Poetry discussion group

[JBI]

In the recent postings by Poetinahat and Appalachian Writer, it seems that a lot of people are interested in bettering, if not perfecting their style and skill at writing poetry. The general consensus seems to show that many posters want to take their verses to the next level, and create poems as well written as possible.

Of course, I think the best way to improve poetry is to read other poets and learn from them, and to share thoughts on other poets, and other poet's techniques. This is fine, using the critique board, which helps, but I think it would also be beneficial to perhaps have certain famous works discussed routinely, and analyzed, in hope of learning new tricks and styles, and gain exposure to new poets, and new views on familiar poets.

What I am trying to suggest, is that perhaps someone can choose a poet, or an anthology of poetry, and we can perhaps, as a group, try to come up with some feelings and conclusions on technical aspects of the poetry. The book club thread seems to be quite silent in terms of poetry, and I think this sort of discussion would help give more poets more exposure to different styles, and different periods of literature that have previously been neglected for lack of information.

Any takers?

[Ken]

I've been thinking the same thing for awhile.
I'd definitely be game to participate in such a forum/thread.
When you mentioned Prufock on the other thread I went and re-read it.
There are some sections in this awesome poem that I don't understand,
like "streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent."
Would be neat to post a part of that mutually appreciated poem,
or some other classic one of yore, and discuss it from a variety of standpoints.

[poetinahat]

Great idea, JBI. Would you recommend a book to start?

I'd also mention the Rate-a-Poem threads in Poetry Discussion, and the Blind Spots thread as well. Just, you know, for other ideas.

[Medievalist]

My first thought was the Norton Anthology of Poetry, which covers poetry in English, from the tenth century to a couple years ago--it's lovely, and encompassing, and huge and about fifty bucks.

So now I'm thinking The Seagull Reader, which just came out in a second edition last year, and is easy to hold and read, and is about twenty bucks, and covers English and American, and all time periods.

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/titles/english/seagull2/contents_poems2.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Seagull-Reader-Poems-Second/dp/0393930939/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1207288550&sr=11-1


I also really like The Making of a Poem, but it too is huge and costly.

http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring01/032178.htm

[JBI]

I'm thinking to go with more personal anthologies, and start with ones that are available in the public domain to start, so canonical works.

How about Lyric Ballads as a starting point? or perhaps something earlier, like Marvell or Donne.

I'm skeptical about the major anthologies, because I feel (I have only read an early edition of the Norton one) that they offer a wide range, but not enough specifics. It's a good place to start as an introduction to poetry, but not nearly as specific, or as personal as I would hope for specific discussion.

[Medievalist]

Err.... there's this (http://www.lisaspangenberg.com/teaching/materials/literature/poetry_anthology.html), if you'd like.

I created it for an intro to lit class a few years ago.

[poetinahat]

Another idea: maybe The Rubaiyat? Of course, quatrain after quatrain may be tedious.

I think Marvell and Donne are excellent ideas for starting points.

Or we could go for a full Chaucerization: Lisa could just conduct the whole workshop in Middle English.

[Ken]

* rubbing hands in anticipation *

[Appalachian Writer]

Looking forward to talking about some works. I have a few in mind, but I have to check the public domain thing before I post. That's always such a pain. Maybe I could suggest reading things that aren't in public domain. What do ya think?

[Sarita]

First off, I love this idea. I'm in!

Secondly:

Err.... there's this (http://www.lisaspangenberg.com/teaching/materials/literature/poetry_anthology.html), if you'd like.

I created it for an intro to lit class a few years ago. Lisa! Thanks. That's an amazing resource. I'd love to work with an anthology like this. Great span of poets and time periods.

Another thought:

How cool would it be to book the chat room, say every Thursday night at 9pm (or whenever) so that we could discuss specific poems in detail?

[JBI]

Hmm that's an idea, we would have to agree on a day though, and I think Thursday and Saturday are already reserved.

[JBI]

Alright, how about this selection, provided graciously by the University of Toronto, for us to start: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/98.html

There should be plenty of excellent annotations to help us read more clearly.

[JBI]

And I guess, from that collection, we can start with this one, my personal favorite, and an extremely rich, and yielding poem.

Song

1Go and catch a falling star,
2 Get with child a mandrake root,
3Tell me where all past years are,
4 Or who cleft the devil's foot,
5Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
6Or to keep off envy's stinging,
7 And find
8 What wind
9Serves to advance an honest mind.

10If thou be'st born to strange sights,
11 Things invisible to see,
12Ride ten thousand days and nights,
13 Till age snow white hairs on thee,
14Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
15All strange wonders that befell thee,
16 And swear,
17 No where
18Lives a woman true, and fair.

19If thou find'st one, let me know,
20 Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
21Yet do not, I would not go,
22 Though at next door we might meet;
23Though she were true, when you met her,
24And last, till you write your letter,
25 Yet she
26 Will be
27False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Notes

2] mandrake root: a forked root supposed to resemble the human shape. Always male.
Mermaids, I would note also are genderless, and only lead to destruction of sailors who hear their singing, and are drawn towards cliffs.


I would also like to question, perhaps, if Donne is punning on the first line, with Falling Star, as reference to both the impossible feat, and the inconstant woman, mentioned bellow.

[Ken]

how 'bout a line by line break down of what each line might mean, for starts.
Maybe just lines 1-9 for starts.

[JBI]

1Go and catch a falling star, Impossible. Star can also be in reference to the unnamed woman's virginity.
2 Get with child a mandrake root, This is also impossible because a) all Mandrake Roots are male, and b) they get castrated when dug up from the ground (according to Donne's sources).
3Tell me where all past years are, This literally means, I think stop time, or relive time.
4 Or who cleft the devil's foot, This is also impossible, because no one knows.
5Teach me to hear mermaids singing, The sirens song meant death to anyone who heard them, with the exception of Odysseus.
6Or to keep off envy's stinging, This Donne uses to allude to the fact that every person is envious
7 And find
8 What wind
9Serves to advance an honest mind. And this is used humorously, talking about how no one helps the honest.

[Ken]

good job JBI! Have to study these a bit and think them over.
One technical question I have: Is "wind" pronounced why-nd so it rhymes with "find" and "mind?" If so do examples in other poems follow suit, in accordance with the ways words used to be pronounced? When reciting poems, aloud, I never am sure if I'm doing so correctly.

[Medievalist]

good job JBI! Have to study these a bit and think them over.
One technical question I have: Is "wind" pronounced why-nd so it rhymes with "find" and "mind?" If so do examples in other poems follow suit, in accordance with the ways words used to be pronounced? When reciting poems, aloud, I never am sure if I'm doing so correctly.

Donne's making a pun; "wind" is pronounced like the verb, as in "to wind"--like a watch, which is the underlying metaphor of "serves to advance an honest mind." Note too that the noun "wind" is also at play, wind as a propelling force, and that links directly to the nature/science dichotomy Donne obsesses over.

