Cunninglinguist's Kinky Corner

[Cunninglinguist]

I thought I'd follow in the footsteps of Haunted, AuntSheckey, and others by stuffing all my stuff into one thread.

Please feel free to comment (I appreciate your criticisms); don't forget to put the title of the work you're replying to within your reply.

Old stuff:

A Rose

Somewhere in my day
Did I spy a rose
That I knew would wilt away
Forever, I suppose.
And God only knows
For what reasons
Do flowers succumb to cycling seasons?

Fragments
I
Fast we grow, and fast we die,
One’s left to think that life’s a lie,
A dream, in which we may not wake
But live so gravely for doubt’s sake.

II
Remember not the dead as dead,
But take them at their finest hours,
And from this act you will shed
The seeds that may renew the flowers.


III

I saw the last leaf fall in fall;
And thought, what rust' the trees' green gold,
Who now, as stumps, deprived of all
Will stand so barren, 'lone, and cold?

I saw the sweetest buds of May
By season's cruel hand gripped fast;
And so I saw them wilt away
Till once they turned to dirt at last.

I loved a lovely maiden true,
But love was shadowed by Time's lust,
Who fit his all with blackest hue
And struck my maiden down to dust.

Sonnets ... I know how much you guys love Shakespeare ;)

I
Wherefore does beauty such as thine come from
That couldst so rouse in me a passionate flame,
That wouldst so make my lines the fair blossom
Who scarce provide thy beauty due acclaim?
Thou art some angel surely in disguise,
Who kisseth and so giveth great pleasure;
But yet when thy physical beauty dries,
Will men see thy most beauteous treasure:
Thy ever giving soul, thy best flower,
Who never didst thy Age himself adjust;
But yet when Death doth brag his great power
And turns thy fair of fairest forms to dust,
Thy beauty Death shall never wholly own;
Fore’er some lives in lines and lives thus known.

II
By chance wert thou a stunning butterfly,
Thou wouldst be the most elegant and swift,
And wanderst and so draw many an eye,
And surely prove as Nature’s finest gift.
By chance would I espy thy lustrous wings,
And loveliness wouldst beckon me to chase;
Through heath to heath after such lovely things
But outwit me by thy seraphic grace.
By chance you landeth on some soft flower,
Wouldst it not be like diamond set in gold?
And eternal, like diamond’s fam’d power,
Thy beauty makes my chase ne’er growest old.
So here on Earth or in the Sky above,
So here so fair, fore’er ‘tis thee I'll love.

III
Men to thee come so quick to bid a rose
And befit all against my love for thee.
So with so many my love doth oppose
How can my love but hold the smallest plea?
My woos do woo with might of soft flowers,
Theirs so like stone or brass or earth who hold
‘Til greater Time decays their great powers,
While flower’s seeds renewest flowers old.
Sometimes envy author’s poor love’s decease;
But I, while men flaunt their roses and woo,
Knowest well when thy beauty dost decrease
Their roses false shall fade but mine stay true.
So thus our love envy shall never hold
And my for thee shall never growest old.

IV
Wherefore didst thou from my presence depart,
Didst thou intend for me to wanderst vex’d?
Didst thou knowest thou took with thee my heart,
Slyly so, and left me with poor wits perplex’d?
Twas by thy eyes thy cunning was bestow’d,—
Or was thy lovely breath my lovely thief?—
Yet, either means doth pilfer what's not owed,
And hast me fill’d with love’s lovely grief.
Alas! Return my heart didst not suppose,
So I didst wander with a gem-less chest,
Till ruthless love resolved grow thee this rose
And lift the heart thou owe me from thy breast.

V
Fairest of fair thou princess of the spring;
For ne’er did such a pretty flower grow,
And beauty so, for thee the birds doth sing,
And buds doth bud so dearest blossoms show.
May spring’s darling reign darling summer too;
For, thy beauty betters June’s reddest rose,
And dost exceeds all blossoms men may view,
And shines as Heaven’s eye where yet life grows.
But bid not these thy beauty’s due acclaim;
For Art is but nature’s face drawn crudely,
And so, in Art, so crude the rose became
When man had robb'd the flower so rudely.
Hence the beauty that imparts my rapture
Durst lines who err too great to capture.

