of music has been acknowledged everywhere every time in the world. Thomas Gray’s panegyric on music in The Progress of Poesy is not without substance. Poetry chanted in musical notes become more powerful to give vent to human emotions in one hand, and on the other tranquilize violent and detrimental passions like anger, hatred, jealousy, etc.

The very first line of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Knight, “If music be the food of love, play on…” and Thomas Gray’s –
“And frantic Passions hear thy soft control,
On Thracia’s hills the Lord of War,
Has curb’d the fury of his car,
And dropped his thirsty lance at thy command..”
are not empty economics on music and of course, poetry, which is intrinsically nothing but music.

Man was hurled down to earth by his creator as punishment for his capital disobedience and cursed to go through the pangs of life and death –
“of man’s disobedience and the fruit,
of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
brought death into the world, and all our woe, with loss of Eden…
Milton – Paradise Lost

To mitigate the severity of this punishment music was served in the plate of human life and it was directed to procure strength and endurance to the sufferer:

“Man’s feeble race what ills await Labour and Penury, the Racks of pain,
Disease and sorrow’s weeping train, And death and refuge from the storms of fate!
…. Say has he given in vain the heavenly muse?

The Progress of Poesy – Thomas Gray

Admittedly, music has an incalculable control over human mind and life. It will be superfluous to refer to our great lyricists, both western and Eastern like Shelly, Keats, Amir Khusro, Kalidasa, Ravindranath, Kaazi Nazrul Islam, et al who have not only eulogized music but also exploited it to the core.

Linus Orakles
http://www.authorclub.info/