Honest here is also a pun; meaning honest or "true," and honest or "chaste."

[JBI]

Anis, how about you do the next stanza?

[Ken]

a pun on wind? Wow, I'd never have guess that in a million years...or 2 billion ticks of the clock as it were. That really sheds light on the stanza.

Only thing I was able to glean myself, with JBI's explanations, was that it might be in reference to the immaculate conception: star falling from heavens, mandrake root impossibly begetting a child.

Will try my hand at second stanza. Try to refrain from laughter. If nothing else my lame interpretation may give you both an idea of how off base many average readers are when trying to grasp the meaning of a poem, without the requisite knowledge for a proper evaluation. Here (gulp, gulp) goes:

10If thou be'st born to strange sights,
11 Things invisible to see,
12Ride ten thousand days and nights,
13 Till age snow white hairs on thee,
14Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
15All strange wonders that befell thee,
16 And swear,
17 No where
18Lives a woman true, and fair.

Well this entire stanza actually seems pretty straighfoward.
Donne is praising the woman by asking readers to traverse 10,000 days into the future and to see if they don't find any woman as comparable in charms as she.
I'm particularly intrigued by "snow white hairs" as a way of describing our age as hypothetical time travelers. Why the use of "snow," and not some other word?

chuckle, chuckle: Donne's specific mention of "nights," as well as "days," to imply that the woman's chasity/trueness is also to be contrasted and compared, which would be a piece of cake in these liberated times of our own ;)

How about helping out with the interpretation/critique of the last stanza Medievalist...
(much appreciated)

[JBI]

I'm not sure I agree with your reading with the second stanza, but I will wait for more people to comment on it.

[Medievalist]

2] mandrake root: a forked root supposed to resemble the human shape. Always male.


Err, no, not always male. There are references in early texts, texts that Donne would have known, to both male and female roots. The other names of the mandrake are Mandragora and May Apple (http://www.bartleby.com/61/52/M0075200.html). Here's some more (http://www.bartleby.com/61/40/M0164000.html). If you look at the pictures here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake_(plant)) you can see why it's also called May Apple.

Donne was exceedingly well-read and vastly over educated; I suspect Milton was the only person who would have given him a run for his money, in that respect. So he knew that Pliny and Dioscorides discuss the mandrake as a soporiphic and aphrodisiac. In fact in another poem, The Progresse of the soule," Donne says that when Satan plucked the apple and gave it to Eve, the apple's soul fled and inhabited a plant in the soil nearby:

XV.

His right arm he thrust out towards the east,
Westward his left; the ends did themselves digest
Into ten lesser strings, these fingers were:
And, as a slumberer, stretching on his bed,
This way he this, and that way scattered
His other leg, which feet with toes upbear;
Grew on his middle part, the first day, hair.
To shew that in love's business he should still
A dealer be, and be used, well or ill:
His apples kindle, his leaves force of conception kill.

XVI.

A mouth, but dumb, he hath; blind eyes, deaf ears,
And to his shoulders dangle subtle hairs;
A young Colossus there he stands upright;
And, as that ground by him were conquered,
A lazy garland wears he on his head
Enchased with little fruits so red and bright,
That for them ye would call your love's lips white;
So of a lone unhaunted place possess'd,
Did this Soul's second inn, built by the guest,
This living buried man, this quiet mandrake, rest.

XVII.

No lustful woman came this plant to grieve,
But 'twas because there was none yet but Eve,
And she (with other purpose) killed it quite:
Her sin had now brought in infirmities,
And so her cradled child the moist-red eyes
Had never shut, nor slept, since it saw light:
Poppy she knew, she knew the mandrake's might,
And tore up both, and so cooled her child's blood.
Unvirtuous weeds might long unvexed have stood,
But he's short-lived that with his death can do most good.

In Genesis 30:14 Reuben finds mandrakes growing in a field, and gives them to his mother. His mother, Leah, is one of Jacob's wives, as is her sister Rachel. Rachel wants the mandrakes and trades a night in Jacob's bed for the mandrakes. Leah, who had not conceived for a long time, then bore a son.

There's a tradition in Hebrew commentary for mandrake as an aphrodesiac, which makes sense given the references in the Song of Solomen/Canticles 7:13.

There were also folklore beliefs that under proper growing conditions that the mandrake would in fact sprout a human.

I think, then, that among other ideas in the line "Get with child a mandrake root," is essentially suggesting that, among other "impossible" things, that the mandrake, the plant that makes women pregnant, will itself become pregnant.

There's also a bit of what modern critical theory calls gender fuck, as JBI notes; the idea of a "male" plant becoming pregnant, for instance.

[JBI]

Can someone, in addition to writing analysis of the third, begin analysis of the prosody of the poem?

[JBI]

Thank you for the information Lisa.

[Medievalist]

Only thing I was able to glean myself, with JBI's explanations, was that it might be in reference to the immaculate conception: star falling from heavens, mandrake root impossibly begetting a child.

I think maybe that the idea of virginity is a red herring.

There's a rhetorical tradition associated very strongly with the University tradition of Donne's time of assigning orations on paradoxical themes, like the value of a flea, or that women can be chaste. Thes prose paradoxes were an exercise in wit, more a mock oration than one to be taken seriously.

Donne actually wrote a number of these, and one of them is about women's inability to be constant, or faithful. In Donne's Paradox VI: That it is possible to find Some Virtue in Women, he provides spurious instances of feminine virtue, or “fortitude”:

consider how valiant men they have overthrown, and being themselves overthrown, how much and how patiently they bear.” Concluding “it is my great happiness that examples prove not rules, for to confirm this opinion, the world yields not one example.

Again, notice that Donne has a thing for using one word with two meanings.

If we look back at the second stanza:

10 If thou be'st born to strange sights,
11 Things invisible to see,
12 Ride ten thousand days and nights,
13 Till age snow white hairs on thee,
14 Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
15 All strange wonders that befell thee,
16 And swear,
17 No where
18 Lives a woman true, and fair.

The basic argument of this poem, with its references to things that are impossible, like catching a falling star, getting a mandrake root pregnant, seeing invisible things, etc., is that it is just as impossible to find a woman who is both true (meaning truthful, and sexually faithful) and fair, that is, attractive.

This is a standard misogynistic trope, a commonplace, if you will.

This is, by the way, an actual song--Donne did apparently set it to music, as did several other contemporary and near-contemporaries.

[Ken]

Knowledge of a poet's stylistic manner of grammatical construction would seem helpful too in deciphering the meaning of lines, like: "Get with child a mandrake root." How would this be rearranged into an ordinary sentence, by Donne and other poets of the time. Probably no general standard, but still some fixed parameters I'd suppose. So along with an examination of prosody (have no clue what this is, shamed to say) how about a rewrite of the stanzas into conventional english?

