The Ode Less Travelled Part 11

A little learning is dangerous thing;Not to go back, is somehow to advance,And men must walk at least before they dance.Know then thyself, presume not G.o.d to scan,The proper study of mankind is man.Hope springs eternal in the human breast.All are but parts of one stupendous whole.One truth is clear. Whatever is, is right.True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, That last apothegm might be the motto of this book. John Dryden, in my estimation, was the absolute master of the heroic couplet; his use of it seems more natural, more a.s.sured, more fluid even than Pope's: Repentance is the virtue of weak minds.Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.For those whom G.o.d to ruin hath design'd,He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.Errors, like straw, upon the surface flow;He who would search for pearls must dive below.Beware the fury of a patient manBy education most have been misled;So they believe, because they so were bred.The priest continues what the nurse began,And thus the child imposes on the man.

But these were poets from a time when poems, like architecture and garden design, were formal, elegant and a.s.sured: this was the Age of Reason, of Cert.i.tude, Sense, Wit, Discernment, Judgement, Taste, Harmonyof 'Capital Letter Moralists' as T. E. Hulme called them. The voice and manner of these Augustans can sound altogether too de haut en bas de haut en bas for our ears, from lofty to lowly, as if delivered from Olympus. for our ears, from lofty to lowly, as if delivered from Olympus.

Their taste and proportion is akin to that of the architecture of the period; by the time of the aftermath of the French Revolution and the publication of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads Lyrical Ballads their course seemed run, the profusion of nature and the agony of self seemed to become a more proper study of poets, just as the Gothic and picturesque began to entice the architects. Run your eye down the Index of First Lines in an edition of Pope and then of any Romantic poet and compare the number of entries in each which begin with the word 'I'. The 'egotistical sublime' had landed. It would be a pity if, in our instinctive veneration for all things post-cla.s.sical, Romantic, post-Romantic, Decadent, Modernist and Postmodernist we overlooked the virtues of late-seventeenth-and eighteenth-century verse. After all, most of us aspire to live in houses of that period, fill them with eclectic fittings and furniture from later eras as we may. The neocla.s.sical harmony and elegance of construction remains our ideal for housing. I think it can be so with verse too. Naturally the discourse and diction, the detail and decor as it were, are of our age, but the rationality and harmony of the Augustans is not to be despised. their course seemed run, the profusion of nature and the agony of self seemed to become a more proper study of poets, just as the Gothic and picturesque began to entice the architects. Run your eye down the Index of First Lines in an edition of Pope and then of any Romantic poet and compare the number of entries in each which begin with the word 'I'. The 'egotistical sublime' had landed. It would be a pity if, in our instinctive veneration for all things post-cla.s.sical, Romantic, post-Romantic, Decadent, Modernist and Postmodernist we overlooked the virtues of late-seventeenth-and eighteenth-century verse. After all, most of us aspire to live in houses of that period, fill them with eclectic fittings and furniture from later eras as we may. The neocla.s.sical harmony and elegance of construction remains our ideal for housing. I think it can be so with verse too. Naturally the discourse and diction, the detail and decor as it were, are of our age, but the rationality and harmony of the Augustans is not to be despised.

Keats did not abandon the form, but contributed to its development with a new freedom of run-ons and syntactical complexity. This extract from 'Lamia' shows how close to dramatic blank verse it becomes, the enjambments almost disguising the rhymes.

Pale grew her immortality, for woeOf all these lovers, and she grieved soI took compa.s.sion on her, bade her steepHer hair in weird syrops that would keepHer loveliness invisible, yet freeTo wander as she loves, in liberty.

Robert Browning wrestled with the form even more violently. His much anthologised 'My Last d.u.c.h.ess' takes the form of a dramatic monologue in heroic verse. It is 'spoken' by the Renaissance Duke of Ferrara, who is showing around his palace an amba.s.sador who has come to make the arrangements for the Duke's second marriage. We learn, as the monologue proceeds, that the Duke had his first wife killed on account of her displeasing over-friendliness. Pointing at her portrait on the wall, the Duke explains how polite, compliant and smiling she was, but to everyone everyone: She had A hearthow shall I say?too soon made glad,Too easily impressed; she liked whate'erShe looked on, and her looks went everywhere.Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,The dropping of the daylight in the West,The bough of cherries some officious foolBroke in the orchard for her, the white muleShe rode with round the terraceall and eachWould draw from her alike the approving speech, In the Duke's view it was 'as if she ranked/My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody's gift'.

Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I pa.s.sed her; but who pa.s.sed withoutMuch the same smile? This grew: I gave commands;Then all smiles stopped together. There she standsAs if alive.

In other words, he had her killed. You can see how different this heavily run-on and paused verse is from the restrained fluency of Augustan heroic couplets. But why has Browning not chosen to write in blank verse blank verse, in the Shakespearean or Jacobean manner, we might wonder? I cannot, of course, second-guess Browning's motives, but the effect effect is to counter the fluency of everyday speech with the formality of a rhymed structure, creating an ironic contrast between the urbane conversational manner, the psychotic darkness of the story and the elegant solidity of a n.o.ble form. The heroic verse is the frame out of which character can leap; it is itself the n.o.bly proportioned, exquisitely tasteful palace in which ign.o.bly misproportioned, foully tasteless deeds are done. is to counter the fluency of everyday speech with the formality of a rhymed structure, creating an ironic contrast between the urbane conversational manner, the psychotic darkness of the story and the elegant solidity of a n.o.ble form. The heroic verse is the frame out of which character can leap; it is itself the n.o.bly proportioned, exquisitely tasteful palace in which ign.o.bly misproportioned, foully tasteless deeds are done.

Wilfred Owen's use of rhyming couplets in the h.e.l.l of war provides another kind of ironic contrast. In the same way that the employment of ballad form for the dreary and mundane makes both a distinction and and a connection, so the use of heroic couplets both contrasts and unites in Owen's verse: the august and decorous form in such ghastly conditions is a sick joke, but the death agonies, mutilations and horrors of the soldiers' lives are raised to heroic status by their incarnation in heroic couplets. Owen's 'A Terre: (Being the Philosophy of Many Soldiers)' uses Browning-style dramatic monologue in slant-rhymed couplets, casting Owen himself as the visitor to a field hospital where a ruined soldier lies and addresses him. a connection, so the use of heroic couplets both contrasts and unites in Owen's verse: the august and decorous form in such ghastly conditions is a sick joke, but the death agonies, mutilations and horrors of the soldiers' lives are raised to heroic status by their incarnation in heroic couplets. Owen's 'A Terre: (Being the Philosophy of Many Soldiers)' uses Browning-style dramatic monologue in slant-rhymed couplets, casting Owen himself as the visitor to a field hospital where a ruined soldier lies and addresses him.

Sit on the bed. I'm blind, and three parts sh.e.l.l.Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.Both arms have mutinied against me,brutes.My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.I tried to peg out soldierly,no use!One dies of war like any old disease.This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.I have my medals?Discs to make eyes close.My glorious ribbons?Ripped from my own backIn scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.) Laurence Lerner, Thom Gunn and Tony Harrison have all written with distinction in heroic couplets, as did Seamus Heaney in 'Elegy for a Still-Born Child' and his superb poem 'The Outlaw', which might be regarded as a kind of darkly ironic play on an eclogue eclogue or or georgic georgicVirgilian verse celebrating and philosophically discoursing upon the virtues of agricultural life.

You may find yourself drawn to heroic verse, you may not. Whatever your views, I would recommend practising it: the form has compelling and enduring qualities. Move in: the structure is still sound and s.p.a.cious enough to accommodate all your contemporary furniture and modern gadgets.

Poetry Exercise 13 Try a short dramatic monologue, a la Browning, in which a young man in police custody, clearly stoned off his head, tries to explain away the half-ounce of cannabis found on his person. Use the natural rhythms of speech, running-on through lines, pausing and running on again, but within rhymed iambic pentameter. You will be amazed what fun you can have with such a simple form. If you don't like my scenario, choose another one, but do try and make it contemporary in tone.

V.

The Ode SapphicPindaricHoratianlyricanacreontic

Deriving from odein odein, the Greek for to chant, the ode is an open form of lyric verse made Public Monument. In English poetry it was once the most grand, ceremonial and high-minded of forms, but for the last hundred years or so it has been all but shorn of that original grandeur, becoming no more than a (frequently jokey) synonym for 'poem'.

