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  #1  
Unread 12-21-2004, 12:55 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Being the Shortest Day


Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,
Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,
The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;
The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th' hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and enterr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with mee, who am their Epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers bee
At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new Alchimie.
For his art did expresse
A quintessence even from nothingnesse,
From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:
He ruin'd mee, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;
I, by loves limbecke, am the grave
Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have wee two wept, and so
Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two Chaosses, when we did show
Care to ought else; and often absences
Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death, (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;
Were I a man, that I were one,
I needs must know; I should preferre,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; All, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.
You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne
At this time to the Goat is runne
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,
Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call
This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this
Bothe the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.

John Donne

When people complain of my beginning a pentameter line with back to back trochees, I look at the last line of this poem and think "It's been donne."
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  #2  
Unread 12-21-2004, 01:18 PM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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Tim,
Thanks for posting this. Poetry is...

Janet
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  #3  
Unread 12-21-2004, 03:46 PM
Mark Allinson Mark Allinson is offline
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St.Lucy's day downunder is, of course, the longest day of the year.

A great poem, this one, possibly written after his wife Anne's death in 1617, but no one knows for sure.

Tim, in the realm of prosodic possibility, there is not a great deal which has not been donne before.

Thinking of Donne and the depths of northern winter, I recall this passage from his "Ecclogue. 1613. December 26," another one of the rare occasions when he notices the world of Nature, which mostly holds little interest for him.


Unseasonable man, statue of ice,
What could to countries solitude entice
Thee, in this year's cold and decrepit time ?
Nature's instinct draws to the warmer clime
Even smaller birds, who by that courage dare
In numerous fleets sail through their sea, the air.
What delicacy can in fields appear,
Whilst Flora herself doth a frieze jerkin wear ?
Whilst winds do all the trees and hedges strip
Of leaves, to furnish rods enough to whip
Thy madness from thee, and all springs by frost
Have taken cold, and their sweet murmurs lost ...


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  #4  
Unread 12-21-2004, 08:10 PM
Mark Allinson Mark Allinson is offline
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Tim (I am sure he won't mind me saying) in a PM has offered Donne's St. Lucy's poem for my scansion. But as I said to him, since my work on Donne was mostly in the fields of theology, philology and psychology, I am probably the least qualified for this job.

But I would like to hear a reading of the meter in this passage from Satire IV from some of our more learned metric masters. Pretend that this has been posted on TDE.

Donne's Satires moved Pope to re-cast some of them in a smoother style. (posted below this).


SATYRE IV

Well; I may now receive, and die; My sinne
Indeed is great, but I have beene in
A Purgatorie, such as fear'd hell is
A recreation to,'and scant map of this.
My minde, neither with prides itch, nor yet hath been
Poyson'd with love to see, or to bee seene,
I had no suit there, nor new suite to shew,
Yet went to Court; But as Glaze which did goe
To'a Masse in jest, catch'd, was faine to disburse
The hundred markes, which is the Statutes curse,
Before he scapt, So'it pleas'd my destinie
(Guilty'of my sin of going,) to thinke me
As prone to'all ill, and of good as forget-
full, as proud, as lustfull, and as much in debt,
As vaine, as witlesse, and as false as they
Which dwell at Court, for once going that way.

=============

Here is what Pope did to the poem to make it metrically acceptable to an Augustan reader:

Satire IV (Pope's re-write)

Well, if it be my time to quit the stage,
Adieu to all the follies of the age!
I die in charity with fool and knave,
Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.
I've had my purgatory here betimes,
And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes.
The poet's hell, its tortures, fiends, and flames,
To this were trifles, toys, and empty names.
With foolish pride my heart was never fired,
Nor the vain itch to admire, or be admired;
I hoped for no commission from his Grace;
I bought no benefice, I begged no place;
Had no new verses, nor new suit to show;
Yet went to Court!--the Devil would have it so.
But, as the fool that in reforming days
Would go to Mass in jest (as story says)
Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd,
Since 'twas no formed design of serving God;
So was I punished, as if full as proud
As prone to ill, as negligent of good,
As deep in debt, without a thought to pay, )
As vain, as idle, and as false, as they )
Who live at Court, for going once that way! ) ...




[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited December 21, 2004).]
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  #5  
Unread 12-22-2004, 03:24 PM
Mark Allinson Mark Allinson is offline
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O.K., my feeling is that - given the prevailing prosodic aesthetic on this site, which puts us pretty close to Pope's Augustan aesthetic - if Donne had posted his Satire on TDE he would have been told that his meter "is all over the shop". And before the week was out his poem would have looked pretty much like Pope's version.

But does this mean that Donne is "wrong" to write like this? Or is our internalised metrical template, our "expectation" of fairly regular metrical pattern, preventing us from enjoying Donne's syncopated, jazzy style? Because that's how I read Donne, like a jazz musician who has wandered in to a classical recital. And if you read him as he comes, letting the rhythms take care of themselves without expectation of what they "should" be doing, I find no problem with reading even these knotty satires. As Coleridge said, Donne's muse trots on a dromedary, rather than gallops on a race horse. But it still moves you along.