Thanks Lisa. Now I completely understand the 2nd stanza. Didn't know that misogyny was so rampant back then. My only near familarity with the era comes from reading 18th century novels, based on 17th century ones, which had heroines in them like Clarissa Harlowe.

[LimeyDawg]

Here, Donne seems to be saying that, even if your life is one of wonder, one out of the ordinary, even through the entire length of that life, even though you will have tales of wonderous things, that you will still not find a beautiful woman who is true.

I recall a discussion I once had with another (much more educated) person than I, about how people in Donne's time spoke. She told me that it sounded a little like a person speaking English with a scandinavian accent. I keep this in mind when reading this, because the pronunciation was much different, and probably compounds some of the problems we find when reading Donne's work. It is also a whole lot of fun to try reading it whilst pretending I have a little Scandinavian in my accent...



10If thou be'st born to strange sights,
11 Things invisible to see,
12Ride ten thousand days and nights,
13 Till age snow white hairs on thee,
14Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
15All strange wonders that befell thee,
16 And swear,
17 No where
18Lives a woman true, and fair.

[Medievalist]

I recall a discussion I once had with another (much more educated) person than I, about how people in Donne's time spoke. She told me that it sounded a little like a person speaking English with a scandinavian accent. I keep this in mind when reading this, because the pronunciation was much different, and probably compounds some of the problems we find when reading Donne's work. It is also a whole lot of fun to try reading it whilst pretending I have a little Scandinavian in my accent...

Yes; it's a much broader British dialect than we mostly hear today; I love Burton's readings of Donne because Burton understands the way the broader vowels work.

Prosody is an erudite way of saying, essentially, the poem's meter.

Donne likes to screw with meter, he really really likes to screw with meter. It was one of the criticisms of his work in earlier eras that, as Ben Jonson is said to have said, "Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging."

But for me, Donne's use of rhetorical figures is much more interesting, especially the way he likes to subvert and switch nouns and verbs--as in "til age snow white hairs on thee" -- which does all sorts of lovely things, and can be read in a couple of different ways.

[LimeyDawg]

I like the way "and fair." is offset by the comma. It's as if Donne is saying that the rules are different for "fair" women, which of course....is absolutely right. A fair woman will have no need to be true, or no fear of the consequences. It's an absolute that holds true, even today...

[LimeyDawg]

10If thou be'st born to strange sights,
11 Things invisible to see,
12Ride ten thousand days and nights,
13 Till age snow white hairs on thee,
14Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
15All strange wonders that befell thee,
16 And swear,
17 No where
18Lives a woman true, and fair.

The meter is interesting because it is trochaic(except L16/L17, and L15, where some substitution happens). Of course, an understanding of the pronunciation of the age helps. In L1 "strange" would sound more like "strange-ee" and would constitute a foot by itself. Donne also makes use of tailless trochees, and offers a study in the mastery of the natural flow of language as it relates to poetry. It's an excellent study in the antithesis of our preferred iambic meter. It's also interesting that he uses iambic meter in L16/L17 to emphasize the point of the poem and call attention to what might well denote the volta, although I'm not sure the term applies here (volta means "turn" or "twist", I think...as it relates to poetry).

[JBI]

The ending, I think, is referring to Donne himself, when he mentions and I come, to two, three. perhaps the and I come refers to him womanizing on the fair and virtuous woman.

Which I guess can be interpreted as a nice witty remark that is both comical, and paradoxical.

[Medievalist]

The meter is interesting because it is trochaic (except L16/L17, and L15, where some substitution happens). Of course, an understanding of the pronunciation of the age helps. In L1 "strange" would sound more like "strange-ee" and would constitute a foot by itself.

Strange is already a single syllable word in Donne's time; remember, it's Early Modern English, not Middle English. I'd argue that both phonemically and accentually, "strange sights" would both be strong beats. The alliteration and the fact that both are accented words naturally lend credence, I think, to two strong beats, (spondee) though the dominant meter is trochaic tetrameter. Donne likes, very much, to mess with us, and it's worth remembering too that meter also varies with the reader; one could certainly read the line as trochaic tetrameter all the way.

[Medievalist]

The ending, I think, is referring to Donne himself, when he mentions and I come, to two, three. perhaps the and I come refers to him womanizing on the fair and virtuous woman.

Which I guess can be interpreted as a nice witty remark that is both comical, and paradoxical.

Well, no, there I disagree strongly; there is no virtuous woman in the poem. The central tenet of the poem is that if you-the-reader managed to find a virtuous woman, by the time Donne got there, said woman would already have been unfaithful ("false") to two or three previous lovers. The argument of the poem is that it is impossible for a woman to be chaste/virtuous/faithful.

Regarding "come" -- are you suggesting that Donne is using come as a synonym for orgasm? The earlies attestation for that is 1650, according to the OED (s.v come II.17); Donne died in 1630 and this poem is generally dated before his 1602 secret marriage to Anne More.

[JBI]

No I used it in reference to him and the person he is speaking to. There is a unseen person who he is teasing, it seems to me, with the song.

[JBI]

Never mind, it seems I misread it. Thought it said here and not ere. My mistake. He is using come in reference to him seeing the feat, and singing 2, 3.

[kdnxdr]

Song

1Go and catch a falling star,
2 Get with child a mandrake root,
3Tell me where all past years are,
4 Or who cleft the devil's foot,
5Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
6Or to keep off envy's stinging,
7 And find
8 What wind
9Serves to advance an honest mind.

I hope ya'll will allow me my own ignorant attempt to participate in this dialogue. I'm uneducated about grammar, history, literature.

I find lines 1 through 9 to be a challenge to the reader, tongue in cheek, if you will. As of line 10, I feel the challenge is specifically directed to a particular reader or "caste" of readers. Line 10 also seems to be mocking.

Line 11 references the first 9.

The second part of the challenge, lines 12, 13 and 14.

Line 14 alludes sarcastically to the poet's willingness to "be told". like a dare.

Lines 16, 17, 18 seems to be the "heart" of the poem, given as an ultimatum, or absolute.

Lines 19 through 27 is, for me, no more than the poet bragging of his own sexual prowess at seduction. I see no more than a "typical" male singing his bravado to his "fraternity", the audiences laughs, chugs beers all night and spends the eveing composing material for more victory songs.

If this was historically written before his secret(?) marriage (curious as to why secret?), maybe it was read at is bacholor's party????

My "two"; thank you for letting me play.

10If thou be'st born to strange sights,
11 Things invisible to see,
12Ride ten thousand days and nights,
13 Till age snow white hairs on thee,
14Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
15All strange wonders that befell thee,
16 And swear,
17 No where
18Lives a woman true, and fair.

19If thou find'st one, let me know,
20 Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
21Yet do not, I would not go,
22 Though at next door we might meet;
23Though she were true, when you met her,
24And last, till you write your letter,
25 Yet she
26 Will be
27False, ere I come, to two, or three.

