[Chris Childers]

As per Andrew and Maryann's posts on the elegiac couplets thread, it's time we had a thread on English hendecasyllabics. Clarification of terms is first in order.

All "hendecasyllables" means is a line with 11 syllables (Greek 'hen' 1 + 'deka' 10 = 11). So technically a line of iambic pentameter with a feminine ending is a hendecasyllabic, as are the first three lines of a sapphic and the first two lines of an alcaic. However, when use the term "hendecasyllabic" in English, we are generally referring to the "phalaecian hendecasyllabic," a meter most particularly associated with Catullus; in fact, so much associated with Catullus that, though I'm sure other classical poets have used it (Statius?), I don't know and can't really think of other examples. As I said on the other thread, the phalaecian hendecasyllable is like the sapphic one, except that the dactyl comes earlier. Here is the pattern:

phalaecian hendecasyllable: ---~~-~-~-~ (that second syllable can be long or short)

sapphic hendecasyllable: -~---~~-~-~

alcaic hendecasyllable: --~---~~-~-

Two famous examples of phalaecian hendecasyllables in English jump to mind right away. The first is by Tennyson, and is actually an experiment in quantity; the second is Frost's well-known "For Once, Then, Something." I will post both. Afterwards, I will be very grateful for pointers to other examples of the measure, by masters, members, or both.

Alfred Lord Tennyson
Hendecasyllabics

O you chorus of indolent reviewers,
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,
Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem
All composed in a metre of Catullus,
All in quantity, careful of my motion,
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him,
Lest I fall unawares before the people,
Waking laughter in indolent reviewers.
Should I flounder awhile without a tumble
Thro' this metrification of Catullus,
They should speak to me not without a welcome,
All that chorus of indolent reviewers.
Hard, hard, hard it is, only not to tumble,
So fantastical is the dainty meter.
Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me
Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers.
O blatant Magazines, regard me rather -
Since I blush to belaud myself a moment -
As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost
Horticultural art, or half-coquette-like
Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly.

For Once, Then, Something
By Robert Frost

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

There you have the famous ones. If I had my books around me I could post Catullus translations in the meter as well, but what about other original poems? Who knows some?

C

[R. Nemo Hill]

I took a crack at it a while back, Chris, made curious first by the Tennyson and then impressed with the Frost. This was posted on the Deep-End some years back, and subsequently appeared in Measure. I am almost certain that Tim Murphy has experimented with the meter as well, though the specific poems escape me.

Nemo


Ornithologium


I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
through the picture, a something white, uncertain.
.......................................(Robert Frost)


I believe it’s a bird concealed and calling,
cadence cramped, from a nearby rooftop garden,

perched atop an antenna draped with laundry
bleached a tropical white by blinding sun—

not a referee’s whistle fouling airwaves
sixteen stories below, directing traffic.

Caught indoors, behind windows never opened,
I’m not one to resist an unseen singer.

Riding down in this hotel elevator
squeaking pulleys and gears refuse such feathers,

serenading no more than stray mechanics
till the ring of the ground floor bell brings silence.

Briefly deafness descends. The cage door opens:
captive songsters released throughout the lobby

flood the hallways and enter hidden speakers,
reconvening in fields of tuneless static.

Though hermetically sealed by piped in muzak,
all my senses are soon stripped bare by stillness:

perched outside of a window never opened,
one inaudible pigeon, pale and cooing.


(Pinnacle Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand—1999)

[Allen Tice]

Nice, Nemo.

[Allen Tice]

I can't claim this is beyond a re-tweak since it's a translation, but I worked on it here, and in 2010 the UK Classical Association published it in its News.


                    Let’s Live !

Let’s live, Lesbia! Love, and count at much less
than one cent all the fogeys’ rumored sternness.
Our bright sun at the evening swoops, but he’ll show
up gold, glowing at dawn. For you and me, though,
once our glamorous day lets fall its quick light,
we doze on evermore in endless midnight.
Give me smooches! A thousand, then a hundred.
Now the thousand again. A second hundred.
One more thousand and, oh again a hundred,
till we’ve smooshed a tremendous fund of kisses
by your count, and must redistribute incomes
lest some evil-eye guy’ll can see the spilled sums
of our purses, and injure us with curses.


                                              —Catullus 5
                                         Translated from Latin

[Janice D. Soderling]

For those who do not have the wonderful book, here http://books.google.se/books?id=mqkl...labics&f=false is the chapter on Hendecasyllabics from An Exaltation of Forms (it's been a while since I've mentioned it!).

Several examples are given at the end of the essay, including a favorite of mine Annie Finch's Lucid Waking.

Everyone who is serious about writing formal poetry should have this book. Brilliant essays, and many are from the pen of erudite Eratospherians.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Yes, that is a great book, Janice!

Nemo

[Chris Childers]

I was looking at that book a couple nights ago but focused on something else and didn't even notice it had this chapter. Thanks, Janice!

Also, that's a lovely poem, Nemo, and an impressive translation, Allen. Good stuff!

Chris

[Allen Tice]

From you, that's high praise.
Best,
A