Partly this is the due to the popularity of John Keats's four great odes 'To Autumn', 'Ode to a Nightingale', 'Ode on Melancholy' and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' which, together with the odes of Sh.e.l.ley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and the rest, turned the form in on itself. Poets today may choose to call their works odes, but rather than suggesting any formal implications this is likely to promise, in the shadow of Keats, a romantic reflection on such themes as nature, beauty, art, the soul and their relations.h.i.+p to the very making of a poem itself.

There are three main genres of cla.s.sical ode which do have more formal natures or specific functions howeverthe Sapphic, Pindaric and Horatian, named after the Greeks Sappho and Pindar, and the Latin poet Horace. Of these, the most formally fixed and the most popular today by a dodecametric mile is the SAPPHIC: SAPPHIC.

Let's hear it for the S SAPPHIC O ODEAn oyster bed of gleaming pearlsA finely wrought poetic mode Not just for girls.

Lesbian Sappho made this formWith neat Adonic final lineHer s.e.x life wasn't quite the norm And nor is mine.

Three opening lines of just four feetCreate a style I rather like:It's closely cropped and strong yet sweet In fact, pure dike.

Actually, the above displays the lineaments of the English stress-based stress-based imitation as adapted from the cla.s.sical original, which was made up of four eleven-syllable lines in this metre: imitation as adapted from the cla.s.sical original, which was made up of four eleven-syllable lines in this metre:

The symbol stands for an stands for an anceps anceps, a metrical unit (or semeion semeion) which in cla.s.sical verse can be long or or short, but for our purposes means can be either stressed or unstressed, according to the poet's wishes. An anceps offers a free choice of trochee or spondee in other words. So, doggerel that makes a short, but for our purposes means can be either stressed or unstressed, according to the poet's wishes. An anceps offers a free choice of trochee or spondee in other words. So, doggerel that makes a cla.s.sical cla.s.sical Sapphic Ode might go: Sapphic Ode might go: n.o.ble S SAPPHO fas.h.i.+oned her odes of high-flown fas.h.i.+oned her odes of high-flownVerse in four lines, marked by their cla.s.sic profile.Though she's now best remembered for her full-blown Lesbian lifestyle.

Not that Ancient Greek Sapphics would be rhymed, rhymed, of course. English verse in this semi-quant.i.tative cla.s.sical manner does exist, although pract.i.tioners (out of Poe-like disbelief in the spondee) usually render the first three lines as trochee-trochee dactyl trochee-trochee. Ezra Pound managed a superb true spondaic line-end in his Sapphic Ode, 'Apparuit': of course. English verse in this semi-quant.i.tative cla.s.sical manner does exist, although pract.i.tioners (out of Poe-like disbelief in the spondee) usually render the first three lines as trochee-trochee dactyl trochee-trochee. Ezra Pound managed a superb true spondaic line-end in his Sapphic Ode, 'Apparuit': Green the ways, the breath of the fields is thine there Dear Algie Swinburne wrote Sapphics too: All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron Stood and beheld me.

...Clothed about with flame and with tears, and singingSongs that move the heart of the shaken heaven,Songs that break the heart of the earth with pity, Hearing, to hear them.

The more characteristically English way to adapt the form has been to write in good old iambic tetrameter, as in my first sampler above and Pope's 'Ode on Solitude': Happy the man, whose wish and careA few paternal acres bound,Content to breathe his native air In his own ground Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,Whose flocks supply him with attire,Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire.

The contemporary Canadian poet Anne Carson has used the form (and translated Sappho's own odes). These two stanzas are from her 'Eros the Bittersweet': no: tongue breaks and thinfire is racing under skinand in eyes no sight and drummingfills earsand cold sweat holds me and shakinggrips me all, greener than gra.s.sI am and deador almostI seem to me The Sapphic Ode has generally been used for more personal and contemplative uses. I do recommend you try writing a few: the Adonic ending can serve as conclusion, envoi, sting in the tail, question, denial...the form, despite its simplicity, remains surprisingly potent. There is no prescribed number of stanzas. If this kind of verse appeals, you might like to look into another Lesbian form, ALCAICS. ALCAICS.

PINDARIC O ODE.

Strophe/The Turn We hail thee mighty P PINDAR' S S O ODEThou n.o.ble and majestic mode!You trace your roots to far-off ancient times, Yet still survive in modern English rhymes.With firm but steady beat,You march in rhythmic feetOf varied but symmetric length.This lends your verse a joyful strengthThat suits it well to themes of solemn weightDisasters, joys and great affairs of state.

