Dear Aunty
"And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds / So honour peereth in the meanest habit."
Looks like you have a couple of fans after all!
Regards
M.
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Dear Aunty
"And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds / So honour peereth in the meanest habit."
Looks like you have a couple of fans after all!
Regards
M.
We reads 'em every day, you know
although not always does it show
that Auntie's pen has graced our eyes
as messages we don't incise
upon the virtual parchment here
because we'd rather drink a beer.
But lest she feel we've slighted her
we'll scribble a light verse, "Kind sir"
she'll say, "You've left a note
to say you liked what I have wrote,"
and grinning then from ear to ear
she'll brush aside the nascent tear
that in her eye neglect was forming
thinking that applause weren't storming.
by the by, you're a syllable out, you naughty girl:
try... "a pittance shy, to make a costard mine,"
Live and be well - H :D
That would be a reference to Ophelia. In Shakespeare's day, all the female parts were performed by young boys, even those who may resemble the vintner's son.Quote:
Originally Posted by cogs
[QUOTE=MANICHAEAN;1134836]
Quote:
"And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds / So honour peereth in the meanest habit."
Thank you, M. I just looked up the source of the quote and the posting said that Petruchio's reference to the "meanest habit" means an unstylish style of dress. Who knew my faded jeans, threadbare sweatshirts, and beat-up sneakers would be a Shakespearean topic!
That was the original line! I'll reinstate it. Thanks, and thanks for the little ditty too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawkman
by the by, you're a syllable out, you naughty girl:
try... "a pittance shy, to make a costard mine,"
The folderol continues in the next reply.
a thank you note appears directly above^^^^
April 24
Originating in France, the huitain consists of eight lines of eight (or ten) syllables. Generally, the rhyme scheme is ababbcbc. This stanza allegedly serves as the form for “The Monk’s Tale.” Personally I can’t vouch for that, because my copy of The Canterbury Tales includes only the prologue for that segment. Explaining that the tale itself is “monotonous,” the editor provides a brief summary of the tediously stultifying screed. Even the Monk’s fellow pilgrims complain about it in the next prologue: “namoore of this,” one says, for “youre tale anoyeth al this compaigne.” Indeed, the Monk is told that if it weren’t for the “clynking” of the “belles” adorning his horse’s bridele, the entire crowd would be taken as dead from the coma-like sleep induced by the boring tale, devoid as it is of “desport” and “game.”
Amid the devoutly religious center of the medieval world, the people living in that era did not focus on The Plague and Eternal Doom 24/7. They managed to find ways to leaven the ever-present pessimism with a little fun, a bit of “desport.” The following attempt at a huitain tries to imagine such a diversion with an annual tradition actually practiced in England into the
sixteenth century. Not unlike our modern-day charity fund-raisers, this custom engendered modest donations for the pastoral works of the local parish, while providing an opportunity for the participants to have a good time.
Hock Tuesday
Three Tuesdays past Easter, the town
in bright-bannered envelopes,
lets women in their festive gowns
chase men around with mocking ropes.
Each captive feigns despair and gropes
at bonds not truly tight nor tough,
by ransom freed–(or so he hopes.)
A tiny sum will be enough.
Aunty, these are awesome! Really your breadth takes my breath away, but I think, so far (the month isn't over yet!) that I love the trout one best, but why pick one? It's an embarrassment of riches!
I am so glad I know you.
Dear Aunt,
Thank you so much for this marathon of skill, inspiration and love. Perhaps this isn't even hard for you, but to my eyes it represents a forceful (but beautifully *calm*) pushing of boundaries.
Good health,
DH
"Three Tuesdays past Easter" is a brilliant phrase for time. It gave me an idea for my short story-- "Three birthdays after the diagnosis." Thanks, Auntie.
Thanks to all! ^^^
April 25
The medieval madness continues with two types of verse. The first form may or may not have originated with–but it certainly was perfected by-- the sadly anonymous author of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Hence, today’s posting attempts to emulate the “bob- and- wheel,” with a necessarily more modern sensibility, although yours truly is well aware that such an attempt may be foolhardy.
The Shepherd and the Stranger
In that short season when The Bull first bolts
to run The Ram off from the star-strung sky;
when silver shad have lately taken leave
of whirling whale-paths to swim salt-less streams;
and winter-waste’s abandoned for the trees
where cheerful songs are trilled by brighter birds,
the throbbing April tempo moved a boy
in certain tender, yet distracting, ways.
Though aimed toward tasks he ably could fulfill,
his wits were changed by whim-swept air to play
Through fancy’s wiles he willed himself a knight,
his shepherd’s crook, a lance for jousting feats;
forgetting the flock he was charged to watch
and so his trusted care he did
suspend.The sheep were thus bereft
of eyes that would attend.
His straying mind had left
them, for themselves to fend.
Meanwhile, not far away, across the lea
the sorrel tart, the clover sweet, and grass
remained unbent beneath near-weightless hooves,
as if the gentle horse were not quite there.
