deep, deep
poetry, theology March 31st, 2008I Kings 21; Ecclesiastes 7:15-8:1
Behold the king! His en’vous eyes devour
Neighbor’s flowing vineyard till sleep is slain.
Barking queen’s dolts plot doom through dark glower;
Hurl rocks til righteous Naboth feels no pain.
Stumbling headlong into deep upon deep,
Fumbling in a dark cave, I sought to know
Why fate causes good men fals’ly to reap
A hard harvest they did not think or sow.
But closer glance no vindication finds
For only one in two thousand prevail
A little good, some cream atop mankind’s
Endless cursing and finally cursed tale.
Blame not Yahweh for life’s futility;
Depraved man is cause for grave mystery.
March 31st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I couldn’t resist putting together a version of this myself:
His eyes devoured the vineyard, and his queen
Judiciously took steps to buy the peace,
Purchasing witnesses to sights unseen,
By perjury trespassing Naboth’s piece,
The site God gave him: Would you know
Why good men, with the wicked, seem to reap
The harvest neither planned or wished to sow?
We dig within these plots for roots sunk deep,
But nothing we can dig up stills our minds.
I scan two thousand faces for one tale
Of goodness floating free, but each glance finds
The crowds still cursed and cursing, born to wail:
God grants for sight this evil that we see
Borne out in violence He bought for me.
PGE 3-31-2008
Hope you’ll keep it up, the ranks of sonnetteers can use expanding.
This English form works best if the quatrains are syntactically closed, which I violated, but I did so because I think keeping the sentences flowing through the rhyme/meter turns out to be more important.
Cheers,
PGE
March 31st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Peter,
I was really hoping you would finally comment on a sonnet and provide some guidance. I know you are a pro. I have not attempted one until recently since college days, but hope to keep it up a bit. It is really fun to try and capture Sunday’s sermon after spending time in the text. Not sure how long I can keep it up. I really appreciate your work.
I knew the quatrains should be a unit, and have read that the first introduces the theme or metaphor, the second an extension of the theme or metaphor, the third a conflict, and the final couplet a summarization, sometimes with a new emphasis. Is this accurate?
April 1st, 2008 at 8:20 am
I’m also fumbling my way into it, so I ought not presume to speak, but I will anyway.
I can’t help noticing, Jon, that Peter’s lines go along more smooth and elegant. His lines scan nicely.
~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /
“His eyes devoured the vineyard, and his queen”
~ / ~ / ? / ~ / ~ /
“Behold! the king’s envious eyes devour”
You’re missing a pause after king’s; if you try:
Behold the king! His envious eyes devour
or
Behold! The king with envious eyes devours
It will feel more polished just because you have a steady meter. Whether or not you’re after that, I think it is very fine. I am sure somebody with experience has little need to do this, but I split up my syllables (mostly–according to the natural accent of the word) when I’m trying and it helps me to be able to count.
You know, if you could work in allusions to Jezebel barking or snapping or other such things, I think it would be poetic.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:21 am
Bah!! Stupid non-space including comment thing!
April 1st, 2008 at 9:03 am
Thanks, Joel. That is very helpful and just the kind of criticism I seek. In the first line I was wrestling with just how one pronounces “envious” and came down to three syllables, but I think you could get away with, “Behold the king! His envious eyes devour,” without a problem and the cadence is better. I’ll make the change.
Amazing how one’s brain begins to think
In lines that rhyme and fit without a blink.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:37 pm
My prof at TMC, who would often show up in class on Tuesday with a sonnet written after a conversation Monday afternoon, used to call this “the pentameter habit.” Point being, iambic pentameter provides the widest range of possibilities for exploiting the rhythmic and aural features of Modern Standard English; but it requires a particular habit of cadence to fit it into sentences.
I would say that in your line “en-vyus” in two syllables is the way to pronounce the word. This is the fun of the iambic rhythm. Look at the differences among these fragments of verses:
his envious eyes devoured (iambic)
his ENvyus EYES deVOURd
envious love, constrained consuming fire (iambic)
ENvious LOVE, conSTRAINED conSUMing FIRE
Envy us not our passing moments here (iambic)
ENvy us NOT our PASSing MOments HERE
anointing his envious eyes (not iambic)
aNOINting his ENvious EYES
…if you listen to the cadence of the phrase, you’ll see it is just as natural to say “envyus” in some environments as “envious” in others. But to say “envy us” as “envyus” would be pushing too far, in most formal verse, I think.
I usually write the Petrarchan, rather than the English, sonnet, so I’m admittedly a trifle fuzzy on the conventions for the English (and, BTW, it matters whether you work in Shakespearean or Spenserian, for your rhymes and developments).
I’ll say this: sonnetteers over the past several centuries have rung quite a few changes on the uses of the form. I would tend to suggest that any intentional and effective use of the form that you make is reasonable, though you can challenge yourself by adding more strictures or trying to work more closely to this or that model.
Here’s one of my all-time favorites from Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in the Petrarchan form:
Two Sayings, The
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Two savings of the Holy Scriptures beat
Like pulses in the Church’s brow and breast;
And by them we find rest in our unrest
And, heart deep in salt-tears, do yet entreat
God’s fellowship as if on heavenly seat.
The first is JESUS WEPT,–whereon is prest
Full many a sobbing face that drops its best
And sweetest waters on the record sweet:
And one is where the Christ, denied and scorned
LOOKED UPON PETER. Oh, to render plain
By help of having loved a little and mourned,
That look of sovran love and sovran pain
Which HE, who could not sin yet suffered, turned
On him who could reject but not sustain !
Cheers,
PGE
April 1st, 2008 at 7:48 pm
oops. EBB titled that “The Two Sayings,” and the clunky website I got it from mushed that. Go figure.