Antistrophe/The Counter-Turn Yet some suggest that modern life,Enmeshed in doubt and mired in strife,Has little use for grandeur, pomp and show, Preferring inward grief and private woeTo be a poet's theme. 'So, sad as it may seem,Thy style of verse has had its dayFarewell, G.o.d speed!' these doubters say, 'We have no need of thee, Pindaric Ode,Our future lies along another road.'

Epode/The Stand Perhaps they speak too soon, such men,Perhaps the form will rise again.A nation needs a human public voiceIts griefs to mourn, its triumphs to rejoice.When life gets mean and hard,Call out the national bard!So Pindar, tune thy golden lyre,Thou hast a people to inspire.When glory comes, or crisis darkly bodesWe may have need of thine immortal odes!

Yes, well. Quite. But you get the idea. Sappho's fellow Aeolian, Pindar is a.s.sociated with a form much more suited to ceremonial occasions and public addresses: the PINDARIC O ODE. He developed it from choral dance for the purpose of making encomiums encomiums or praise songs that congratulate athletes or generals on their victories, actors on their performances, philosophers and statesmen on their wisdom and so on. They are written in groups of three stanzas called or praise songs that congratulate athletes or generals on their victories, actors on their performances, philosophers and statesmen on their wisdom and so on. They are written in groups of three stanzas called triads triads, each triad being divided into strophe strophe (rhymes with 'trophy'), (rhymes with 'trophy'), antistrophe antistrophe (rhymes with 'am p.i.s.sed today') and (rhymes with 'am p.i.s.sed today') and epode epode ('ee-pode'). Ben Jonson, who wrote a splendid example, gave them the jolly English names ('ee-pode'). Ben Jonson, who wrote a splendid example, gave them the jolly English names Turn, Counter-Turn Turn, Counter-Turn and and Stand Stand. The choice of stanza length and metre is variable, so long as the poem is in triads and each stanza is identical in scheme: this consistency is called a h.o.m.oSTROPHIC h.o.m.oSTROPHIC structure. I have followed the scheme Jonson invents for his 'Pindaric Ode to the Immortal Memory and Friends.h.i.+p of that n.o.ble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison'. He begins with a pair of tetrameters, then a pair of pentameters, then trimeters, tetrameters again and finally pentameters, all as rhyming couplets: each stanza must be identically structured, however, that is the key. As I have tried to indicate with mine, the structure. I have followed the scheme Jonson invents for his 'Pindaric Ode to the Immortal Memory and Friends.h.i.+p of that n.o.ble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison'. He begins with a pair of tetrameters, then a pair of pentameters, then trimeters, tetrameters again and finally pentameters, all as rhyming couplets: each stanza must be identically structured, however, that is the key. As I have tried to indicate with mine, the strophe strophe states a theme, addresses a hero, king, Muse, athlete, G.o.d or other such thing and praises them, celebrating their virtues and importance (Pindaric Odes themselves in my case); the states a theme, addresses a hero, king, Muse, athlete, G.o.d or other such thing and praises them, celebrating their virtues and importance (Pindaric Odes themselves in my case); the antistrophe antistrophe can express doubt, another point of view or some countervailing theme. The can express doubt, another point of view or some countervailing theme. The epode epode then tries to unite the two ideas, or comes down in favour of one view or the other. It is thesis, ant.i.thesis and synthesis to some extent, a dialectical structure. It derives actually from a Greek choric form in which the dancers would literally then tries to unite the two ideas, or comes down in favour of one view or the other. It is thesis, ant.i.thesis and synthesis to some extent, a dialectical structure. It derives actually from a Greek choric form in which the dancers would literally turn turn one way and then the other. one way and then the other.

Horatian Ode There are no real formal requirements to observe in a HORATIAN O ODE, so I shan't bother to write a sampler for you: they should be, like their Pindaric cousins, h.o.m.ostrophic. The Latin poet Horace adapted Pindar's style to suit Roman requirements. English imitations were popular between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a most notable example being Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland' (written in rhyming couplets in fours and threes: 'He nothing common did or mean/Upon that memorable scene'). Perhaps the last great two in this manner in our language are Tennyson's 'Ode on the Death of Wellington' and Auden's 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats'. It is common in the Horatian ode, as in the Pindaric, to include a direct address (APOSTROPHE) as Auden does: Earth, receive an honoured guest:William Yeats is laid to rest.

