Posted: February 6th, 2005, 8:15 pm
Expression of prior emotions or experiences is a means for artistic creation, but the goal is not expression in itself and for itself. The goal is provocation -- eliciting responses, sometime predictable, often unpredictable -- of an emotional or affective sort, in other people, the readers. This can be accomplished through artiface, embellishment, or plain affectation, as in the example mentioned above of someone penning a poem for some occasion, for pay. Or it can be genuine expression. The goal can be accomplished through the audience attaining a state that resembles the author, or one that satisfies the authors intent whether or not shared by the author, or, in more complex poetry or that which is addressed to a sophisticated audience, a poem can be effective even where the responses generated are unknown or unknowable in advance or even contrary to the artist's own expectations.