The Timothy Murphy of Donne's day was Ben Jonson, who also wrote in the high classical style on blocks of granite. Jonson is famously noted for having told Drummond of Hawthornden that "Donne deserved hanging for not keeping of accent." And yet Jonson could also write an epigramme such as this:


X C V I.

To John Donne.


Who shall doubt, Donne, where I a Poet be,
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTWhen I dare send my Epigrams to thee?
That so alone canst judge, so' alone do'st make:
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTAnd, in thy censures, evenly, do'st take
As free simplicity, to disavow,
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTAs thou hast best Authority, t' allow.
Read all I send: and, if I find but one
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTMark'd by thy hand, and with the better Stone,
My Title's seal'd. Those that for Claps do write,
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTLet Pui'nees, Porters, Players praise delight,
And, till they burst, their Backs, like Asses load:
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTA Man should seek great glory, and not broad.

===================

This shows the level of Jonson's regard for Donne. And this raises an interesting question for us regarding latitude in metrical verse.


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Mark Allinson

http://markallinson.netpublish.net/
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  #6  
Unread 12-22-2004, 06:59 PM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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As I said Mark. Pope could be insufferable
Janet
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  #7  
Unread 12-22-2004, 07:31 PM
Mark Allinson Mark Allinson is offline
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Ouch!

Touché!


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Mark Allinson

http://markallinson.netpublish.net/
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  #8  
Unread 12-24-2004, 01:57 AM
Katy Evans-Bush Katy Evans-Bush is offline
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Hey, no need to preach here! I revere Donne.

I know this is off the subject of St Lucy's Day, but here's my idea, which backs up yours, Mark: I write poems about difficult things, nervy situations, inner conflict, etc. I feel if I wrote in a nice smoooth pretty metre it would change the poems' meanings totally.

Right? That kind of smooth, unchallenging metre can sometimes sound a bit complacent, and gets in the way of the meaning of the poem.

What you say is right, about the prevailing aesthetic on this site. I don't get it - that idea that metrical "perfection" (if it were actually possible) IS somehow perfection. A lot of the poems on here could do with being ruffled up a bit.

I also think there's a lot we could learn in this way from Milton's meaty, satisfying textures - he never cloys.

But in the end it comes down to the ear, whatever you're trying to do. A lot of poets (I'm doing a lot of reviewing at the moment & this is the one thing I'm mainly notiicing) seem not to listen!

KEB



[This message has been edited by Katy Evans-Bush (edited December 24, 2004).]
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  #9  
Unread 12-24-2004, 02:56 AM
Mark Allinson Mark Allinson is offline
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Katy, yes I agree.

But I would go as far as saying that the expression "poets ... who don't listen" is an oxymoron. A poet who doesn't listen should give it up.

I am personally drawn two ways in this issue.

I would like the liberty to make rhythmical variations outside of the 20-30% leeway usually accorded poems on TDE, and still have the poem judged as "metrical".

But at the same time, I do love that beautiful music which comes when a certain strict regularity is punctuated with variable cadences. Without the variable cadences, a strict rhythm, which virtually equates to the meter, quickly becomes monotonous. But without the background of a fairly strict acknowledgement of the meter, the cadences lose their values and meanings.

I often feel that it comes down to this: is the voice in your poem a speaker or a singer?

The poetry all around Donne in his day (Spenser et al) was singing. And even Donne, of course, wrote "songs", some of which found their way onto the streets, set to music and sung by 17thC buskers. But mostly Donne's verse speaks, or declaims, rather than sings.

And the speaking voice has today, through the ultimate mode of speech in FV, become THE voice of poetry.

So while I love Donne, and have written many unspeakably lumpy poems, at the moment I feel more inclined toward the "phrasal sublime" mode of Spenser. The singing voice.

Then again, maybe it's getting late on Christamas Eve here in Oz, and I am too full of seasonal cheer to make much sense.





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Mark Allinson

http://markallinson.netpublish.net/
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  #10  
Unread 12-24-2004, 03:20 AM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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Katy,
I would like to say though, that not everyone who "talks about it" does it and not everybody that "doesn't talk about it" doesn't--if you catch my drift.
I was told once by a generally revered writer to dread and fear those who "talked about it" instead of bloody well writing

Just felt a need to say that. There have been rather too many self-described "experimentalists" lately and not enough writing from the heart and mind.

One lets the poem dictate the form surely? No argument from me. I just believe that a strong classical form can support some of the largest thoughts. I tend to write about things which some may call "religious" although I'm an agnostic and what I say is rarely overtly about the inner intention. I'm not saying that's the only way to write. I follow my pulse.
Janet


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited December 24, 2004).]
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