On Archaisms
 

On Archaisms

Yes, I will use the language of the past
And mummified cliché
Alway! Alway!
Until the last Alas! has been Alassed!

Prithee, Aaron, tell me, why this mock?
From such a gentle fellow, 'tis a shock.

Well done, Aaron N. "Prithee" is great. I think this thread will be a good place for me and other members to purge our pent-up archaisms.

I think this poem just beat itself up for its own lunch money.

Well, duh, Quincy. That was the point.

To modern speech I like to say
hip hip hip hip hip hooray,
but to language that's archaic
I feel I am compelled to say ick.

The English you find in the plays
Of Shakespeare was not like today's.
...Doth did what does does
...But none knew that doth was
Apparently only a phase.

Whoa, Roger, those are very good. You are putting me to shame.

Convinced I was 'wherefore' meant 'where':
that Juliet searched high and low
and cast her words upon the air
in hopes they'd reach her Romeo.

'Foolish knave! Wherefore means Why!'
How vexing. For upon that day
I knew I'd have to actually try
to understand the whole damn play.

I love reveling in archaisms and olde style poesie. My long sequence - over 3,000 lines so far, is a hodge-podge of various English poetical styles, from Pre-Chaucer up to Berryman & Ginsberg. I have basically mixed them all together in a bag, given it a good shake, and viola! - Something probably only I will want to read. :D But that's not exactly true. Our Spherian friend Bill Carpenter likes the work a lot and has given me strong encouragement to continue with it.

Anyway, this thread gives me a chance to post this one:


A Conversation Between Robert Browning & Wallace Stevens

xxxA fancy restaurant, circa 1925.


B: Huzzah! My friend, what thinkst thou of my poem
Sordello?

S:xxxxxxxxxxYou mean that Sordello whom
Pound mentioned in his canto?

B:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThat's the same.
Zooks, what's the hubbub there? Those waiters swivel
and swerve like dancers in Le Sacre du
Printemps. Hast seen it, Wallace? As a spirit
that lurk'd unseen, my keen unsubtanced eye
partook at—Paris, was it, or Verona?— Grr,
the memory fuddles e'en in afterlife!

S: Stravinsky's? Yes, but let's talk of Sordello.
I read the book, but like Lord Alfred, saw
but two lines that seemed lucid, and the rest
mere huff and hum, a hullabaloo of words
put on the page to make poor widows wince
and scholars' fingers rush to dusty tomes
in search of fact and date.

B:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxMere huff and hum
thou sayst? A hullabaloo of words!
Grr, Stevens, I had thought thee better read
than wincing widows. 'Zounds! that racket! Where's
my wine? But of Sordello, of my book
that critics found unworthy; my poor book
that left bluestockings and great men befuddled!
Well, Lizzy understood the thing, and more,
but what is that? The world is none the wiser
albeit a touch less patriarchal.

S:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Hah!
Sweet Robert, have you found the time to look
at my Comedian as the Letter C?
Of all the scribblers come to Kingdom Come
I fancy you would find it to your taste.

B: What? Did you speak? Hoorah! The wine at last!
But hold, good sir, what's this? I said your best
chianti, in the bottle! Take the glass
and bring a bottle; but make sure, thou knave,
the cork is stuck! If not, I'll have thy hide!
Lo! there he scampers. I'd not have his hide,
poor scamp, for I have yet a heart in me.

S: Forget it, Bob. Now where's that menu? Ah!

B: Zooks! Look!

S:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThese prices! Ho! Harrumph. Harrumph.