Oh, BTW: generally, we don’t bother with using apostrophes to represent elided sounds (you can just write “defended” and “enthralled” and not bother with “enthrall’d” now). If you think about it, when you pronounce “envious” as two or as three syllables, all the same sounds are still there; what has changed is quantity (the length of time you spend saying the sounds). It’s not like Milton’s favorite trick of writing “spirit” (SPEE-rit or spee-RITE in that day) as “sprite” (SPRITE) when it suited his meter. English didn’t have standard orthography, then.
April 1st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Peter,
That is VERY helpful and relieves a bit of the pressure. I shall press on and strive to do better. Do not hesitate to critique to the fullest.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Greetings! I’m just going to jump in here with some advice, one amateur to another. The sonnet is a remarkably flexible form. Yes, it has a lot of rules and regulations, which are all part of the fun, but you’ll notice that many of the most well-known sonneteers in history (Petrarch, Spencer, Shakespeare, Hopkins) have all modified the form somewhat. For those just trying it out, I do suggest strict adherence to one variation or another, and then start experimenting. I recently wrote a short “English†sonnet sequence in which each sextet had a different order of rhyme. Whether it worked or not I don’t know, but it sure was fun to do! It really took the pressure off to write a couplet to end each one. As it is, I think I have two couplets in the sequence. I got this technique from W. H. Auden, who used it in some sonnet sequences he wrote.
One other thing that works inside the sonnet is the slant rhyme. The final couplet of the English sonnet should, of course, be a true rhyme, but other rhymes can be slants (e.g. slant/want; pain/again; move/roof), which really frees things up in our rhyme-poor language. (There’s a reason the sonnet began in Italian—lots and lots of available rhymes!) To me the Italian sonnet with its four necessary rhymes always sounds a little contrived to my ear. Yes, yes, all poetry is contrivance, but I mean that one of the rhymes usually sounds forced. That said, I’ve read some darn good ones, so to you who write them, keep it up!
April 4th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Thanks! I am glad you chimed in. Even more pressure relieved…and I agree on the seeming “contrivance” of the Italian sonnet. It is apparent that even the pros take a great deal of liberty with their rhyme and meter.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Do *not* listen to my friend, colleague, and fellow church member (in Texas), the honourable Mr. (soon to be Dr.) Schuler about slant rhyme!
Many a good poet has been ruined by using “slant rhyme” as synonymous with “easier than rhyme.” Slant can come into play in poetry, legitimately, but making it other than a cause of dissatisfaction to the attuned reader is harder than it seems.
Innovating within (against?) the forms is part of the joy of working with forms, though. My larger sonnet cycle used an uncommon sestet rhyme scheme (and Auden was my excuse for the innovation, too, oddly) of cdeedc, producing a “mirroring” that seemed to offer me lots of chances to make my theme structure (the cycle had a “mirrored” pattern overall) crop up regularly in the individual sonnets. I also often like to use cddcee, though cdcdee is the most common Petrarchan scheme.
The Italian sonnet’s demands are more noticeable, but I have always found the Spenserian to be the most difficult and contrived sonnet. But form is *innately* contrivance, and the question is how cleverly (and effectively) we can contrive to exploit all the features of language together.
Thanks for chiming in, M. Schuler!
Cheers,
PGE
April 4th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Who would have thunk our little church blog would become a forum for the discussion of sonneteering?
April 4th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
well, when I can be bothered to get my own blog up & running a bit more, I’ll put some up.
Actually, I’ve got a couple up at my new (but not much travelled, intentionally) blog: blog.inkanblot.com
Cheers,
PGE
April 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Well, PGE, that can’t go unanswered. My esteemed friend disparages slant rhyme, but I protest! All poetic devices have legitimate functions, and many (most? all?) can be easily over-used and abused. Slant rhymes can be effective if used precisely to achieve a certain effect. And you can often work them into a recognizable structure. In an ababcdcd rhyme scheme, for example, you could make a and c true rhymes and b and d slants, thus building the technique into the regularity of the pattern.
Now, I don’t encourage using slants merely as a loophole to get out of the demands of true rhyme. Use them intentionally as you would use any other technique, such as true rhyme, alliteration, assonance, etc. Slant rhyme is especially good for reinforcing a sense of ambiguity or indeterminacy in a poem, since it uses resemblance that acknowledges difference. Form and content should always create a unified impression on the reader.
As to devices that ruin poetry, really, I’ve heard an awful lot of would-be poets force themselves to fill in drivel behind an obligatory rhyming word. And not all slants are created equal—you have to trust your ear here. A very good slant often fools the ear into thinking it has heard a real rhyme. (Also remember that certain words that are true rhymes in one English dialect are slants in others, and those differences can suggest interesting possibilities for innovative slants.)
As to the original poem that started this whole discussion, I see it’s not tied down to strict iambics, so I assume that the author is open to innovations within the form. That’s why I suggested the possibility of using slants; it seems you’re interested in some experimentation.
I’m done now.
Anyway, keep posting those sonnets. I’d love to see more of this.
April 5th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
You know, Jon, I am glad you and Champ have taken up this new blog. Where else would I find such an eclectic array of interesting things to think about?
I’m still hoping for more discussion of Frank Brown, though!
Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
April 7th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Prof Schuler (hey, ya got the job, anyway)
You’re right about the uses. But I would urge mastery of the basic rhyme / meter scheme (at least to the level where one can use grammatical modern English without “breaking” the form) before too much experimentation.
Having said that, my first “finished” poems that were sonnet-like were in tetrameter, rather then pentameter, so we’re well into “more than one way to skin a cat” territory, here.
And there’s no way I can argue about cat-skinning with a guy whose dog is named Milton.
Cheers,
PGE