Algebraic Poetry
Abstract
Although content has evolved in poetry at a steady pace throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the form in which this content is presented has seen little change. In response to this apparent stagnation of form in poetry, this presentation aims to combat the enforced linearity of writing, embracing Cubist ideals, to make way for a new form of poetry- algebraic poetry. This new form may then provide new inspiration within the literary community, and a new form with which writers may move forward, as opposed to adhering to the same form for centuries. This project then uses modern algebra to create a poem which operates within an algebraic structure forcing the reader to consider the perspectives it yields, with each possibility of the poem existing as an element of an infinite semigroup. The poem has infinitely many perceived orders, and thus can only be considered as a whole as opposed to one of its individual elements, in contrast to most other poetry produced in history. This structure is then compared to the philosophical works of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, and the algebraic implications of their understanding of the human intellect. It is concluded that the poem exists to reflect a simulated human mind through this algebraic structuring, assessing various philosophical agreements and contradictions throughout its history.