PS: I'm curious, wasn't the 1600's known for it's bawdy songs?

[Ken]

Do people have an intrinsic feel of meter, enabling them to partially appreciate the meter and rhythm of a poem w/o any formal education?

Thanks Limey, for the explanation below this comment.
I wonder where our innate/or learned poetic ears come from.
Odd that nature should have imbibed us with such a capacity,
though I guess it ties in completly with out ability to communicate,
which is necessary for survival.

[LimeyDawg]

Do people have an intrinsic feel of meter, enabling them to partially appreciate the meter and rhythm of a poem w/o any formal education?

This is one of those "it depends" answers. If the meter is well established, I don't think it matters if the reader has any formal education. It helps, as is the case in Donne's work, to know a little about meter, but even here the meter will come through, although it might take a few reads to get that portion right. I DO think that learning about meter, practicing scansion and such, helps identify meter more readily, but it's not so important to know what a trochee or an iamb is in order to enjoy poetry. Just like baking, you don't have to know the recipe to enjoy the cake.

[Medievalist]

I find lines 1 through 9 to be a challenge to the reader, tongue in cheek, if you will. As of line 10, I feel the challenge is specifically directed to a particular reader or "caste" of readers. Line 10 also seems to be mocking.

Line 14 alludes sarcastically to the poet's willingness to "be told". like a dare.

Yeah, it really does have an "I dare you" tone, doesn't it!

One of the things I like so very much about Donne's poems is that despite their complicated, even bizarre syntax, they tend to be very verbally direct, even conversational.


If this was historically written before his secret(?) marriage (curious as to why secret?), maybe it was read at is bacholor's party????

More was the niece of Donne's employer at the time, and a teenager. Donne' lost his job when the marriage was discovered, and he and More remained on the edge of poverty for several years and several children before things improved.

PS: I'm curious, wasn't the 1600's known for it's bawdy songs?

It was, and Donne is no stranger to the bawdy and the overtly erotic. His best known poems are love poems, and are passionate, sensual and intellectual at once.

[Medievalist]

It helps, as is the case in Donne's work, to know a little about meter, but even here the meter will come through, although it might take a few reads to get that portion right. I DO think that learning about meter, practicing scansion and such, helps identify meter more readily, but it's not so important to know what a trochee or an iamb is in order to enjoy poetry. Just like baking, you don't have to know the recipe to enjoy the cake.

Yeah. You can hear or feel the meter, the rhythmic pulse of the beat without knowing what it's called; it just makes it easier to talk about if you have names.

There's a pretty decent intro here (http://www2.one-eyed-alien.net/~ayelton/Writing/meter.html). Pay no mind to the title.

[Ken]

thnx. 1/3 throu intro. have to take a breather. heavy stuff; huff, huff.

Of course I'll have to end all my lines on unstressed syllables from now on as I aspire to sound odd. Know of any poets (or writers) who strive for such an effect, of oddity, or unnaturalness, as if their words were being got out through a meat grinder? I think a lot of translated works unintentionally end up like this to an extent.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

much thnx to lisa, and the leader of the AW outfit, too.
Familiar with Eliot, not so much so with the others.
Think I'll start with Pound first.
Saw a bio on tv about him.
He had a pretty miserable personality.
So we have that in common ;)
1832? Cool to have such a specific cut off date.
Mine is 1951.

[Medievalist]

thnx. 1/3 throu intro. have to take a breather. heavy stuff; huff, huff.

Of course I'll have to end all my lines on unstressed syllables from now on as I aspire to sound odd. Know of any poets (or writers) who strive for such an effect, of oddity, or unnaturalness, as if their words were being got out through a meat grinder? I think a lot of translated works unintentionally end up like this to an extent.

Not so sure about the meatgrinder effect, but yes, lots of poets, particularly those from this century and the previous one, do want to make the reader a little uncomfortable as a way of making us notice the words.

That said, I'm sorta stupid about poetry after oh, say 1832. I know a few I like, and some of 'em are living, still, even, but you might want to talk to Haskins or PoetInahat.

Yeats, and Elliot did this sort of thing; MacCannister has reminded me that Pound did, too. Also Hopkins very much did this, and Dylan Thomas, both of whom looked to earlier poetic traditions.

There's a poet I quite like that MacCannister pointed to too -- Richard Hugo (http://members.aol.com/JoanDaugh/poems.html), who does interesting things with sound.

[kdnxdr]

Midievalist,

Thank you for the feedback.

I especially enjoyed the info regarding meter. I stuck the link in my favorites so I can go back and study it closer.

kid

[JBI]

If we are done on this poem, someone can select another from the list.

[Ken]

you did a good job selecting the last one JBI so why not pick another.

[JBI]

Holy Sonnet 17


1Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt
2To nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
3And her soul early into heaven ravished,
4Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set.
5Here the admiring her my mind did whet
6To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head;
7But though I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,
8A holy thirsty dropsy melts me yet.
9But why should I beg more love, whenas thou
10Dost woo my soul, for hers off'ring all thine,
11And dost not only fear lest I allow
12My love to saints and angels, things divine,
13But in thy tender jealousy dost doubt
14Lest the world, flesh, yea devil put thee out.

[Ken]

I think I may possibly grasp some of the meaning of the first four,
and maybe the fifth too:
5Here the admiring her my mind did whet
(when she was alive on Earth she only served to whet his appetite of all she had to offer.)
slightly correct?

I'll check in again tomorrow.

[LimeyDawg]

Hmm, a beotch this seemeth to be upon first gander.

Holy Sonnet 17


1Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt
Since the one I loved has paid her last debt
2To nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
to nature, and to herself, all good in me has died
3And her soul early into heaven ravished,
and she has gone to heaven early
4Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set.
my mind is filled with musings about heaven itself.
5Here the admiring her my mind did whet
In admiring my love, I have come to admire heaven
6To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head;
and seek you, God; and these musings have lead me to the spring
7But though I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,
but although I have found you, and you have slaked my thirst,
8A holy thirsty dropsy melts me yet.
another thirst of the hold kind now finds me.
9But why should I beg more love, whenas thou
But who am I to ask for more love when you
10Dost woo my soul, for hers off'ring all thine,
have delivered my soul through offering me hers
11And dost not only fear lest I allow
and the only fear I should worry about is
12My love to saints and angels, things divine,
is that I offer myself to saints and angels and other divine things
13But in thy tender jealousy dost doubt
and the doubt that I find in your tender jealousy
14Lest the world, flesh, yea devil put thee out.
that worries that I might let the world, the flesh, the devil yet, push you out of my life.

[LimeyDawg]

Heh, or something like that. Here Donne is saying that the death of his love has brought him to God, and that he finds his thirst for knowledge slaked by God, but that he fears the trappings of life (the flesh, the world, and by extension, the devil) will yet push God out of his life.