Like dew, the stately steed and rider seemed
to shimmer in the sun, though free from pride.
Their humility shone like martyrs’ faith,
as fulgurous as heaven’s sacred Cross
converting Rome. Some paladins felt such
a flash to change Jerusalem again,
yet one served more with softness than with might.
The horse, alert, stopped short. He’d stumble on
no rock; much less he’d stomp upon a lamb.
The knight swooped down to scoop it up
by hand.The sheep who’d strayed behind
he’d unite with its full band.
The careless keeper he’d find
to counsel, not to command.
The starling sound of a swift slash in the air
came from a sharp cut of the ersatz sword.
Unseen, a dragon fell, a damsel saved.
A snort from the horse made the boy jump round,
first frightened; then blushing, abashed,
caught in pretense, he faced the evidence
of guilt, bleating in the kind stranger’s arms.
“Return this poor thing to its ewe,” he said.
“The world God made is one we can enjoy;
but times we’re called to mind what’s here and real.
I’ve traveled far, young sire, to unknown lands,
but never a fierce dragon did I slay.
Though sheep must stay together with the fold,
apart from fable, Faith is best
to keep."A legend’s allegory
To truth our brains must leap.
So ends our story
Of a boy, a saint, and sheep.
Next we’re jumping into the twentieth century which saw the birth of a verse form totally different from the bob-and- wheel but not unlike the later inventions of the double dactyl and the McWhirtle forms of light verse. Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) came up with a quatrain consisting of two scansion-defying couplets whose completely irrelevant subject matter involves a famous person. Why the form was called a “clerihew” rather than an “Edmund” or a “Bentley” we’ll never know, but this one is not only irrelevant but irreverent about the person who stars in the previous bob-and-wheel:
George, England’s patron saint,
mentioned rarely, even there faint,
except for when actors revive
that stirring line in Henry V.
your talent is endless. where could i begin?
These are astonishing, dear Aunty: the first, of course, a masterpiece of virtuoso and narrative art; the second a lovely, impish riposte!
Thank you, cogs and Prince ^^^
Today’s posting will offer a third --and final --form of the sonnet, a shortened version called “curtal.” But first, a word about its creator:
As we enter the home stretch, it’s high-time to mention the one of the most ground-breaking poets of the English language, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889.) The oldest of eight children in an upper class London family, Hopkins alienated himself from his kinfolk by converting to Catholicism, eventually becoming ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1877. He wrote most, if not all of his poems, before entering the order; because of this and the fact that he died of typhoid at the relatively-early age of 44, only three of his poems were published in his lifetime. It wasn’t until 1918 when the Poet Laureate Robert Bridges discovered the poems that they entered the literary world at large.
And oh, what a revelation they were, so much so that Hopkins has been called a modernist, initially surprising, since–-as Anthony Burgess reminds us-- he died the same year as Robert Browning did. James Joyce was only seven then, yet Hopkins completely transformed English poems. According to the introduction to the Hopkins section in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Hopkins sets “anguish and rapture against each other,” especially in his masterpiece, “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” a reaction to an actual historical event of 1875 racked with socio-political, religious, and –especially for Hopkins– profoundly spiritual personal significance. Conscious of the psychological tension which his work explores, Hopkins termed his unique sensibility as “inscape,” to express the vividness of an idea. He called the power to hold the elements of the inscape together “instress.”
“Inscape” and “instress” are progenitors of Joyce’s later “epiphanies.” In his short essay about Hopkins, Anthony Burgess tells us that Joyce unwittingly inherited the Hopkins superbly off-beat take on language, both creating a sparkling new vocabulary. Hopkins coins us fresh expressions, such as “beechbole,” “churlsgrace,” and “firefolk”-- stars. He was influenced by classical prosody, Welsh poetry, but especially Middle English verse forms, as in Piers Plowman. Rather than reiterating the iambic pentameter prevalent in the majority great English poetry, Hopkins preferred adapting the language to the natural rhythm of speech, without prescribed formulas about the quantity of stresses and slavish devotion to their locations. Burgess adds: “The English language had allowed itself to be shackled into a verse system borrowed from the Latin languages which don’t go in for the hammer blows of the native Saxon.”
In the position of having to invent something to fulfill a need, Hopkins created “sprung rhythm” –a liberated way of writing verse while simultaneously appealing to a musical ear. Like early English poems, the lines of verse are accentual, not metrical. Count the stresses, not the syllables:
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim
Another quality Hopkins shares with Old English and Middle English verse, is that the newly-coined words are constructed as compounds, with or without hypens. Even more important is the use of alliteration, both for sound effect and to balance the stresses in the line:
Fresh-firecool chestnut falls, finches’ songs
Hopkins employs sprung rhythm predominates his works as well in the new verse form he invented: the curtal sonnet. As the name connotes, it’s three and a half lines shorter than its Petrarchan and Elizabethan ancestors. Not only that, the lines are not metrical but accented and alliterative in which the number of stresses count and the number of unstressed syllables may vary. The rhyme scheme is abcabc dbcd and c (for the half-line)
And without further explanation, here’s yours fooly feeble attempt at imitating the curtal sonnet, vaguely modeled after “Pied Beauty,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
April 25
Words in Bloom
April’s first language is flourish-full, fine.
