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De La Cruz, Romell Ian B. LIT14 Introduction to Poetry and Drama Midterm Paper 22 January 2014

The Circle of Life as Poetry

The movie The Lion King has its fair share of good songs, which includes Hakuna Matata, Circle of Life and Can You Feel the Love Tonight. These songs are perfect for use in the soundtrack of the movie. Yet, one of its songs, Circle of Life, is one of which, if the melody is removed, would pass for a great poem. But what exactly is a poem? This question has long been debated. According to Carl Sandberg (1930), a poem cannot be fully defined. Rather, it can only be described through the things that make it up. And what a poem is made up of are words. These words are to be gathered to form esthetic art which gathers the beautiful. From here, Sandberg continues to elaborate the difficulties in a poem. What is known of a poem is that what is poetry for any given individual depends on the individual and what his personality requires as poetry. But for the sake of this paper, I would like to create my own definition of what poetry is. I would use these as the criteria to determine what might constitute a poem. In doing so, I would have a gauge in which I can compare anything to a poem. These criteria are: imagery, the use of figures of speech and

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the presence of sound devices. One more thing that I would like to add is the concept of defamiliarization. This idea from Viktor Shklovsky will be defined later on. To say that the song Circle of Life is a poem, I will use the 4 ideas I have aforementioned. First on the list, and what is probably the most important part of a poem, according to Professor DM Reyes, in one of his master lectures, is the imagery inside a poem. First, what is imagery? Imagery, according to what has been discussed so far in the course, is what it is. It is the image which one sees in the mind when one is reading a text, particularly a poem. According to Sandberg, poems are supposed to be the esthetic art which gathers the beautiful into words. He is trying to say that poetry is beauty turned into words. What the words on the paper represent is beauty, and beauty is something that is based highly on the use of the five senses. What this would mean, though, is that the image we each see would be different. Being part of a soundtrack for a feature film, the song would, expectedly, be able to show images which exist in the film. But, aside from this, another image can be formed. Humans, instead of animals, are being going through whatever the song is describing. Now, in the song, what is generally being described are the moments in life. We begin at birth. The first 2 lines of the song goes: From the day, we arrive

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on the planet | And blinking step in to the sun. The image of animals being born is the predominant thought since the movie is set in the jungle about animals yet the image of humans being born still seem fit. Moving on to the second verse, which goes Some say eat or be eaten | Some say live and let live | But all are agreed as they join the stampede | You can never take more than you give, we can see the image of people, or the animals, starting to grow and learning how to deal with different peoples and situations. To get to that idea, let us look at the first line. In the jungle, eating is a highly ferocious act. If one is weak, one will not get food, instead, one may be the food. That is what is, quite literally, being described. But it is a metaphor for the difficulty of life and the need to learn and adapt in order for us to live. In the act of eating/devouring, what is being eaten gets to the point where it becomes part of its predator. Imagine that the trials are the predators and you are the prey. That would be less ideal for you, yet, you can do something about it and you become the predator instead of the prey. Instead of being passive in life, you hold on to what you believe in and stand up for it, you become the predator. You devour those who stand against you. The next line follows the same logic. The third line presents another great image which works for both humans and animals. In this line, the word stampede was used. The term goes to show a herd moving quickly and together. One false step and you are going to get hurt.

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So it is with the human equivalent. The only difference is that the stampede that one will join isnt that of your comfort zone. Rather, stampede in this context, refers to the race which is life. If one is caught unaware and unready, other people, along with certain circumstances, will crush you. This idea would fit perfectly with what the line is trying to say, since the fourth line is pretty straightforward. The next verse goes: Some of us fall by the wayside | And some of us soar to the stars | And some of us sail through our troubles | And some have to live with the scars. This is the time of our lives wherein most of what we know and understand and who we are is formed. The images of people being delinquent, successful, easy going and wise with the years are what is being shown here. This verse is full of metaphors on the things that happens to anyone in their lifetime. The first line is a metaphor for those who are led astray by some circumstances. Their lives have been a bit darker than some. The second line is about the people who seem to have struck gold and luck at the same time. They achieve success. The third line goes for the people whose lives are full of luck and love that their troubles are not dragging as some might have it. The fourth line, meanwhile, introduces the people who went through the darkest of times and have come out as victors. They might have passed through an abyss yet they emerged, albeit with scars. These scars are a metaphor for knowledge, wisdom and experience which one only gets when one goes through many

