The main literary genres (lyrical, narrative and theater) have survived in our modern history and it seems that their future does not present doubts as to their permanence in cultural uses and in the processes that concern the formation of people. However, it is inevitable to consider what is the use made of each of them and why one is accessed more frequently than the other.

In principle, there are no factors for differentiation and people can use any of them without a predisposition leading to a preference. However, as we will see later, there are conditions for the question why can it be more lazy to read poetry than narrative in the educational field? have an answer

Do I understand the poetry I read or read the poetry I understand?

If we look at this pun or pun, we see that there is some key in it to explain the possible preference of the narrative over the lyric in the educational field. Thus, although the words are the same, the meaning is not.

Poetry as a container of symbols needs interpretation, attribution of meanings to those signs and, therefore, understanding is a distinctive factor when approaching gender. Sometimes, the fact of not understanding a poetry is the beginning of the construction of a cliché that can lead to prejudice and, ultimately, rejection.

Therefore, it gives the impression that understanding the poetry that is read must be one of the educational goals to avoid detachment from this literary manifestation, and that trying to go beyond a possible univocity of meanings can reduce fear of dealing with everything type of poetry and make it not only the poetry that is understood, but all that can be available to people.

Claiming its importance

Claiming the importance of poetry both in the educational field and in everyday life implies assuming that our vision of reality and its corresponding interpretation is done through comparisons and, of course, metaphors.

The fact of naming the “pearls” that can be assumed by the teeth or the cotton shape of the clouds is an acceptable fact on a day-to-day basis and reveals real facts without having to go deeper into the explanation of these comparisons. This closeness in the use of language has to reinforce our approach to poetry.

If we run “like hares” or observe how “the sky cries”, we have no excuse for not reading poetic texts, although it is true that other factors can influence the non-promotion of this enjoyment.

The technological revolution that is rapidly approaching its 5.0 designation implies an association of emerging technology and a need for use by the population. This use affects different social strata and different ages.

In this sense, in the educational world, literate culture remains a pillar of the school but contrasts with the liquid modernity imposed by social uses. In this way, the audiovisual proposes a faster and more accessible transmission of information and knowledge than the issues that make prevailing the written culture presented in texts or, where appropriate, in texts adapted to screens.

The educational challenge is to try to make the reading spaces attractive and can share times with the audiovisual stimuli that undoubtedly surround the lives of the little ones and the elderly. If there is no awareness about this situation, the lack of an own space that allows the reading of lyrical texts will be added to the possible difficulty previously mentioned about the interpretation of metaphors and symbols.

From gravel to metaphysics

Poetry offers us a lot of variety to be approached, but obviously its selection must be careful so that there are no mismatches in both its interpretation and its silent recitation or reading.

Thus, we can check extremes. The first one is the gravel, whose definition of the SAR refers us to the superfluous manifested in productions such as The Holland Train that whistles more than it walks or I saw a little bird on the branch of a thyme . Although they can be taken into account as a phonetic game in the early ages.

The second extreme would lead us to metaphysical poetry, such as Quevedo, Leopoldo Panero or Borges. We check the latter, in the first verses of his poem called Remorse (“I have committed the worst of sins / that a man can commit. I have not been / happy. That the glaciers of oblivion / drag me and lose me, ruthless ”) The symbolic burden of your message and the univocality of its meaning, but the need for connection with the reader’s experiences and its ability to provide meaning to the symbols.

The formation of aesthetic sensibility

If there is one aspect that prevails in the face of possible laziness or social stimuli that can generate a certain detachment or disinterest in poetry, it is the need not to neglect the formation of aesthetic sensibility.

The artistic beauty of poetic creation and the delight of reciting and listening cannot be lost. And it is not the only benefit that the person being formed can find; Children and adults can cultivate aspects such as rhythm, intonation or prediction of vocabulary before a possible consonant rhyme.

In addition, we cannot make excuses that poetic production for reading may be limited or sometimes may not meet the interests, for example, of the little ones. In the infant and primary stage, authors such as Gloria Fuertes, Carlos Reviejo or Roald Dahl himself provide us with very funny examples of themes of those ages without their lyric lacking literary quality. Even if we venture with other authors of Spanish Literature, we can also find texts by García Lorca or Alberti that may interest that audience.

In the end, it’s about reading

Finally, it does not seem that there is laziness either by one or the other genre (poetry or narrative); The key lies in the promotion of reading and the desire of the mediator to act as a bridge between texts, whether lyrical, narrative, theatrical, essay or autobiographical, and the potential reader.

The reading and aesthetic sensibility training is not incompatible with the era of liquid modernity that transcends us and we have to be able to show the strengths that poetry possesses and the positive influence it has on the initial and permanent formation of people.

Author Bio: Eduardo Encabo Fernández is Professor of the University in the area of ​​Didactics of language and literature at the University of Murcia