The Lyric Ode Wordsworth apostrophises Nature in his Ode 'Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood': And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills and Groves!

But here we are looking at a wholly different kind of ode. Although Horace did write public celebratory odes in the Pindaric manner to suit the Roman temper (and especially the short one of his interfering patron, the Emperor Augustus) his real voice is heard in quieter, more contemplative and gently philosophical lyrics. These are the odes with which we a.s.sociate the great romantics.

These poets created their own forms, varying their stanzaic structure and length, rhyme-scheme and measure for each poem. To call them 'odes' in the cla.s.sical sense is perhaps inappropriate, but since they they used the word we can include them in this section. The great Keats foursome emerged more from his development of sonnet structure than out of any debt to Horace or Pindar, yet the used the word we can include them in this section. The great Keats foursome emerged more from his development of sonnet structure than out of any debt to Horace or Pindar, yet the meditative-romantic meditative-romantic or or lyric lyric ode that he and his fellow poets between them created does still bear the traces of a general tripart.i.te structure. They do not follow the stricter triadic design of the Pindaric form, but usually move from physical description to meditation and finally to some kind of insight, resolution or stasis. An object, phenomenon or image is invoked, addressed or observed by an (often troubled) ode writer; the observation provokes thought which in turn results in some kind of conclusion, decision or realisation. We will meet this structure again when we look at the sonnet. Whether the lyric ode truly descends from the cla.s.sical ode or from the medieval sonnet is a historical and academic matter which, while of no doubt frantic interest, we shall leave unexplored. ode that he and his fellow poets between them created does still bear the traces of a general tripart.i.te structure. They do not follow the stricter triadic design of the Pindaric form, but usually move from physical description to meditation and finally to some kind of insight, resolution or stasis. An object, phenomenon or image is invoked, addressed or observed by an (often troubled) ode writer; the observation provokes thought which in turn results in some kind of conclusion, decision or realisation. We will meet this structure again when we look at the sonnet. Whether the lyric ode truly descends from the cla.s.sical ode or from the medieval sonnet is a historical and academic matter which, while of no doubt frantic interest, we shall leave unexplored.

Often the poet, as in grand public odes, opens with direct address: Sh.e.l.ley does so in 'Skylark' and 'Ode to the West Wind': Hail to thee, blithe spirit!Bird thou never wert.O wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn's being Or they apostrophise their hero later in the poem as Keats does the Nightingale and Autumn: Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

But it is so so usual to open a poem with an invocation, 'O G.o.ddess! hear these tuneless numbers' ('To Psyche'), 'Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness' ('On a Grecian Urn'), that you might almost define the romantic ode as being a meditative poem that commences with a direct address, an address which puts the O! in Ode, as it were. usual to open a poem with an invocation, 'O G.o.ddess! hear these tuneless numbers' ('To Psyche'), 'Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness' ('On a Grecian Urn'), that you might almost define the romantic ode as being a meditative poem that commences with a direct address, an address which puts the O! in Ode, as it were.

If you are planning to write an ode yourself, it is unlikely, I suspect, to be Pindaric or Horatian in any cla.s.sical, ceremonial sense; you may choose to call anything you write an ode, but it is as well to bear in mind the history and a.s.sociations that go with the appellation.

We will finish with the most pleasant member of the ode family in my estimation. It combines a wholly agreeable nature with a delightfully crunchy name and ought by rights to be far more popular and better known than it is: simple to write, simple to read and easy to agree with, meet ANACREONTICS.

Syllabically it's seven.Thematically it's heaven,Little lines to celebrateWine and love and all that's great.Life is fleeting, death can wait,Trochees bounce along with zestTelling us that Pleasure's best.Dithyrambic8 measures traipse, measures traipse,Pressing flesh and pressing grapes.Fill my gla.s.s and squeeze my thighs,Hedonism takes the prize.Broach the bottle, time to pour!Cupid's darts and Bacchus' juiceUse your magic to produceSomething humans can enjoy.Grab a girl, embrace a boy,Strum your lyre and hum this tuneLife's too quick and death's too soon.