[Cunninglinguist]

Wisdom or something.

If one so wishes
To repeat childhood
One need but make
The mistakes a child would.

But we dislike pain
That comes when we err
And foolishly take
Wisdom’s nightmare:

Hence wisdom kills youth;
The old are thus wise,
And wisdom's disease
Ends in demise,

But right before death,
A truth death begets;
The best moments in life
Are all our regrets.

[PrinceMyshkin]

In A Rose I was a little put off both by the length of the final line and by "cycling" which on first encounter I thought (mea culpa) might refer to bicycles!

I & II that followed delighted me both by their content and their epigrammatic quality.

You're right: I don't much care for the Shakespearean voice: it striketh me that I must don some other mind in reading them but, wherever it occurred, I admired these lines:


wisdom kills youth; the old are thus wise,
And the disease of wisdom ends in demise

[Haunted]

hi Cunninglinguist, I just saw my name mentioned, lol.

In A Rose, I have no problem with the word cycling and I think the last 3 lines are nice. But I'm stumped by the idea of spying on a rose, it sounds strange. And "Somewhere in my day" comes across as though you've only seen one rose in your lifetime, or only once did you notice that roses wilt, so that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless you are personifying.

[Cunninglinguist]

hi Cunninglinguist, I just saw my name mentioned, lol.

In A Rose, I have no problem with the word cycling and I think the last 3 lines are nice. But I'm stumped by the idea of spying on a rose, it sounds strange. And "Somewhere in my day" comes across as though you've only seen one rose in your lifetime, or only once did you notice that roses wilt, so that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, unless you are personifying.

Heh, I guess it is a bit of what you make of it. Perhaps it was the first time I had seen a rose from that perspective. :D

[Haunted]

Heh, I guess it is a bit of what you make of it. Perhaps it was the first time I had seen a rose from that perspective. :D

LOL then you got a lot to learn about roses :D

[Cunninglinguist]

First flower of spring

First flower of spring,
Standing ‘lone and still,
And amid the muddied snows
Upon spring’s early, damp, brown hill;
The small, white flower grows
And it sings of springtime’s course;
Its white complexion mocks the white
Of muddied snow’s now melting might
And winter’s fading force.


LOL then you got a lot to learn about roses :D

I suppose I do.

[Cunninglinguist]

A Question

The hormonal confusion,
Facetious, though
Animates the certain, inebriated corporeal husk
And empties the streets of men, women,
But not their bodies;
Fills them with fears, lust,
Fills them, but not sensibly
And so empties of sensibility.

And so cracks grow in our streets,
And grass from growing cracks
And nature yet decays
While we forgot what we ought
To properly objectify:
Parsimoniously
Bidding flesh for tender
Or as trophies for the man, woman,
Who can parsimoniously tread people.
So shall we pave the streets with sexlanguished bodies,
Or let each befall sequesterment
As roads forever perish?

[PrinceMyshkin]

I got lost among some of the (to me) over-intellectualized language.

[Cunninglinguist]

Echoes (edited)

Drip Drip Drip
Echoes of freshly fallen rain
Water life and set the beat
So birds begin to sing again,
Piercing quietness by softness
With Songs Of Life.

And from behind ling’ring clouds light peeks
And gently weaves the rainbow
Who subtly speaks yon and on
Of fresh things to grow when what is now is gone:

Cyclic spectrum of hue,
When last color’s reached
The first is now reborn anew
And by the ring perfection’s shell is breached.

And what am I but the warbling bird,
Or the rainbow weav’d by light
Who found in rain a slight reflection;
An echo like the trickling drips
But an echo of perfection?



I got lost among some of the (to me) over-intellectualized language.

I thought prolixity was all-the-rage now.

[Cunninglinguist]

Fragments

IV

I saw the sweetest buds of May
By season's cruel hand gripped fast;
And so I saw them wilt away
Till once they turned to dirt at last,
I saw the recess of time’s trial:
Summer whence all life had flourish’d,
Or wast it so time may beguile
To keep his sick bloodlust nourish’d?
I saw the last leaf fall in fall;
And thought, what rust' the trees' green gold,
Who now, as stumps, deprived of all
Will stand so barren, 'lone, and cold?
I saw but last when darkness loom’d,
And froze the land with wintry breath
Until all life had lain consum’d,
The strong by sleep, the weak by death.