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different and difficult situations in life. Emerging from those, one is a better and stronger person. The last verse goes: There is much to take in here | More to find than can ever be found | But the sun rolling high | Through the sapphire sky | Keeps the great and small on the endless round. One would expect, after going through life that the last verse would talk about death. Instead, it talks about how intertwined everyones life can be and how, in spite of everything that has gone on through ones life, one would still not have seen everything and experienced everything. That is what is being said by the first two lines. As for the last three lines, this talks about how route life can be. Yet, the being routine of life is hardly rare. Everyone goes through the same thing, however great you may be. Now, the chorus, which goes like: In the Circle of Life Its the wheel of fortunes Its a leap of faith Its the band of hope Till we find our way On the path unwinding In the Circle, the Circle of LIfe

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presents an image which is deeply based on another element that Ive said: the presence of sound devices. If you notice the chorus, lines 2-4 form an alliteration. This alliteration provides a sense of parallelism in the exemplification of different things. This alliteration creates the image of the circular life, yet one that is full of positivity. As for the fifth line, it is less of an image and more of a message that we all have our places in life and that, connecting it to the next line, would be in the roads we travel in our life time. And if we consider how the earth is shaped, especially from our point of view, the roads we take really do take on a circular feel, a never ending journey/path which we traverse. Imagine one is walking on a single path towards the sun, yet, whatever we do, we can never seem to get to the sun. That is the imagery I see here. There are other alliterations that show us different ideas. The alliteration formed by the first two lines of the second verse is used to connect the images of the two lines. The alliteration creates a sense of the two forms being in parallel with each other. The next alliteration comes from the third verse as it shows the different ways people might live. The images of the individual lines might be in contrast to each other when juxtaposed yet, through the alliteration, it is connected. They become a set of how life is to people.

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Now, I would like to start on showing the last idea which I presented earlier. This is the concept of defamiliarization which was introduced by Viktor Shklovsky in Art of Technique. Viktor Shklovsky is a Russian formalist. Defamiliarization creates the sense of disconnect. By being able to disconnect, one needs to exert effort into getting the meaning of whatever text is given. Besides the imagery, poetry is used to create a more engaging way of presenting ideas. Imagine if all textbooks didnt have spaces or colors or images. Do you think that the ideas presented in these books will be interesting enough for the brain to store? I dont think so. That is why people use highlighters to create contrast and variation so as to break the monotonous flow in some readings. So it is with the creation of a poem. With the use of a different mode of language, or the use of figures of speech, we create enough break so as to make people pause and think a bit more than what might have been there had it been in a prose form. Besides the use of the language itself, the way it is presented also marks a very important way in creating this defamiliarization. Sandberg said that poems are a gathering of the beautiful and put into words. But if these words do not stand out, if these words became a very transparent medium, the images of beauty that one would like to present gets lost. I would now like to put this concept into action in the context of this song.

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This song is, as aforementioned, a soundtrack for a movie about animals, though with very human qualities and lives. Therefore, the images of the song are linked with the images of the film. But, what is defamiliarizing in this song is the fact that we are seeing the world in a different light through the use of a different medium than what is usually used. Instead of seeing the world in a case of the conflicts that are happening and through the goodness of the human person, the song shows a different side of life. It, instead, gives a higher Point-of-view than what we are accustomed to. It is this change of Point-of-view which makes people think and contemplate. Now, I would like to say that the views expressed here are, by no means, definitive. A poem is an abstract concept that completely defining it would be nearly impossible. What I have just done is create my own interpretation of what a poem is and used these to determine if the song The Circle of Life from the movie The Lion King is indeed a poem.

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Sources: 1. My notes on the Art of Technique by Viktor Shklovsky, as presented in class by Mr. Allan Popa for the class Fil11 Sining ng Pakikipagtalastasan sa Filipino I. Bibliographic information on Art of Technique: Shklovsky, V. (1965). Art as Technique. In Lee T. Lemon & Marion J. Reiss (Eds.), Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays (3-24). Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. 2. Carl Sanbergs piece A Short Talk on Poetry as prepared by Ms. Alona Guevarra for the course Lit14 Introduction to Poetry and Drama

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APPENDIX A: LYRICS CIRCLE OF LIFE From the day we arrive on the planet And blinking, step into the sun There's more to be seen than can ever be seen More to do than can ever be done Some say eat or be eaten Some say live and let live But all are agreed as they join the stampede You should never take more than you give (Chorus) In the Circle of Life It's the wheel of fortune It's the leap of faith It's the band of hope Till we find our place On the path unwinding In the Circle, the Circle of Life Some of us fall by the wayside And some of us soar to the stars And some of us sail through our troubles And some have to live with the scars There's far too much to take in here More to find than can ever be found But the sun rolling high Through the sapphire sky Keeps the great and small on the endless round (Chorus repeats) On the path unwinding In the Circle, the Circle of Life.