Anacreon (p.r.o.nounced: Anacreon Anacreon) was a sixth-century Greek poet whose name lives on in the style of verse that bears his name ANACREONTICS ( (anacreontics). Actually, we barely know anything he wrote, his reputation rests on a haul of work called the Anacreontea Anacreontea, published in France in the sixteenth century. It was later discovered that these were actually not works by him, but later imitations written in his honour. No matter, Anacreon had been venerated by Horace, who shared his sybaritic, Epicurean philosophy, and by many English-language poets from Herrick and Cowley to the present day.

There was an Anacreontic Society in the eighteenth century dedicated to 'wit, harmony and the G.o.d of wine,' though its real purpose became the convivial celebration of music, hosting evenings for Haydn and other leading musicians of the day, as well as devising their own club song: 'To Anacreon in Heav'n'. A society member, John Stafford Smith, wrote the music for it, a tune which somehow got pinched by those d.a.m.n Yankees who use it to this day for their national anthem, 'The Star-Spangled Banner''Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light' and so on. Strange to think that the music now fitting

...yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

was actually written to fit

...entwine The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's wine!

And this in a country where they prohibited alcohol for the best part of a quarter of a century, a country where they look at you with pitying eyes if you order a weak spritzer at lunchtime. Tsch!

The poet most a.s.sociated with English anacreontics is the seventeenth-century Abraham Cowley: here he is extolling Epicureanism over Stoicism in 'The Epicure': Crown me with roses while I live,Now your wines and ointments give:After death I nothing crave,Let me alive my pleasures have:All are Stoics in the grave.

And a s.n.a.t.c.h of another, simply called 'Drinking': Fill up the bowl then, fill it high,Fill all the gla.s.ses there, for whyShould every creature drink but I,Why, man of morals, tell me why?

Three hundred years later one of my early literary heroes, Norman Douglas, observing a wagtail drinking from a birdbath, came to this conclusion: Hark'ee, wagtail: Mend your ways;Life is brief, Anacreon says,Brief its joys, its ventures toilsome;Wine befriends themwater spoils 'em.Who's for water? Wagtail, you?Give me wine! I'll drink for two.

One of the enduring functions of all art from Anacreon to Francis Bacon, from Horace to Damien Hirst has been, is and always will be to remind us of the transience of existence, to stand as a memento mori memento mori that will never let us forget Gloria Monday's sick transit. We do, of course, that will never let us forget Gloria Monday's sick transit. We do, of course, know know that we are going to die, and all too soon, but we need art to remind us not to spend too much time in the office caring about things that on our deathbeds will mean less than nothing. The particularity of anacreontics (simply writing in seven-syllable trochaic tetrameter as above does not make your verse anacreontic: the verse that we are going to die, and all too soon, but we need art to remind us not to spend too much time in the office caring about things that on our deathbeds will mean less than nothing. The particularity of anacreontics (simply writing in seven-syllable trochaic tetrameter as above does not make your verse anacreontic: the verse must must concern itself with pleasure, wine, erotic love and the fleeting nature of existence) is echoed in the contemplative odes and love poetry of Horace; we find it in Shakespeare, Herrick, Marvell and all poetry between them and the present day. It is also a theme of Middle-Eastern poetry, Hafiz (sometimes called the Anacreon of Persia) and Omar Khayyam most notably. concern itself with pleasure, wine, erotic love and the fleeting nature of existence) is echoed in the contemplative odes and love poetry of Horace; we find it in Shakespeare, Herrick, Marvell and all poetry between them and the present day. It is also a theme of Middle-Eastern poetry, Hafiz (sometimes called the Anacreon of Persia) and Omar Khayyam most notably.

What of Dylan Thomas's 'In My Craft or Sullen Art'?

In my craft or sullen artExercised in the still nightWhen only the moon ragesAnd the lovers lie abedWith all their griefs in their arms,I labour by singing lightNot for ambition or breadOr the strut and trade of charmsOn the ivory stagesBut for the common wagesOf their most secret heart.