V

I lived by every impulse next,
By each virtue and each sin,
But by and by I was perplexed
That I should feel so bare within,

VI

So then salvation next I sought
That I may have some truthful smiles,
So I twisted all my thought
To drinking up deceitful wiles;
I drank and drank but all that wine
Did only give me drunken grins,
And thus with that resolved resign
From the churches lies and sins.

VII

But then, at last, did fast I find
The light whence I had ceased to fight ‘em
By learning with an opened mind,
On and on, ad infinitum.

[PrinceMyshkin]

This flows like the sweetest honey. Thanks.

[Delta40]

I do wish I could write like that!

[Cunninglinguist]

Thankyouthankyouthankyou.


The Little Nature Boy

Beneath that yonder oak respites,
To many men’s dismay,
The little child who delights
In unruly rest and play,
And rest and play with every season
So true joy he may find,
Thus lazily forwent his reason
An' thus forwent his mind.

And little, little boy I see,
Seeking out the fonder,
Delighting in thy anarchy
By casting rules yonder,
Thou thither cast society
An’ thither cast thy house,
An’ substitute it with that tree
An’ nature as thy spouse.

Thou doth in summer go reposed,
And in spring, and will in fall;
Yet winter thou hast not supposed
What to do when it doth call:
Thy sturdy oak be far too frail
To keep thee from the ice,
An’ lay no home in heath or dale;
None else to find suffice.

So winter now approaches fast
With nature as thy bed,
And then spring enters one time last,
The child’s cold an’ dead:
For men are soft & sweet flowers;
The winter takes their breath
And wafts away in its cold hours,
By freezing them to death.

I tell thus how the little child
Who sauntered through the land,
Who sought the beauty in the wild
Was crush’d by nature’s hand:
But who am I to judge him hence?
Nature bade him what he craved:
To go forever with her thence,
Hand-in-hand, from man saved.

[Cunninglinguist]

Song of Spring #1

I bid you see the early spring
When flowers grow and birds doth sing;
When light now fissures through the gray
And melts the muddied snows away.
Now bid the early bud a glance
And see within a world’s expanse.
Enfold the bud within thy hands
And by that world thine own expands
Till ever new is beauty’s grace,
And in the bud thou see God’s face.

[Cunninglinguist]

More Fragments

VIII

I now behold in thee a time of day
When clouds do shadow heaven’s eye from view
And gales do threat the timid birds away
And shake boughs bare where sweetest song was due;
Thy family is thy drear, or makers of,
Who gain their pleasure from what gains thy woe,
By mean intent or by misguided love,
And paint with mirky shade the earth below.
Thou art alike to Atlas in his plight
Who lives with heaven’s sphere to lift and bear;
A sphere fill’d up with infinite delight
But paid for with his infinite despair.

IX

Thou art Prometheus, but rashly bound,
Who suffers death each day with no retire,
Whose painful cries for Zeus through Hell resound;
But thou hath yet to give to man His fire.

X

May God forgive thy family with thy friends
As softest rose forgives the bitter thorn,
And thou may see in life that all life tends
Just as the rose, from bitter sweet is born.

XI

What does that pathway bid to gain at end?
Eternal hours black where day should be,
Amid thy friends, thy fires, who merely lend,
In exchange for resource, resource to see;
And for the fire would thou let thy world burn
Till dusky ashes do leave the world lost,
Consumed by that which thou did once so yearn,
When Sun now offers light without a cost?



-Me

[Cunninglinguist]

Excerpt

ARGUMENT. This fellow relates the stabbing and death of his friend who died over a petty feud instigated by excessive pride.