[Ken]

wow. great job Limey. if I saw someone translate heiroglyphics* before my eyes I'd be no less impressed. seriously. how'd you learn to do that? or how'd you suggest others might? yeah, yeah, I know: years of schoolin'; sigh.

Funny how, though the times were misogynistic as was Donne, a woman is being lionised in this poem, as if men were okay with giving women their due when transformed into ethereal entities, but not when they were mused upon in their everyday "affairs." Interesting dicotomy, if indeed there actually is one like the one here supposed.

* Sorry for the mispelling of heiroglyphics. Spelled it so wrong that when I tried looking it up in the dictionary I couldn't even find it.

How 'bout you posting the next poem Limey, to give JBI's fingers a breather.

[JBI]

1Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt
2To nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
3And her soul early into heaven ravished,
4Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set.
5Here the admiring her my mind did whet
6To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head;
7But though I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,
8A holy thirsty dropsy melts me yet.
The octave sets up the problem of the affect on Donne of his wife's death. He talks about the emptiness of her death, and how, though he found god, he is still thirsty for more meaning.

9But why should I beg more love, whenas thou
10Dost woo my soul, for hers off'ring all thine,
11And dost not only fear lest I allow
12My love to saints and angels, things divine,
13But in thy tender jealousy dost doubt
14Lest the world, flesh, yea devil put thee out.

The sestet answers by asking the question of whether or not he should seek more. Whether or not it is selfish and devilish to pursue more love and favour from god, by looking for favour in other things. We are left with the question of whether this pursuit is heretical, or favorable, and whether by searching for more things holy, he is being unholy. An obscure paradox to say the least.

[JBI]

Since no one seems to be liking the sonnet, perhaps try this poem instead.



Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.


O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.


Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

[JBI]

This poem is considered one of the perfect examples of the use of a conceit. Take note of how the flea changes in each stanza, and how the silent actions of the woman addressed seem to affect Donne's argument.

[Medievalist]

1 Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt
2 To nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
3 And her soul early into heaven ravished,
4 Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set.
5 Here the admiring her my mind did whet
6 To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head;
7 But though I have found thee, and thou my thirst hast fed,
8 A holy thirsty dropsy melts me yet.
9 But why should I beg more love, whenas thou
10 Dost woo my soul, for hers off'ring all thine,
11 And dost not only fear lest I allow
12 My love to saints and angels, things divine,
13 But in thy tender jealousy dost doubt
14 Lest the world, flesh, yea devil put thee out.

This sonnet exists only in a single ms. that wasn't discovered until 1892; it contains another of Donne's more personal sonnets as well, #18, both of which are about Donne's wife Anne More. Donne very much loved his wife, who died at thirty after giving birth to their twelfth child.

Think about the word "ravished," which connotes both sexual contact, and divine rapture. The reference to "saints and angels" is interesting in that these are things that to a Catholic in Donne's time interceded between God and man--and Donne says that his (Protestant) deity is jealous not only of them, but of the world, the flesh, and the devil--the unholy trinity.

Donne emphasizes the idea of thirst driving him towards God with language and dominant metaphors about water and thirst, over and over. Whet, streams, thirst, melt, dropsy

The rhyme scheme too is worth looking at; it's not that easy a pattern.

[Ken]

I like the sonnet.
So why not stick with it for a bit,
before grappling with the flea,
by creating and posting poems of our own based on it,
that adhere to the meaning and pacing of the original stanza as much as possible,
which has been well deciphered by Lisa, JBI, and Limey.
Think this would provide some real hands on insight into the sonnet's construction,
even if one botches the assignment miserably,
as I predict will be the outcome of my own attempt.

[Ken]

My (10 minute) attempt at a poem based on Donne's Sonnet:
(with notes on the right)

1. When she died / Dispensed with "Since" which seemed unecessary?
2. I became numb / Couldn't think of a better word for death in life?
3. with her premature accent to heaven / "heaven" is such a technical word.
4. my mind following, fast. / Think this almost sounds ok.
5. Expanded to encompass heaven, too, has my love,
6. and seeking God has lead me to the spring
7. but although found, and thirst slaked, / reference to the spring?
8. my mouth parts anew. / to convey thirst visually
9. How wrong this craving / attempt to add more umph to line
10. when my soul exchanged for hers has,
11. with no more worry than that

I'll stop there and leave the last three lines for another day...

Amoung other things I noticed, in jotting down this (quite horrible) composition, is that Donne uses a lot of abstract terms like heaven instead of looking for visually triggering substitutes like upper regions, etc. Was this standard back then?

[Ken]

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.


O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.


Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

[JBI]

Hmm it seems to me that the transition from stanza 1 to two is the addressed woman beginning to try to swat the fly, and the final one, after she has killed it. Donne's argument seems to alter with each action she takes, yet she seems to be laughing at him throughout (well, at least to me). The ending is a little oblique, but after killing the fly it seems that she has given into his speech, and is now just playing around with him.

[Ken]

The first stanza not much mystery to be shed,
compared to the 2nd & 3rd which have flown right over my head.
So how about a quick overview of what's transpiring in them.
Thanks : )

[JBI]

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.

Here we are presented with the scenario. Donne is trying to talk a woman into having sex with him. He takes a flea for example, which supposedly has bitten both of them. He says that already the blood of both of them has been mingled in this fly, the taking of the blood a continuous allusion to the breaking of a hymen upon first having sexual intercourse. Donne proposes that the fly has already done as much, and that to have sex with him would be less sinful, less painful, and less significant than being bitten by the same fly. The alas in the last line is used to signify his failure, and his inadequacy in relation to the flea, who has succeeded where has failed.


O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Here the unseen woman makes as if to kill the flee. Donne goes on to explain how this flea, by biting both he and this woman, has already created a union between the two, which he then compares to marriage. The flea here "evolves" to represent the foundations of marriage, a confine where both of them give, in this case alluding to the exchange of bodily fluids that occurs during sexual intercourse.

Donne expands to say that it is a sin to kill this flea, this representation of their union, by it, having sucked blood from both of them. He says with murdering this flea, his partner will not only kill their union, she will kill both of them, by destroying a piece of them, which is trapped in the flea.

The mention of parents is used here to try to poke fun at social conventions, saying how parents get so upset about pre-marital relations, but fail to see the irony that the flea has done already "more than we would do."


Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

It is clear in this stanza that the partner has just swatted the fly. Donne now turns the argument in another direction by telling his partner "Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now." in other words, this killing of the fly has not hurt you much, you are unchanged, why would sexual intercourse make you weaker. He pokes fun at her fear of having sex by comparing it with her quickness to kill the flea. He essentially says, "You lost nothing in killing the flea, you will lose no honor by having sex with me, and you will lose no more honor than you did in the act of killing the flea." His final argument emphasizes the minimal affects having sex with him will have on her honor, and the almost ridiculousness of holding out, and fearing something which has already happened within the flea anyway.