Wonderful as the poem is, dedicated to lovers as it is, presented in short sweet lines as it is, it would be b.l.o.o.d.y-minded to call it anacreontic: a hint of Eros, but no sense of Dionysus or of the need to love or drink as time's winged chariot approaches. However, I would call one of the most beautiful poems in all twentieth-century English verse, Auden's 'Lullaby' (1937), anacreontic, although I have never seen it discussed as such. Here are a few lines from the beginning: Lay your sleeping head, my love,Human on my faithless arm;Time and fevers burn awayIndividual beauty fromThoughtful children, and the graveProves the child ephemeral:But in my arms till break of dayLet the living creature lie,Mortal, guilty, but to meThe entirely beautiful.

The references to flesh, love and the transience of youth make me feel this does qualify. I have no evidence that Auden thought of it as anacreontic and I may be wrong. Certainly one feels that not since Shakespeare's earlier sonnets has any youth had such gorgeous verse lavished upon him. I dare say both the subjects proved unworthy (the poets knew that, naturally) and both boys are certainly deadthe grave has has proved the child ephemeral. proved the child ephemeral. Ars longa, vita brevis Ars longa, vita brevis:9 life is short, but art is long. life is short, but art is long.

VI.

Closed Forms Villanellesestinaballade, ballade redouble

Certain closed forms, such as those we are going to have fun with now, seem demanding enough in their structures and patterning to require some of the qualities needed for so-doku and crosswords. It takes a very special kind of poetic skill to master the form and and produce verse of a quality that raises the end result above the level of mere cunningly wrought curiosity. They are the poetic equivalent of those intricately carved Chinese etuis that have an inexplicable ivory ball inside them. produce verse of a quality that raises the end result above the level of mere cunningly wrought curiosity. They are the poetic equivalent of those intricately carved Chinese etuis that have an inexplicable ivory ball inside them.

THE V VILLANELLE.

Kitchen VillanelleHow rare it is when things go rightWhen days go by without a slipAnd don't go wrong, as well they might.The smallest triumphs cause delightThe kitchen's clean, the taps don't drip,How rare it is when things go right.Your ice cream freezes overnight,Your jellies set, your pancakes flipAnd don't go wrong, as well they mightWhen life's against you, and you fightTo keep a stiffer upper lip.How rare it is when things go right,The oven works, the gas rings light,Gravies thicken, potatoes chipAnd don't go wrong as well they might.Such pleasures don't endure, so biteThe grapes of fortune to the pip.How rare it is when things go rightAnd don't go wrong as well they might.

The villanelle is the reason I am writing this book. Not that lame example, but the existence of the form itself.

Let me tell you how it happened. I was in conversation with a friend of mine about six months ago and the talk turned to poetry. I commented on the extraordinary resilience and power of ancient forms, citing the villanelle.10 'What's a villanelle?'

'Well, it's a pastoral Italian form from the sixteenth century written in six three-line stanzas where the first line of the first stanza is used as a refrain to end the second and fourth stanzas and the last line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third, fifth and sixth,' I replied with fluent ease.

You have never heard such a snort of derision in your life.

'What? You have got got to be kidding!' to be kidding!'

I retreated into a resentful silence, wrapped in my own thoughts, while this friend ranted on about the constraint and absurdity of writing modern poetry in a form dictated by some medieval Italian shepherd. Inspiration suddenly hit me. I vaguely remembered that I had once heard this friend express great admiration for a certain poet.

'Who's your favourite twentieth-century poet?' I asked nonchalantly.

Many were mentioned. Yeats, Eliot, Larkin, Hughes, Heaney, Dylan Thomas.

'And your favourite Dylan Thomas poem?'

'It's called "Do not go gentle into that good night".'

'Ah,' I said. 'Does it have any, er, what you might call form form particularly? Does it rhyme, for instance?' particularly? Does it rhyme, for instance?'

He scratched his head. 'Well, yeah it does rhyme I think. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light," and all that. But it's likemodern. You know, Dylan Thomas. Modern Modern. No c.r.a.p about it.'

'Would you be surprised to know', I said, trying to keep a note of ringing triumph from my voice, 'that "Do not go gentle into that good night" is a straight-down-the-line, solid gold, one hundred per cent perfect, unadulterated villanelle villanelle?'

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks!' he said. 'It's modern. It's free.'