O! Meanly was he stab’d, and didst I see
Within his face, accelerated course
Of seasons; summer quickly down to fall;
Cold turn’d furbish’d green to yellow, and twas
Reflected by his jaundiced face. Then time
Did turn the hanging yellow ornaments
To bloody red, as red blood gushéd forth
His mortal gash and won, or lost, his state,
Mind and body. The birds fled from the boughs
Where once they sang, and shake ‘gainst thinning airs;
He shivered, too. And red leaves fell at last
To cold ground, to rot as brown decaying soot.
O! Fall quickly down to winter; face consumed
By white thus turned to pallor; leaves gone; trees
Effectively as stumps - Morbid omens
Of the skeleton ere his appearance.
And gripping his dead corpse I cried: pity
Nature’s course usurped by man! Trimmed
By man! By vanity! And man’s today
And tomorrow and then the next the same!
Shall it be our nature to usurp nature
For vanity ‘til our last utterance?
The last two men shall fall for vanity,
And breathe the last two syllables for it.
And so I cry, more for my death than his,
And curse my fate, or doom, and fret my pace
And coat my eyes, embarrassed by my nature.

[jajdude]

Wow.

Amazing writing.

Sure you were not born around 400 years ago?



note: I believe in VIII above you wrote "mirky"

Was "murky" right?

[Cunninglinguist]

Sonnet VI

Might misty eyes through tears precipitate
And flood anew those rivers which supply
An Eden fresh, where now ‘tis desolate
And ruins of last amid the dust do lie.
When solace thus succeeds the stand of woe,
That by and by complete is woe effaced,
Within rich Eden does the apple grow
That tempted man preceiveth fair to taste;
This done, again is lost man’s paradise,
Lay waste in ruin where Eden was profaned;
So weepeth he for his poor nature’s vice
And thus once more is paradise regained.
Thou see’st in nature’s course a wax and wane;
Alike man dances ‘twixt his joy and pain.



Wow.

Amazing writing.

Sure you were not born around 400 years ago?



note: I believe in VIII above you wrote "mirky"

Was "murky" right?

Thank you :D

In part I just enjoy the style, though I also find it helps me read the writers of those days more closely.

Yeah, good call. I think "mirky" is an antiquated way of spelling it though, so I'm not necessarily incorrect.

[Cunninglinguist]

Sonnet VI revised

Might misty eyes through tears precipitate
And flood anew those rivers which supply
An Eden fresh, where now ‘tis desolate
And ruins of last amid the dust do lie.
When solace thus succeeds the stand of woe,
That by and by is woe fully effaced,
Then in rich Eden does the apple grow
That tempted man preceiveth fair to taste;
This done, once more is lost man’s paradise,
Lay waste in ruin where Eden was profaned;
So weepeth he for his poor nature’s vice
And thus once more is paradise regained.
So see’st in nature’s course a wax and wane;
So too man dances ‘twixt his joy and pain.

[Delta40]

I really like Argument. Very appropriate use of language and it resonates well.

[Silas Thorne]

On VIII:
Is this the almost-cento of some sonnets?
It seems so close to Sonnet 73
but then I read again, it seems as though
your thoughts do blend and change, to others go.

Terrific work! :)
Will read more closely when the time permits.

[Cunninglinguist]

On VIII:
Is this the almost-cento of some sonnets?
It seems so close to Sonnet 73
but then I read again, it seems as though
your thoughts do blend and change, to others go.

Terrific work! :)
Will read more closely when the time permits.

Lol, what keen faculties you have. The first quatrain was "inspired" by the first quatrain in sonnet 73; though I speak of a storm which causes a sort of unnatural darkness and turmoil where day ought to be. And the quatrains were addressed to someone whom I viewed as young and confused.

Thank you for complimenting my plagiarism--uh, I mean, poetry...

[Cunninglinguist]

A Little Jot

How much time is lost in waiting,
Eons fret away in idle hours;
When the halcyon of our youth’s abating;
And blight’s consuming all our flowers?
In a wink, ending is our season
And its blossoms wilt a crying,
Which plea to God to find a reason
Why such innocence must suffer dying.

[Transmodernism]

Wisdom or something.

But we dislike pain
That comes when we err
And foolishly take
Wisdom’s nightmare:

Hence wisdom kills youth;
The old are thus wise,
And wisdom's disease
Ends in demise,

But right before death,
A truth death begets;
The best moments in life
Are all our regrets.

