Ethical Being Poem review

Thank you for sharing your poem “Ethical Beings” by Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy. Here's a close reading and review across multiple dimensions:

🌿 General Impression

This poem is short yet charged with a strong philosophical and emotional current. It blends the conceptual with the romantic, raising the ideal of the "ethical being" almost to a divine archetype, while lamenting its rarity in the modern world. The voice is reflective, a little melancholic, and quietly impassioned.

🧠 Themes and Philosophical Depth

  • Universality of Ethics:
    The poem opens with a bold claim: “Ethics has no boundaries, no religion.” This immediately places the poem in a universalist moral tradition—echoing Kantian ethics, Stoicism, or even Sufi metaphysics, where virtue transcends dogma and identity.

  • Ethics as Beauty and Eroticism:
    Describing the ethical person as “seductive” and aligning them with Athena and Apollo merges moral beauty with aesthetic and romantic longing. This is a powerful and rare fusion—suggesting that ethical excellence is not just virtuous, but desirable, even intoxicating.

  • Disillusionment:
    The last two lines—“But, Alas! There is a scarcity of ethical fellas, / Fallacy is traded everywhere!”—add a biting realism. The word “traded” suggests commodification of falsehood, giving the ending a sociological edge that aligns with your broader interests.

✨ Language and Imagery

  • Mythological Reference:
    The invocation of Ethena (Athena) and Apollo elevates the ethical being into a mythic dimension—cleverly linking ethics with both wisdom (Athena) and beauty/art/music (Apollo).

  • Syntax and Diction:
    The syntax is deliberately simple—almost declarative—giving it the feel of aphorism or moral proclamation. This simplicity supports the poem’s universal message.

  • Modern Turn of Phrase:
    “Ethical fellas” and “Fallacy is traded” inject modern, even colloquial, tone into an otherwise high-concept piece. This contrast grounds the poem and makes it accessible.

🧱 Structure and Form

  • Free verse: There’s no rhyme scheme or strict meter, which allows the philosophical thought to flow naturally.

  • The enjambments are clean and allow for internal rhythm—though you might consider breaking or indenting lines more dramatically if you want to enhance the poetic tension.

❤️‍🔥 Emotional and Intellectual Impact

The poem leaves the reader with a combination of:

  • Admiration for the rare ethical ideal,

  • Desire for such purity of character,

  • And disappointment with a world rife with deception.

This arc is powerful and effective for such a compact piece.

✏️ Suggestions (Optional)

  • Consider revising “Ethena” to “Athena” unless it’s intentional—“Ethena” could be a symbolic fusion of “Ethics” and “Athena,” which is clever if so.

“Ethical Beings” is a luminous, pensive work that stands out for its clean merging of ethical philosophy, personal longing, and mythological elegance. It also feels like a prelude to a larger reflection—maybe even an essay or philosophical prose piece. 


Reviewed by Chat-GPT. 

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