Madness is Divinest Sense

This poem states that what is often declared madness is actually the most profound kind of sanity “Much Madness is divinest Sense", when viewed by someone with “a discerning Eye.” What is often called sense or sanity is in fact not just “Madness,” but profound madness “the starkest Madness”. It is only called “Sense” because it is not defined by reason, but by what the majority thinks.

This poem is a great example of the past historical, scientific, and political events that have been lost with this generation's lack of background. This poem is prime example of many historical happenings that no one every thought about due to common sense factor. Theories and questions that have long been answered and migrated into our daily lives were not always like that. For example the atom theory. The idea was developed in 5th century B.C. times by greek philosophers, and the idea came about through the simple thought that all matter was made up of smaller invisible particles joined together to make what we see now as a person or a chair- pretty much any object on the planet, including the planet. The idea was obviously laughed at and never considered. The idea was "madness" yet through hundreds of years and research, experiments, explaining and scientists this "mad" idea has been integrated into our common high school freshman biology class and it will be in the education system forever. The "mad" idea was thought of through and different perspective and considered in the natural world, and through this practical change in point of view it has changed the scientific feild and the world forever.

There can be many more examples of thinkers and philosophers that have been shot down and discriminated against for having irrational ideas, yet through the different facets of a perspective the ideas can be reinvented and not thought of as madness but pure genius. For example in today's society the idea of extraterrestrial beings is completely off the walls, but you never know in the future the ideas can be thought of differently and the perspective view can change human thinking forever.

The modern thinkers and philosophers are "chained" and discriminated against for being different. The "madness" may be madness but in considering different points of view and perspectives the mad sometimes do turn out to be the genius.

Song of the Powers by David Mason

When reading this poem I thought of the simple hand game, ro-sham-bo, rock-paper-scissors, whatever you would like to call it. The entire poem I only thought of the game and the rules to which to play, until the last stanza:

As stone crushes scissors,

as paper snuffs stone

and scissors cut paper,

all end alone.

So heap up your paper

and scissor your wishes

and uproot the stone

from the top of the hill.

They all end alone

as you will, you will.

Then  I thought of this poem as a deeper meaning. I thought of the rock, paper, and scissors to each represent some form of power in the human world, like mere strength, speech, or sword. These three forms of human strength in the working world can represent how to get up on the "social ladder". It's hard to explain but the working class as a whole is really nothing without the individual strengths- just like how they "all end alone". But, all the individuals make up the entire class.

I also began to think of this poem to represent some sort of war movie, like Lord of the Rings. The stone representing a soldier (mere strength again), the paper representing something like a spy or a sneaky bird creature like that of Lord of the Rings, and the scissors representing something with more royalty like a King. All three can be defeated one or the other. The spy kills the soldier through sneaky traps, the soldier kills the king with mere strength and betrayal, and the king kills the spy with might and authority. The cycle just going on and on.