I'm new here so I'm just reading through and am a little behind. But I found the penultimate stanza of the above-quoted poem particularly effective. I'm not sure I entirely agree with the philosophy, though; but that doesn't matter poetically. If it's effective it's effective.

I quote below:

"Fast we grow, and fast we die,
One’s left to think that life’s a lie,
A dream, in which we may not wake
But live so gravely for doubt’s sake."

This one also worked well for me. It reminded me a little bit of Christopher Nolan's new movie Inception (which is brilliant, by the way), in which one character spends so much time in a dream that she chooses to believe that the dream is reality and reality is just a dream. Thus, when she comes back to reality, she kills herself in order to "wake up" from the dream, which is really reality.

Really. Existential.

As Alex Pope said,
since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die,
...

[Cunninglinguist]

@above.

First, thank you for your kind words.
I don't really agree with the hedonism (or something close to that) propounded in that poem I wrote, and honestly I do not even recall why exactly I wrote it when I would never support hedonism. I suppose I was being insincere.


This one also worked well for me. It reminded me a little bit of Christopher Nolan's new movie Inception (which is brilliant, by the way), in which one character spends so much time in a dream that she chooses to believe that the dream is reality and reality is just a dream. Thus, when she comes back to reality, she kills herself in order to "wake up" from the dream, which is really reality.

Really. Existential.

As Alex Pope said,
since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die,
...

That reminds me of something I wrote not to long ago but haven't yet posted:

"When we feel our fate’s beyond controlling
Then what is left is but the seeming
That since the bell beyond is tolling
Our freedom is but found in dreaming."

It's not quite obviously related in subject, and it was written as a reflection on what the artist is, but I found your comment struck like a chord whatever facet of my memory was holding onto it. Trochee's and the feminine rhyme have such a delicate beauty...

[arrytus]

I've read through many of your posts of poetry and you are quite talented. The only thing I wish is that you would attempt to compose perhaps an original story because you seem to be able to write poetically at will, with the turn of phrases which give one pause and a satisfying conclusion. my criticisms are minute and as vapid as my gratulations so I shall eschew them as I feel no need to denigrate of what minute flaws I'm you, as no tyro, are surely aware. So please, write a play, or some grand overarching conception of your philosophy, your weltanschauung; perhaps a new take on a greek myth. You have the ability.

[Cunninglinguist]

I've read through many of your posts of poetry and you are quite talented. The only thing I wish is that you would attempt to compose perhaps an original story because you seem to be able to write poetically at will, with the turn of phrases which give one pause and a satisfying conclusion. my criticisms are minute and as vapid as my gratulations so I shall eschew them as I feel no need to denigrate of what minute flaws I'm you, as no tyro, are surely aware. So please, write a play, or some grand overarching conception of your philosophy, your weltanschauung; perhaps a new take on a greek myth. You have the ability.

Thank you very much :) I will get on that

[Cunninglinguist]

If you are reading this you are reading this.

NOTICE!
Thank you for noticing this new notice.
Your noticing has been noticed...
And will be promptly reported to the authorities.

[JuniperWoolf]

^Hahaha, that's great.

[Cunninglinguist]

So this is an experiment I did over a couple of days a few weeks ago, left derelict for a number of reasons ... it's a personal translation of the first canto of Dante's Inferno ... if anyone wants to submit any suggestions or add another stanza or two it'd be appreciated (but I don't really expect anyone to do the latter) ... I might get around to finishing the canto, but I'm not committed to it. Rima terza does not work in non-romantic languages (I had to revert back to iambic pentameter); moreover, italian words rhyme much more readily than do English words... Anyways, in short, the fact of the matter is that it's utterly impossible to retain in a translation the effect that rima terza has in Italian. Also, one has to add and subtract content to retain such aesthetical features as assonance and consonance, which is grievous...and when one sums up all these impediments one realizes that it is quite impossible for a translation to not be a failure. At any rate...


Canto I

Midway upon the journey of our life
Within a forest dark and deep I found
From the straight-way I went astray in strife;

How hard it is for me to now expound,
That forest savage, dense, and so adverse;
Upon the thought of it my fears resound;

It is so bitter death is barely worse.
But to set forth the good I saw I’ll name
The other things within it had, in verse.

