Poetry and Philosophy: Meanings Allure​ Dr. Taghrid Bou Merhi

Poetry and Philosophy: Meanings Allure

​Dr. Taghrid Bou Merhi

​In that grey space that separates dream from truth, poetry embraces philosophy, and from the womb of this embrace are born endless questions about the human being, about meaning, about language, and about the possibility that we might understand the world or reshape it with words. This relationship between poetry and philosophy is not an intellectual luxury nor a linguistic game, but rather the essence of the human vision in its most splendid manifestations. Since ancient times, the philosopher has stood beside the poet before the unknown, each attempting to unravel the riddles of existence, to illuminate the darkness, and to grant human experience a meaning that surpasses the moment and the event. And if philosophy seeks truth, then poetry courts it, flirts with it, breathes around it, and perhaps reveals. 

 

​François Noudelmann, the contemporary French thinker, believes that philosophers are poets in another language, and that poets are philosophers who master symbolism more than explicit expression. In his book “The Genius of Lies,” Noudelmann does not treat lying as deception; he treats it as an interpretive space in which ideas are formed, truths are colored, and philosophical discourse becomes a form of creativity no less significant than poetry. This “lie,” as he calls it, is not a betrayal of reality, but an ambition to transcend it, to reinterpret it according to a lofty intellectual desire to grasp what cannot be said, or perhaps what can only be expressed through subtlety and deviation. ​In this context, the philosopher’s language intersects with the poet’s, not to merge, but to differentiate through resemblance. For both seek to create a conception of the world, though one of them…  

​However, this intersection is not without paradox. Philosophers, in many cases, burden their words with ideal visions, building intellectual systems that appear rigid on the outside but, upon reflection, resemble a transparent structure made of fragile glass, revealing what lies behind it without ever being able to grasp it. Poets, for their part, grant language the ability to soar, to transcend constraints, yet they know very well that this flight will not alter the laws of gravity, and that no matter how high a poem rises, it will remain confined to paper or to the mind.  

​And here lies the essence of the ambiguous relationship between poetic thought and philosophical thought: both produce meaning, yet this meaning is doubtful, surrounded by interpretation, and difficult to test or measure in the real world. For language, their common instrument, is not merely a tool; it is a living being that breathes, and deceives, and liberates, and restrains, all at the same time. ​If we contemplate the ideal nature of many philosophical texts, we notice that they stand on the edge of poetry, not because their logic is weak, but because the language through which they express concepts such as justice, goodness, and freedom often borrows from poetry its ambiguity and its enchantment, as though it recognizes that these values cannot be reduced to pure rational formulas. 

The concept of “utopia,” for example, can only be understood as concealed poetry, as a philosophical dream resistant to realization, and yet it remains necessary as a moral compass or a symbolic map for humanity’s longing for the ideal city. The poet, in turn, does not sing of utopia as a reality, but as a dream, a hope, a shattered mirror reflecting the faces we desire. What also distinguishes the relationship between philosophy and poetry is this constant tension between speech and action. How many philosophers have written lengthy treatises on tolerance, yet practiced exclusion in their private lives or political positions? And how many poets have sung of love, yet wounded those they loved? 

Human beings, at their core, are contradictory creatures, living between what they believe and what they do, between what they wish for and what they can achieve. And here appears the “beautiful lie” that Noudelmann referred to: a lie that does not hide the truth, but reshapes it, gives it another dimension, clothes it in a symbolic garment that allows us to endure its harshness or pass through its pain. This lie is not a betrayal; it is an attempt to rescue meaning from the chaos of reality. Under this conception, poetry and philosophy become realms for contemplation rather than tools for interpreting or changing reality. Both produce a discourse that views the human being as a complex creature who dreams and errs, reflects and suffers, seeks the absolute while being bound by the relative. And perhaps this is where the importance of philosophical literature and contemplative poetry lies: they do not offer solutions, but instead provoke questions, unsettle assumptions, and push the reader to reconsider their certainties.

 When the poet writes about love, their aim is not to define it, but to make you feel it in a different way. And when the philosopher speaks of freedom, they do not provide you with a formula for achieving it, but open before you a space to think about its meaning, its limits, and its price. And yet, we cannot ignore that this dual discourse between poetry and philosophy may be elitist, distant from the pulse of everyday life. How many people today are able to engage with complex texts overflowing with symbols and abstraction? And does the poem still hold a place in an age of rapid imagery, short lines, and simplified concepts? This question does not diminish the value of poetry or philosophy; rather, it calls for reflection on ways to renew the discourse, on how to bring deep thought closer to people without stripping it of its depth, and on crafting new languages that restore to the human being their faith in the word and its capacity for change. What Noudelmann presents in his book, and what intersects with it in various philosophical and poetic experiences, affirms that the word remains stronger than we imagine, not because it imposes reality, but because it reinterprets it. And thinking, when liberated from the weight of ideology, becomes a tool for questioning rather than domination, and a space for inquiry rather than exclusion.

 And if poetry is capable of opening the windows of the heart, then philosophy opens wide the doors of the mind. And when the heart meets the mind, meaning is born, not as a fixed truth, but as a continuous possibility. ​Is it required that we merge poetry and philosophy? No. The aim is not to fuse poetry and philosophy into a single mold, but rather to realize that each completes the other in its own way, and that the human being in their constant quest to understand themselves and the world, cannot dispense with dream nor with thought, with metaphor nor with concept, with the poem nor with the question.  

​Between these two, language remains the ground upon which we all stand: we carve our hopes into it, plant our doubts within it, and wait for a new meaning to bloom from it one day, one that heals our estrangement and grants us a measure of tranquility.  

​About The Writer: 

​Dr Taghrid Bou Merhi is a poet and translator living in Brazil. She is fluent in six languages, serving as editor-in-chief and translation director for several Arab and international magazines, and is a member of multiple global literary competitions. She has received numerous international awards and honors, including the Golden Creativity Prize, the International Excellence Award, and the Universal Peace Recognition Medal. Taghrid has authored 23 books, translated 49 books, and published hundreds of poems, stories, and critical studies. She is widely known as a figure of peace, empathy, and cultural harmony.