The wake-robin* greets the merry-bells’ glee;
From the pitcher plant eloquence leaks.
Up a Jacob’s ladder word-wisdom climbs,
a friendly chat tames a rue-d anemone,
while prolix pansies prate on and on for weeks.
Crinkle-roots smooth out; Jack in his pulpit swoons;
foam-flowers spew truth, the phlox springs free.
The jewelweed boasts vibrance, the violet peeks;
the blood-root moans; the honeysuckle croons–
Spring speaks!
* regional name for the trillium
So that's why it's standing room only!Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntShecky
J
exactly what i'm all about. i love this poem! (at first i thought it was hopkin's.)
I'll do my own thanking, thank you. So thank you, Jack of Hearts and Cogs.
April 27
Exhilarating Nonsense
If you’re anything like yours fooly and find that you never get to go out and have any fun, allow me to offer a suggestion. The next time you find yourself in a melancholy mood, try lifting your spirits with a healthy dose of Lewis Carroll. No, I don’t mean the two classic Alice books. I mean Sylvie and Bruno. You can read it right here on the LitNet.
Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), considered Sylvie and Bruno to be his masterpiece. Never mind Northrop Frye’s opinion that a writer is a poor judge of the value of his own work– in this case, Dodgson may have been right. I know I didn’t laugh aloud at Alice in Wonderland nor its sequel, but this one had me chuckling, chortling, giggling, roaring, and all other adjective describing a response to comedy.
An online treatise about the book subjects this tour de force to the painful treatment of deconstructionism: while making a couple of good points, the article all but ignores the overall hilarity. I found Sylvie and Bruno to be a linguistic romp, free-wheeling, disjointed, and digressive as Tristram Shandy, while subtly concealing slyly insidious observations about politics, urban and country society, and religion. Philosophy, especially Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism, falls prey to the satiric treatment; the author, who had already earned great esteem for his scholarship, even pokes fun at his own field of mathematics. Once again I greatly regret that decades ago I never paid attention in math class; if nothing else, it would have allowed me to “get” more of the mathematical jokes. But it’s not all set in the humdrum workaday world; several madcap scenes occur in a topsy-turvy fairy land.
The unnamed narrator, smart and at times densely naive, presents the title characters, a delightful couple of children – or are they? The little girl, capable of charming the bejeezus out of everyone with whom she comes in contact, is sensitive and sweetly-sentimental, yet witty enough not to be cloying, as Oscar Wilde famously found Little Nell. Her brother, Bruno, who goes to great lengths to avoid doing schoolwork, is a major source of pratfalls and unintentional bon mots, his verbal humor delivered with a slight speech impediment.
Other characters include a pair of brothers who are mid-level government officials, one of whom attempts to finagle himself into becoming emperor. Throw in a couple of addle-brained professors, a commitment-shy bachelor doctor and his supposed lady love--a couple whom the author employs to mock the romances common in Victorian novels as well as its implausible conventions (such as the narrator suddenly having to rush out of town “on business,” not to return for a month.) A number of minor characters round out the cast, notably the fat, spoiled “Uggug,” a name with which few, if any, of Dodgson’s young readers would have experienced the shock of recognition, let alone the embarrassment of identification. Similarly, there is a brief appearance by a pompous ambassador announced as “His Adiposity, the Baron Dopplegeist.” The book abounds with one-liners as funny as you’ve ever heard in a Marx Brothers movie.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, I could go on and on rhapsodizing about how I enjoyed the book, but I do remember this is a poetry thread, and we’ll get right to it. But first–an explanation of the specific inspiration for today’s posting. In the first half of the narrative, songs from the “crazy gardener” intermittently pop up with exhilarating nonsense. One of the gardener’s ditties goes like this:
He thought he saw a rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek;
He looked again and found it was
The middle of next week.
“The one thing I regret,” he said,
“Is that it cannot speak.”
Thus, the inspiration for today’s postings, not nearly as funny nor impeccably metrical as the crazy’s gardener's songs. Here we go:
He thought he saw new luggage
with handles and matching locks.
He looked again and found it was
a croc with monkeypox.
“Next trip,” he said, “I’ll have to use
a trash bag and a box.”
---------
He thought he saw a large dragon
lashing a damsel to a rack.
He looked again and found it was
a tattoo on her back.
He tried to help her out, until
his laser jumped the track.
- - - - - - -
He thought he saw a topless bar,
lascivious and uncouth.
He looked again and found it was
a place without a roof.
When it rains, the joint provides
an umbrella for each booth.
Going to go and see if I can download "Sylvie and Bruno". Thanks for bringing it to our attention and for the foregoing several verses.