I cannot well retell how there I came,
As then I was so full of daze and sleep (I do not particularly like this rhyme)
When thus the one true way I did disclaim;

Though at the foot of a hill so steep,
There where the twisting wooded valley ended,
With all its fear that pierced my heart so deep,

I, looking up, did see its shoulders splendid
And mantled by the planet’s first sweet light
Which steers men straight, whichever road attended;

I was in such a dire distress that night;
But then the fear enduring in the lake
Within my heart was made a calmer site.

As one who, with a labored breath, may break
‘Way from an angry, deep and squalling swell
And glance back at the perilous waters’ wake,

Still flying from what mortal thoughts impel,
So did my mind glance back upon the vale
Whence none alive had ever left to tell.

After I lay to rest from that assail
I went again upon the desert rise,
My firm foot always lower than the frail.

And lo! Where the ascent began my eyes
Beheld a leopard with her spotted hood,
So nimble, swift and with a gaudy guise—

Alas! It wouldst not let me pass but stood,
And barring me, I near resolved resign
And time to time I turned back towards the wood.

Twas morning when the sun mounts up to shine,
And greets within the sky those stars bestrewed,
Which shone with it when first, by Love Divine,

Those pretty things by Him were forth issued;
So that, despite the beast with gaudy fur, (never thought of a rhyme for this one)
I was encouraged and my hope renewed

By the hour, day, and by the season sweet;
But just to then behold a lion came
And would I would for fear concede defeat.

His head held high, he struck a mortal fame,
And looking irate with his appetite
The air appeared to tremble at his frame.

And off anon a she-wolf in my sight,
All hide and bones and rank of all desire
Which led so many to a wretched plight

Such sent my spirits down to such a mire
That thus unwilled my will for that ascent
And took all hope to hope I would go high’r.

Alike to one, while fortune dost augment,
Who’s merry in his gains, yet gains he’s lost
Averts his thoughts to sorrow and lament,

So was I made when that beast didst accost;
That she-wolf fierce, approaching pace by pace,
Did drive me down to where the light is lost.

And whilst I fled down to that lower place,
Before me showed a figure I so eyed
So soft within the wide and silent space.

When him within that vast I saw I cried:
“Have mercy on me, please, ye thing unknown,
If shade or living man.” And it replied:

“Not man, yet man I wast in times my own.
From Lombardy my parents were—their home
Was Mantua, (never finished this line)

“I lived under Augustus then at Rome;
And I was born sub Julio, though late
Within his time, when false gods filled the dome.

“I was a poet and I sang the great
And righteous born of Anchises of Troy
Who came once Ilium was desolate.

“But thou, wherefore turn back to woe as coy?
Why dost ye not up yonder mountain go,
The origin and cause of every joy?”

“Are ye then Virgil, ye who dost speak so,
The fountain that does pour so full a stream?”
I answered him, my head in shame bent low.

“O, Glory of all poets of esteem,
Let study and my love avail, which made
Me read so deep in thy volume supreme. (this line has a pretty forced metre :( )

“Thou art my teacher, author and my aid.
Thou art the one from whom alone I took
The style which brought to me my accolade.

“Now see what I forsook, and too forsook
The mountain for; but save me from her, sage—
My veins do tremble when at her I look.”

--------

[AuntShecky]

I see that this thread goes back a while; please forgive me for not noticing it sooner.

By the bye, your little piece, "Notice" is my favorite so far.

Two general comments:
1. I think it's a good idea to put all one's work in one thread. That way you can track your progress.
I have three different threads going (one for fiction, one for verse, and a third for "humor") and I find that a single thread makes it much easier to locate a previous piece than if they'd been scattered all over the LitNet forums.)

2. My second comment is that it's a great idea to try to write from models, such as the Shakespearean sonnets, Dante, etc. This not only gives you a deeper appreciation for the originals, but also helps you learn about the poetic line and tools such as meter and rhyme.

When adapting your writing to a work from the past, however, may I suggest that you refrain from the temptation to use archaic words and constructions-- "thee" and "art" (for "are," etc.) Remember you're writing in the 21st century and attempting to reflect the age that you're living in.