Of course, we must look at this poem from another angle. Donne, is, the whole time, poking fun at the reader. The absurd conceit of the flea is a big joke. Of course Donne does not believe any of this, and is laughing to himself when writing the poem. The whole argument is absurd. Yet Donne persists, as if to say, "I can convince anyone, just watch." The flea is a disgusting image, and the central verb running through the whole poem seems to me to be suck. The overemphasis on suck seems to backhandedly slap the reader in the face by comparing the act of sexual intercourse to the sucking of blood.

[kdnxdr]

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do.

By using a flea as the image representing the prospect of the poet and his object of seduction having sex, Donne is saying it's really not a big deal, rather insignificant.


O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Poet makes his point, the intermingling of blood establishes the union between himself and the seductee. He attempts to rationalize her obligation to him and the fact that she has no option out of the obligation of relenting to his seduction.

He mocks her resistance and attempts to guilt her by claiming the sacrilege of murder should she attmpt to reject his arguments.

The things that would restrain her, he argues to difuse, the holiness of matrimony, parental blessing and the righteousness of God.


By inferring innocence on the flea, Donne continues to mock and pressure. I believe he is calling her concerns for keeping moral as "false fears".

I believe she succeeds at fending off his advances and that he tries to laugh off his failure by writing this poem.

He compares the wasting of (her?) honour with the death of the flea and the loss of the blood, his only chance of obligating her, to be the same. By this comparison, I feel Donne is attempting to reduce honour and morality to be of no consequence.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Donne is a cad and thinks he's God's gift to women. He attempts to seduce this woman with a really cheesy , and drawn-out "pick-up line".

He fails and all his mockery of her morality/honour turns back on him and he trys to laugh off the whole thing by telling her she lost her chance.

kid

[JBI]

I think one or two more poems from Donne, and then we move on.

[Medievalist]

I think one or two more poems from Donne, and then we move on.

Umm.... dude.

This is another example of writing a prose paradox, but in poetic form, and yeah, it's a seduction poem.

It's one of those dramatic situations that Donne's so very good at creating, and another where he uses direct address, very much "in the moment."

"Mark but this flea--"

It's as if he's holding it out to her, which of course, is quite possible in Donne's era -- fleas were a daily annoyance.

There's a logical progression here, too--"look, that which you deniest me" (what does that "that" refer to, you ask??? Welll.... you tell me ;) "is such a little thing -- this flea which sucked my blood, now sucks yours--"

Think about what happens to the flea -- it swells, growing larger, with the blood of the two people -- yeah, that's a pregnancy metaphor.

So there's a reference to "that" in the context of blood, which of course suggests, very much and very deliberately, hymenal blood ("neither sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead; / Yet this enjoys before it woo"). He is equally careful to point out that while the fleas "swells with one blood made of two / and this is more than we would do--where "would" means something a bit closer to "would wish/desire to do" than it does in modern English.

With their mingled blood, the shiny black flea represents three lives -- the speaker, the woman, and the flea (or their unborn hypothetical child)-- the flea is no longer a mere flea.

It "cloisters," like a nunnery, their blood, and in a lovely extensive hyperbole, Donne claims that the flea is more than the sum of its blood; it is their marriage temple and marriage bed, where they are "more than married," implying a sacred unity and, of course, pregnancy -- all this about a flea, mind, a common, ordinary blood-sucking flea.

Then -- in a flight of fancy he adds:

Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

"Use" here, in Donne's English, means both "custom," in the sense of "what people believe," and it has an explicit sexual context; use means "sexual use," and Donne alludes to the belief that orgasm shortens mens' lives--through sex (use) she is "apt" to kill him -- and of course there's the pun on orgasm as "la petite morte," the "little death."

He then steps perilously close to blasphemy with his "sacrilege/three sins in killing three"--an allusion both to the trinity and the their union in the flea.

In the final stanza, Donne let's us know exactly what the unknown woman's response is to his argument for seduction:

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?

She crushes the flea. And he even turns that to his advantage--yes, he says, see how much blood you have there? That's how much you'll lose if you do what I want and have sex with me--note the "blood of innocence," which refers to the flea, to the flea as a symbol of "their" child, and to hymenal blood.

I don't see it as arrogant, really, more self-mocking in its excessive hyperbole--sort of like the self-mockery of someone using a cheasey pickup line with a grin that says "yes, I know, isn't it horribly cheasey" that makes the "what's a nice woman like you doing in a place like the Shiloh?" charming.

[Ken]

struggling to add something to the discussion, I'll point out how current the topic of the hymen still is, today, with some women going so far as to have it surgically reconstructed. Another part of female anatomy that stuck out in my mind while reading about the flea was the clitoris, in its capacity to expand with blood and then subside. Clearly, though, the flea is rather a symbol of pregnancy in the poem as you've shown. Thanks for the clarification everyone. Remarkable raunchy rhyme. Who'd have guessed?

poetry discussion at an
END :(

[JBI]

I'm unsure if I agree with your assertion of the Flea as a symbol of pregnancy. That would be contrary to his argument, and would shock the girl (assuming she could untwist the logic) meaning it would be used by Donne to poke at his audience. Either way though, the discussion seems to have died, so if no one wants to post another poem by Donne, I think we can perhaps move on to a new poet, assuming you guys wish to continue discussing.

[LimeyDawg]

Bring it on

[Medievalist]

Western wind, when will thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!

Anonymous; British Library Royal Appendix 58

[Ken]

I think I'm going to cry; err, sorry that slipped; plz ignore that; onto the stanza...

I'm struck by the change between the first two lines and the last two.
The first pertain to the weather;
the second to intimacy.
Is one to assume that "the western wind" and "small rain" are sexual similies of some sort?
If so, the poem is conveying overwhelming emotion of the speaker, perhaps, by starting out with a subdued, meditative assertion that gets flung aside in the heat of the moment and replaced with primal prose that speaks urgency.

ps I'm :) that the p. discussion is continuing.

pps or maybe the poem is about a woman waitin' for the return of her sea-faring hubby? (The wished for western wind would blow him home, though I'm not sure where the small rain comes in, unless it's in reference to tears?)

[kdnxdr]

Western wind, when will thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!

Anonymous; British Library Royal Appendix 58

Not knowing the any historical background of the poet/era/form, I can only offer my interpretation of the poem.

I've forgotten what the term is that describes when a sailing ship is stuck for lack of wind. Is it the doldrums?

The poet is in anquish, longing for inspiration, for movement, for love.

The small rain having no pith, the poet desires passion.

Poet is frustrated to be removed from his own context, his arena of force.

Writer's angst?

[Ken]

revised literal interpretation of 2nd line:
Even if the wind ushers in rain, in my sea coast town, I wouldn't mind.
(so long as it brought back my love)

KDN's interpretation may hold true, too, as a interpretation of the underlying meaning. Poems often have a multitude of meanings, so readers get a lot of mileage for their money or bang for their buck.

doldrums is correct.

