Erlebnis and Techne as Essential Constituents of Poetry
Erlebnis and Techne as Essential Constituents of Poetry

Summary/Abstract: Throughout time, many memorable metaphorical definitions of poetry have been given, the most spectacular of which remains that of the great modern American poet Carl Sandburg, who stated that Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. This definition of poetry is an aporia and a paradox at the same time, which suggests that poetry implies the aspiration towards the Absolute. Poetry contains a high coefficient of the ineffable, a nescio quid, and this is the reason why we do not know what poetry is, in its essence. This article is an attempt to establish some constitutive elements of poetry, some factors or, we could say, some conditions of poetry. According to the great German critic and philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, in his fundamental work Poetry and Experience (1985), in which he deals with poets such as Lessing, Goethe, Novalis and Hölderlin, the first and most important condition of poetry is lived experience (Erlebnis). Another essential element of poetry is technique (gr. Techne). Musicality or Harmonia is the third important component of poetry. Without lived experience, technique and musicality, there can be no poetry.

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