Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Crocker
So you were born in wrong time. You bemoan your fate in the language of the time you wish you were born in. It’s a nice conceit.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Slater
you do create a context (wishing you were born in a different era) that makes using archaic language perfectly acceptable
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Yes, this sonnet is an enjoyable and self-justifying use of archaic language. And you seem to be linking nostalgia for Early Modern English to nostalgia for your own infancy, which is interesting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Crocker
My main difficulty is that you were not in fact born in 17th or 18th century, and I cannot be sure you are using the language as it would actually have been used at that time.
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I’ve had the same doubt. Matt and I both asked whether you had a target period in mind or were happy with a language that just sounded archaic. I guessed that your last poem was mid to late seventeenth century, but this one, with its nostalgia for “thou” and “ye” points back to 1600 or earlier. I’m far from an expert on any of this, but you should watch out for things like:
- “you wert thou”—The subject is “you,” so the verb should be “were,” regardless of period.
- “Those selfsame stars … Hath waned”—As Roger has mentioned, “stars” is plural, so the verb should be “have.”
A few more thoughts:
You shift from “Were I” (= If I were) to “been” (≈ “If I had been) in the first two lines, and I’m not sure this works very well. I’d be happier if the first line were:
Had I been born to years before mine own,
I don’t think the inversion in S1L4 needs a comma after “antique stars,” but punctuation followed different rules in earlier periods, so I can’t say that with confidence.
I don’t understand the use of “Upon” in S2L1: “I’d count myself among my kind upon their tongues”?
The mix of present perfect (hath/have waned) and simple past (did fade) in S3 is questionable, though the archaic wording makes it less noticeable. Would you write “The stars have waned as their embers faded”? The perfect is admittedly a slippery tense, but it sounds odd to me. The sentence is also a bit redundant—along the lines of “He ate the bun as he swallowed its crumbs.”
The alliteration in S3L2 is nicely reminiscent of Anglo-Saxon verse.