[JBI]

The second line I think alludes to a storm that will perhaps kill the sailors.

[Ken]

that's possible:
the deadly rain/storm hoped to be blown away by the wind,
that has the potential to sink the ship.
But why refer to the rain as "small" if it's that ominous?

[Ken]

Chaucer / THE TALE / first 3 stanzas
Full Text: www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/cbtls12.txt

O scatheful harm, condition of poverty,
With thirst, with cold, with hunger so confounded;
To aske help thee shameth in thine hearte;
If thou none ask, so sore art thou y-wounded,
That very need unwrappeth all thy wound hid.
Maugre thine head thou must for indigence
Or steal, or beg, or borrow thy dispence*. *expense

Thou blamest Christ, and sayst full bitterly,
He misdeparteth* riches temporal; *allots amiss
Thy neighebour thou witest* sinfully, *blamest
And sayst, thou hast too little, and he hath all:
"Parfay (sayst thou) sometime he reckon shall,
When that his tail shall *brennen in the glede*, *burn in the fire*
For he not help'd the needful in their need."

Hearken what is the sentence of the wise:
Better to die than to have indigence.
*Thy selve* neighebour will thee despise, *that same*
If thou be poor, farewell thy reverence.
Yet of the wise man take this sentence,
Alle the days of poore men be wick'*, *wicked, evil
Beware therefore ere thou come to that prick*. *point

[LimeyDawg]

Chaucer / THE TALE / first 3 stanzas
Full Text: www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/cbtls12.txt (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/cbtls12.txt)

O scatheful harm, condition of poverty,
Scatheful, harmful, poverty
With thirst, with cold, with hunger so confounded;
that you confound with thirst, hunger and cold;
To aske help thee shameth in thine hearte;
Asking for help shames the heart
If thou none ask, so sore art thou y-wounded,
If you ask for none, you are wounded further
That very need unwrappeth all thy wound hid.
so much that the need reveals what your condition hid
Maugre thine head thou must for indigence
but in spite of your thoughts, you must, because of your poverty
Or steal, or beg, or borrow thy dispence*. *expense
beg, steal or borrow for your expenditure.

Thou blamest Christ, and sayst full bitterly,
You blame Christ, saying with utmost bitterness,
He misdeparteth* riches temporal; *allots amiss
He is unfair in the way he doles out earthly riches; giving unfair allotments
Thy neighebour thou witest* sinfully, *blamest
to your neighbor, you sinfully witness, full of blame
And sayst, thou hast too little, and he hath all:
You say you have nothing yet he has everything
"Parfay (sayst thou) sometime he reckon shall,
By my faith, you say, he will have his day of reckoning
When that his tail shall *brennen in the glede*,
when his ass will burn in the fire of hell
For he not help'd the needful in their need."
because he did not help those in need when he could

Hearken what is the sentence of the wise:
Listen to what the wise say:
Better to die than to have indigence.
it is better to die than to suffer poverty
*Thy selve* neighebour will thee despise, *that same*
because you will despise your own neighbor
If thou be poor, farewell thy reverence.
if you're poor and say goodbye to your faith.
Yet of the wise man take this sentence,
Yet the wise men also know this
Alle the days of poore men be wick'*,
all the days of poor men are wicked
Beware therefore ere thou come to that prick*.
So take care unless you find this out first hand
...or something like that

[Ken]

If thou none ask, so sore art thou y-wounded,
If you ask for none, you are wounded further
That very need unwrappeth all thy wound hid.
so much that the need reveals what your condition hid

What "hid" and then "revealed?"

And what is the "condition" spoken of?

[LimeyDawg]

If thou none ask, so sore art thou y-wounded,
If you ask for none, you are wounded further
That very need unwrappeth all thy wound hid.
so much that the need reveals what your condition hid

What "hid" and then "revealed?"

And what is the "condition" spoken of?
It's all right there in the poem. The poet is saying that the poor man harbors a resentment (hid) but the need for help reveals this in the way the man blames everyone around him for his "condition", which is also right there in the poem, which is a condition of poverty. The poet says it twice, but only once directly. He uses the word indigence the second time.

[Medievalist]

Urp.

This isn't really Chaucer -- it's been edited. And it's a fragment from the Man of Law's tale, which, well... it's written in character.

[Ken]

Your're right Limey, what's "hid" is right there in the poem, as clear as daylight after you're helpful decipherment. Thanks.

Sorry about the mess up, Lisa.
Had no idea the poem had been edited.
Guess it was translated? by a Gutenberg volunteer.

I'm batting a 1000 here.
But still enjoying the thread, heartily :)

Scratch the poem being translated. As stated in Wikipedia: Chaucer is credited by some scholars as being the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin.

[JBI]

Reading an edited Chaucer is like listening to an electronic version of Beethoven.

[Ken]

consider yourself lucky, JBI.
I was that close to posting a link to the "audio recording" of the edited Chaucer poem, above.
Hmm, perhpaps I still shall ;)
Sure Lisa would like that too; hee, hee.

[JBI]

Here is a link to a side by side copy of the general prologue http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/ct-prolog-para.html

[Ken]

looks really cool, JBI.
will read through it this evening and report back.

[Medievalist]

Western wind, when will thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!

Anonymous; British Library Royal Appendix 58

This is an anonymous lyric, Early 16th century, extant in a single ms. that’s mostly a collection of musical pieces for lute. It was used by a number of sixteenth century English composers, most notably Thomas Tallis, as the counter text in the Mass, under the surprising title of the Western Wind Mass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_western_wynde).

It’s one of the first poems that grabbed my attention as This Is Important when I was very young and reading an old copy of the Oxford Book of English Poetry.

It’s a love lyric, and a particularly English one, given its reference to rain. It’s about love-in-absence, the lover longing for the presence of the beloved, and the comfort of home and a familiar bed.

I want to draw your attention to the phrase “The small rain down can rain”--first, notice the way the line catches the ear and eye with the repetition of “rain,” as both verb and noun, and the way the meter emphasizes the words as if they were themselves rain. It’s a particularly English phrase as well, referring to the constant steady fall of micro drops that are almost more like mist than rain. You’ll note that it’s ancient too. Here’s the entry from the Oxford English Dictionary / OED. You'll notice that there's some substition of letters like edh and ygh for eth and yogh, letters no longer used in English.

III. 10. a. Composed of fine or minute particles, drops, etc. In later use chiefly of rain.

c897 K. ÆLFRED Gregory's Past. C. lvii. 437 Swi{edh}e lytle beo{edh} {edh}a dropan {edh}æs smalan renes, ac hi wyrcea{edh} {edh}eah swi{edh}e micel flod. c1000 Sax. Leechd.

