Adam Rasmussen: Beauty of the Word

Before this class, I had never really thought about the power that words can have. Being a very logically-oriented person, I always saw words as a tool. In an argument, I use words to prove my point and explain what and why I think what I think. Often, I get stuck on semantics or how a person says something rather than their point. Through the readings in Van Der Leeuw, ive been exposed to the concept that words have a larger power than to just explain a point or express your position. He argues that there is much more to poetry than just the words. Before this, I never really liked poetry and thought it was a waste of time and for sissies. I didn’t think you could achieve true beauty through words. Van Der Leeuw argues the exact opposite. He contests that the power in words is unmatched and that you can express more with words than even the best picture. In a sense, he attacks the idiom “a picture is worth a thousand words”. I am beginning to become inclined to believe his point. I think the true beauty that is found in words comes from the ability of each person to interpret the words however they like. If a hundred people look at the same painting, they will probably have taken a slightly different meaning from the picture, however it will most likely align with the others in some sense. On the other hand, if you were to write an essay rather than a picture describing the event, each person has to interpret it separately. Each person takes what is written on the page and makes it something more when they assess it for themselves. The mental image that is created by the same 100 people will be so incredibly different because each person has grown in a different set of circumstances and independently determines the worth of the word. A phrase might be meaningless to one person, yet life-changing to another.