Developing a Sense of the Poetic
By Doug Talley

Medieval Christian scholars exercised a rule of interpretation that looked for fourfold meaning in Scripture — literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical. Dante essentially distilled the categories down to two — the literal and the allegorical, the allegorical being anything beyond the literal. 

Scotus went so far as to say that every scripture was subject to an infinite number of meanings, like the iridescence of peacock feathers.  This may be extreme and lead to the excess of “looking beyond the mark” and “wresting scriptures” to our destruction. We see things that were never intended. Sometimes a parable is meant to be literal; at other times it is more. Sometimes a rose is just a rose. Yet there is something that persists in the human heart, which in the right context, insists on envisioning the rose as a woman. This is one of the effects of poetry — the invitation to perceive beyond the literal.  But it begs an important question: when is it safe to look for a double meaning in a literary passage or a verse of scripture?  How is one to read? 

In his work, Reflections on the Psalms, the modern Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis has already addressed these questions to some extent, quite admirably. He notes in his introduction that it would be wise to allow for the poetic in Scripture.  “It seems to me appropriate, almost inevitable,” he writes, “that when that great Imagination which in the beginning, for Its own delight and for the delight of men and angels ... had invented and formed the whole world of Nature, submitted to express Itself in human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry. For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.” (Lyle W. Dorsett, ed., The Essential C. S. Lewis, New York, New York: Touchstone Books, 1996, p. 395). In looking for poetry in Scripture, and in developing a sense of the poetic, a reader may become more skilled in accurately identifying additional meaning in Scripture, the figurative or allegorical as well as the literal.

The Inherent Difficulty of Scripture

C.S. Lewis readily acknowledges the difficulty that reading the Scriptures poses:

In his examination of the Psalms, Lewis explains why it is we should accept the presence of second meanings in Scripture. He writes:

Help from Modern Revelation

This view is consistent with what modern revelation teaches. If, as Alma testifies in the Book of Mormon, “all things denote there is a God,” we might expect to see and understand this “second meaning” — the hand of Christ — in virtually any creation, not just in Scripture. Again, however, there is a danger in reading beyond the mark. The Prophet Joseph Smith laid down a general principle for reading the parables of Jesus that is instructive:

On the other hand, Joseph Smith was not a mere literalist, and understood there were parables uttered, which were not meant to be read in literal fashion only, but had allegorical meaning as well.  Perhaps the most stunning example of his ability to read beyond the literal is found in his exegesis of the parables found in Matthew 13. (Id., pp. 94-102). He referred to these parables, of which there are seven, as “beautiful sayings” and it is true that these seven little stories, or prose poems, are strung one to another like a necklace of lovely pearls. These, in order, are the parables:

Of these seven, Jesus offered interpretation privately to his disciples of two — the parable of the sower and the seed and the parable of the wheat and the tares — and taught them how to see and understand beyond the literal. As if to finish the instruction, Joseph Smith offered allegorical interpretations of the other five. His interpretations of these five do, in fact, validate the Medieval method of exegesis in searching for multiple meanings in scripture. The only caution, Joseph would seem to add, is that the rule not be applied universally to every passage of scripture, but only where it applies without contortion.

Joseph read into the seven parables a prophetic allegory of the history of the Church. The first parable had reference to the gospel then being taught and the Church to be formed by Christ. The second parable had reference to the apostasy — that at the very moment the early church was being established by Christ, Satan would sow tares of dissension and false doctrine and thereby ruin the planting Christ had made. Christ himself gave this interpretation of the parables as they pertained to the Church of that era.

Seeing Beyond the Literal

It was left to Joseph Smith to interpret the remaining parables, which he saw as all referring to the Church in the last days, the Church of the current era, beginning with the parable of the mustard seed. He wrote:

This seems a marvelously inspired interpretation and confirms that what is granted by the Holy Spirit is often deeply poetic. A Medieval theologian might have been able to find a fourfold interpretation in the passage, including perhaps an allegorical meaning, but only Joseph could offer an expansive allegorical interpretation capturing all its nuances, that the tiny grain of mustard seed is like the Book of Mormon, a compilation of gold plates which an ancient prophet buried in the ground, later to sprout up by translation through the power of God, and then to spread forth into the entire world, attended by signs of testimony — visions and tongues and angelic visitations — that would lodge like birds in its branches. 

Somewhere I once read a tidy, little aphorism that it takes a great poet to read a great poet. I do not believe that Joseph ever made any pretensions of becoming a great poet, but he clearly had developed a great poetic sensibility and was a wonderfully creative reader of metaphor. He certainly had his models, found in the Book of Mormon itself, such as in the ancient prophet Alma. 

Alma was himself a creative reader, able to extract multiple meaning from scriptural passages with as much skill as any Medieval theologian, as evident from his interpretation of the story of Nephi and the Liahona found in Alma 37:38-47. Clearly Alma was not reading only as a literalist. He intuited in the purely historical account of the Liahona a deeper allegorical meaning, a “type” or “shadow” in his terminology, and provided an interpretation that just as the Liahona, like a compass, led his fathers to the promised land, so the word of Christ would lead disciples to the promised land of heaven. Alma found both a literal meaning and an allegorical meaning in the account of the Liahona.

The Value of a Metaphor

If any confirmation were needed that Scripture is susceptible to multiple meanings, Alma and Joseph Smith and C. S. Lewis have provided it. But the principle is self-evident. The Creator of this world intended that His children develop a poetic sensibility and see all things fashioned by Him as a metaphor of His power and love.  It is seen in the figures of Christ as the “Lamb” or the “Bread of Life.” In developing a sense of the poetic, we learn to appreciate the value of a metaphor and its ability to provide multi-layered meaning, richness and complexity to our faith. 

While it is true that we are to read and understand Scripture by the power of the Spirit, if we take this to mean that we must merely read and “feel,” then the injunction is entirely too easy and simplistic. We have the further injunction that we “must study it out in [our] mind,” which, in our approach to Scripture, suggests real work. It is our province and privilege when reading to look for multiple meanings where they are to be found. We have permission, and the obligation, like any scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, to be as the householder who brings out of his treasure things new, as well as old.  If we have no other reason for pursuing poetry, this reason alone would suffice: reading fine poetry helps develop our skills of interpretation, aids in our understanding of Scripture, and therefore, can bring us more intimately into relationship with Christ, the Master Poet.