1649 WINTHROP New Eng. (1853) I. 209 The Rebecka,..two days before, was frozen twenty miles up the river; but a small rain falling set her free. 1676 WOOD Jrnl. in Acc. Sev. Late Voy. I. (1694) 177 Thick Fogs with small Rain. 1727 A. HAMILTON New Acc. E. Indies I. xxii. 262 A small Rain happened to fall that damped my Powder. 1823 SCOTT Quentin D. i, Heaven, who works by the tempest as well as by the soft small rain (OED small, a. and n.2 III.10.a).

The same phrase is used in the King James 1611 Bible, in Deuteronomy 32:2

My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass

[Ken]

OED is pretty awesome.
Never realised the extent of the info in it.
Very interesting points you raise,
like the meter of the line
“The small rain down can rain.”
I tried an experiment, substituting "rain" with "hail,"
allowing me to see just how much the sheer wording and pace of the line helps readers perceive the percipitation.
"The small hail down can hail,"
draws attention, too, to the soft sounding words "down" and "can" which are utterly inappropriate in the context of this rearranged line. "Will" would be a better sub for "can" in this context. Not sure about one for "down." Plummeting? Guess the whole line would have to be rewrit.
:e2BIC:

[JBI]

Which bible are you quoting? For it to be a direct allusion it would need come from one of the minor Pre-Jamesian bibles.

[Medievalist]

Which bible are you quoting? For it to be a direct allusion it would need come from one of the minor Pre-Jamesian bibles.

You will note I did not use the word "allusion." Had I thought it was an allusion I would have said "this is an allusion."

But the context, the kind of rain, is the same. The use of the phrase is the same--this is a fairly standard scholarly method of looking at language use in context.

[Billytwice]

Reading an edited Chaucer is like listening to an electronic version of Beethoven.

I recommend the 9th Symphony Second Movement performed by Wendy(ex Walter) Carlos on the Moog synthesiser.
Used on the soundtrack of 'A Clockwork Orange' and a favourite of mine.

[Ken]

So whose turn is it to post the next stanza for discussion?
Maybe somebody might post one of their own,
along with an explanation of the mechanics behind it.

[Medievalist]

Reading an edited Chaucer is like listening to an electronic version of Beethoven.

I recommend the 9th Symphony Second Movement performed by Wendy(ex Walter) Carlos on the Moog synthesiser.
Used on the soundtrack of 'A Clockwork Orange' and a favourite of mine.

The funny thing is, unless you're reading one of the 64 mss. of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, you are reading edited Chaucer. You'll note, for instance, that the standard editions of Chaucer that are in fact meant for scholarly use, like the Riverside, and its predecessor, Robinson's edition, all omit the thorn, one of the Old English runes used to represent th.

[JBI]

The funny thing is, unless you're reading one of the 64 mss. of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, you are reading edited Chaucer. You'll note, for instance, that the standard editions of Chaucer that are in fact meant for scholarly use, like the Riverside, and its predecessor, Robinson's edition, all omit the thorn, one of the Old English runes used to represent th.
removing the thorn is different than changing the word order, and modernizing vocabulary. Lets be honest, modernized Chaucer isn't really Chaucer, it doesn't feel the same way.

[Medievalist]

removing the thorn is different than changing the word order, and modernizing vocabulary. Lets be honest, modernized Chaucer isn't really Chaucer, it doesn't feel the same way.

Granted, but, my point remains; you're reading a heavily edited text unless you're going to the mss. Even the Riverside is extensively standardized and edited.

For the curious, here are some examples of mss.

This is the "prettiest" of the two "best" mss., the Ellesmere. It's not a very readable picture because the Huntington wants, very badly, to sell it's facsimile. Here (http://www.huntington.org/LibraryDiv/ChaucerPict.html)'s the opening of the Wife of Bath's bit in the General Prologue.

The other "best" ms. is the Welsh made Hengwrt MS. It's better in terms of the accuracy of the text, but it's not nearly as pretty. Again, these are tiny pictures (http://www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=thehengwrtchaucerpeniarth) because there's a fabulous digital facsimile that they really want to sell.


You can see digital images of Caxton's edition of Canterbury Tales, the first printed version, here (http://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/homepage.html).

[JBI]

Hmm, thanks for the info. Maybe we can move onto this famous Marvell poem, since the discussion seems to have died:

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

an annotated version, available here: http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides4/Marvell.html#Top

[JBI]

bump

[Medievalist]

I want to see if we can possibly resurrect this poem.

I know that the previous post linked to a "guide," but, in my usual, delicate and [cough] slightly opinionated way, I want to observe that said guide was pretty stupid.

There's a tendency for some to think that you "read" a poem by providing a sort of skeleton key, a decoded version that, like a table of equivalencies, gives you the One True Meaning.

And that's just stupid.

Sure, there are things that you can say are facts, that they are simply true--and often, literary allusions fall into that category, but there's a lot more to a poem than a catalog of its allusions.

'Sides, half of 'em in that guide were just wrong.

For instance, the idea of the "vegetable soul" doesn't really mean "grows like a vegetable," so much as it's an allusion to the idea that the human soul has three parts--and the "vegetable" part doesn't do much more than grow/consume. It's the lowest aspect of the soul. And you could read about it in the dictionary (http://www.bartleby.com/61/33/V0043300.html).

So anyway, let's try it again. And I'll ask some leading questions:

1. What do you think the narrator/speaker hopes to accomplish in this poem?

2. What are some of the motifs, repeated kinds of imagery you see being used?

Andrew Marvell To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

[kdnxdr]

I want to see if we can possibly resurrect this poem.

I know that the previous post linked to a "guide," but, in my usual, delicate and [cough] slightly opinionated way, I want to observe that said guide was pretty stupid.

There's a tendency for some to think that you "read" a poem by providing a sort of skeleton key, a decoded version that, like a table of equivalencies, gives you the One True Meaning.

And that's just stupid.

Sure, there are things that you can say are facts, that they are simply true--and often, literary allusions fall into that category, but there's a lot more to a poem than a catalog of its allusions.

'Sides, half of 'em in that guide were just wrong.

For instance, the idea of the "vegetable soul" doesn't really mean "grows like a vegetable," so much as it's an allusion to the idea that the human soul has three parts--and the "vegetable" part doesn't do much more than grow/consume. It's the lowest aspect of the soul. And you could read about it in the dictionary (http://www.bartleby.com/61/33/V0043300.html).

So anyway, let's try it again. And I'll ask some leading questions:

1. What do you think the narrator/speaker hopes to accomplish in this poem?

2. What are some of the motifs, repeated kinds of imagery you see being used?

Andrew Marvell To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.


I believe the speaker of the poem is hoping to convince the recipient/lover that they should stop dallying around and get on with indulging in the passions of their relationship.

The strongest motif of the poem is the problem of time and how it is dynamically involved in their relationship.

Once again, a logical discourse as to the speaker wanting to get some nooky and why the recipient of the discourse should comply.

My best guess.