Hi all,
As they say, long time lurker, first time poster. I've been browsing the threads here and read something that dismayed me a bit and was compelled to register so that I could get some opinion.
In an old thread, which I won't raise from the dead so as not to disrupt any sense of time here, someone said that archaic language should not be used in modern poetry since this is the 21st century. Words such as o'er, e're, thy, hither, etc. may sound normal in a 17th-century poem because these words were in fact used in everyday speech, but the person argued these words would sound out of place in a 21st-century poem. Some may even say that archaic words in modern poetry is pretentious.
I can understand this view to a degree. But, what if a person today wrote a poem that reflects the 17th century and wanted to transport the reader to that period, would using words of that period be appropriate? Or what if a writer wants to write a poem in the style of Shakespeare, Milton, or Pope? Using the vocabulary of the 16th, 17th, and 18th century would seem right, though I can understand the need to keep words and spelling modern.
Then there is the use of elisions ala Milton. Would eliding words so that a line can be scanned metrically be out of line in modern poetry? I really don't find it wrong to use archaic words in writing poetry today. What say you?