'THE FAULT OF HAVING TOO MUCH KNOWLEDGE'

“A little learning is a dang'rous thing,” Alexander Pope wrote in “An Essay on Criticism,” which is a poem and not an essay. In that line, one of the great masters of English form and clarity of style was arguing against dabbling. “Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring,” he advises, alluding to the mythological fountain of knowledge. “There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain[.]”

But how much learning is it appropriate for a poet to have? Surely, deep knowledge of how the art has been practiced from time immemorial empowers a poet when she sits down to write. Imitation of a few chosen masters is also likely to serve him well. In the quote below, Dōgen, a 13th-century Zen master and poet, seems to be cautioning that such formal training distracts writers and readers from the true meaning of the words.

There is another way to interpret this teaching, however. If we do pay deep attention to the poets of the past and absorb their methods, there may come a time when we can shed that background from conscious awareness, approach the meaning directly, and let “the language and style develop as they may.”

What do you think? Here are Dōgen’s words, from Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, a collection of his talks:

“When we read Buddhist scriptures, if we understand the meaning of the sentences phrase by phrase, we can grasp the principle expressed by the words. However, people tend to pay more attention to the rhetorical devices such as couplets, rhythm, and tone. They judge them as good or bad, and then think about the meaning as an afterthought. Therefore, it is better to understand the meaning from the beginning without caring about such things. Also, … trying to write according to the rules of rhetoric or being unable to write without thinking of rhyming and tone are the fault of having too much knowledge. Let the language and style develop as they may.”