Looking forward to reading subsequent posts. Good luck.

PS, If you have time, take a look at "Advice I Wish I'd Been Told" by Walt McDonald. (http://wwwstage.valpo.edu/english/vpr/mcdonaldessay.html)

[Cunninglinguist]

Thank you for your comments. I agree on the first two points, most definitely. On the third, I've always been of two minds. A delicate use of the archicisms can have quite a pleasing effect, for example in the Fitzgerald translation of the Aeneid. I think I've been exorbitant at times, but have always regarded the use as a minor issue because it's quite easy to just edit the "thees" and "thous" out. I have, however, always found "thee," "thou" and "thy" and the occasional "hither and thither" more aesthetically appealing than "you" and "your" - probably because they are more naturally and easily spoken - or affable, as it were, to the metre. I have also generally retained the "art," "twas" and "tis" for metrical purposes. For the translation I even thought about making up a word here or there or depositing some absurd three word contraction, which Dante did, in order to retain that aspect. At any rate, in the end perhaps it comes off as pretentious - but, wholeheartedly following your second comment from the get-go of this thread, I have never really harbored much concern for how people think of the poetry after they leave the thread. My first few sonnets are, quite frankly, utter crap in form. They have a few interesting aspects in terms of content, but, more importantly, they were invaluable to the development my understanding of meter (which still has its pitfalls) which was never taught to me in any kind of formal setting.

In any case, poetry and art are (generally, perhaps) vehicles which moves the audience to somewhere they are not. Being as such, I don't think that the poem in all it's aspects has to reflect the age the poet lives in. The archaic words(, form, and/or content) transport the audience to another time, and can give the poem an certain charming effect (mind you, they can also give it a pretentious one). Perhaps the best example of a poet doing this is Spencer with his Faerie Queene. At any rate, it does take a skill to know when you're being exorbitant; a skill that I have not worked on honing yet, though, bein' a young'in, I think I'm doing well enough!

Anyways, thanks again for the comments.

[Cunninglinguist]

So I churned this out, which basically sums up some of my feelings about the use of archaic language in my (or any) translation. The "it" is the translation. I'll probably make some edits in the future - I'm afraid that at the end my argument loses its clarity.

Sonnet VII

One must consider how the viewer views it.
‘Tiſ olde if in archaic tunge ‘tiſ peinted;
Conversely, though, a modern tongue renews it,
Then hit* doth seem as penned in times acquainted;
When hit was modern it was view'd as such,
And seen as new, and as a prime invention;
And if I’ve set out to retain as much
The “thees” and “thous” would then belie intention.
But fixéd content’s old, though modern then;
So strange are newer forms now juxtaposéd -
The agéd ink against the younger pen -
So “thees” and “thous” are now the best supposéd;
For, though from content might the forms detach
All pens their ink and inks their pen should match.

*Middle English accented pronoun for 'it'

[IceM]

Very good sonnet. I totally loved it; the precision, the intention, how you developed your idea. Very well done.

I'll add, the "it" in lines 1 and 3 would seem better served if they referenced to archaic language, and later "its," the translation. Seems more natural that way.

[Cunninglinguist]

Thank you. I have taken your advice, in a way. I can't change the "it"s in line 1 and 3 to Middle English because that would mess up the meter. I think (or hope) I've done something more clever. A big irony, though, in the 2nd line, which is painted in "archaic" tongue, is that the word "archaic" only showed up in the former half of the 19th century. I can't find anything to replace it with that would still accord with the meter.

I'm almost ambivalent about the whole first quatrain though. It's a cacophony of mixed metaphors (form is described as being penned, tongued, and painted), old and new language, it is paradoxical to the extent that the reader wonders if the author "considered how the viewer views it," (which is the ironic effect I was looking to achieve) which adds a further dimension to its air of paradox. While it is interesting and even intentional, I'm not sure what it adds to anything...

Likewise the whole sonnet it shrouded in irony and ambivalence in form and content, strangely juxtaposed to a seemingly unambivalent argument, which the author apparently has not heeded. And, again, while it is interesting, it seems superfluous, hypocritical, and meaningless.