The argument was not settled until we had found a copy of the poem and my friend had been forced to concede that I was right. 'Do not go gentle into that good night' is indeed a perfect villanelle, following all the rules of this venerable form with the greatest precision. That my friend could recall it only as a 'modern' poem with a couple of memorable rhyming refrains is a testament both to Thomas's unforced artistry and to the resilience and adaptability of the form itself: six three-line stanzas or tercets tercets,11 each alternating the refrains introduced in the first stanza and concluding with them in couplet form: each alternating the refrains introduced in the first stanza and concluding with them in couplet form: Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The conventional way to render the villanelle's plan is to call the first refrain ('Do not go gentle') A1 and the second refrain ('Rage, rage...')A2. These two rhyme with each other (which is why they share the letter): the second line ('Old age should burn') establishes the b b rhyme which is kept up in the middle line of every stanza. rhyme which is kept up in the middle line of every stanza.

Much easier to grasp in action than in code. I have boxed and shaded the refrains here in Derek Mahon's villanelle 'Antarctica'. (I have also numbered the line and stanzas, which of course Mahon did not do):

3.

I hope you can see from this layout that the form is actually not as convoluted as it sounds. Describing how a villanelle works is a great deal more linguistically challenging than writing one. Mahon, by the way, as is permissible, has slightly altered the refrain line, in his case turning the direct speech of the first refrain. There are no rules as to metre or length of measure, but the rhyming is important. Slant-rhyme versions exist but for my money the shape, the revolving gavotte of the refrains and their final coupling, is compromised by partial rhyming. The form is thought to have evolved from Sicilian round songs, of the 'London Bridge is falling down' variety. In the anthologies you will find villanelles culled from the era of their invention, the sixteenth century, especially translations of the work of the man who really got the form going, the French poet Jean Pa.s.serat: after these examples there seems to be a notable lacuna until the late nineteenth century. Oscar Wilde wrote 'Theocritus', a rather mannered neo-cla.s.sical venture'O singer of Persephone!/Dost thou remember Sicily?' (I think it best to refer to villanelles by their refrain lines), while Ernest Dowson, Wilde's friend and fellow Yellow Book Yellow Book contributor, came up with the 'Villanelle of His Lady's Treasures' which is a much bouncier attempt, very Tudor in flavour: 'I took her dainty eyes as well/And so I made a Villanelle.' contributor, came up with the 'Villanelle of His Lady's Treasures' which is a much bouncier attempt, very Tudor in flavour: 'I took her dainty eyes as well/And so I made a Villanelle.'

But it is, perhaps surprisingly, during the twentieth century that the villanelle grows in popularity; besides those we have seen by Mahon and Dylan Thomas, there are memorable examples you may like to try to get hold of by Roethke, Auden, Empson, Heaney, Donald Justice, Wendy Cope and a delightful comic one candidly wrestling with the fiendish nature of the form itself ent.i.tled 'Villanelle of Ye Young Poet's First Villanelle to his Ladye and Ye Difficulties Thereof' by the playwright Eugene O'Neill: 'To sing the charms of Rosabelle,/I tried to write this villanelle.' But for a reason I cannot quite fathom it is female female poets who seem to have made the most of the form in the last fifty years or so. Sylvia Plath's 'Mad Girl's Love Song' is especially poignant, given what we know about the poet's unhappy end: 'I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead./(I think I made you up inside my head)'. The American poet Elizabeth Bishop's 'One Art' is as fine a modern villanelle as I know and Marilyn Hacker has also written two superbly ambiguous love villanelles. Carolyn Beard Whitlow's 'Rockin' a Man Stone Blind' shows how a medieval Mediterranean pastoral form can adapt to the twentieth-century African American experience. I like the poets who seem to have made the most of the form in the last fifty years or so. Sylvia Plath's 'Mad Girl's Love Song' is especially poignant, given what we know about the poet's unhappy end: 'I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead./(I think I made you up inside my head)'. The American poet Elizabeth Bishop's 'One Art' is as fine a modern villanelle as I know and Marilyn Hacker has also written two superbly ambiguous love villanelles. Carolyn Beard Whitlow's 'Rockin' a Man Stone Blind' shows how a medieval Mediterranean pastoral form can adapt to the twentieth-century African American experience. I like the Porgy and Bess Porgy and Bess-style rhythms: Cake in the oven, clothes out on the line,Night wind blowin' against sweet, yellow thighs,Two-eyed woman rockin' a man stone blind.Man smell of honey, dark like coffee grind;Countin' on his fingers since last July.Cake in the oven, clothes out on the line.Mister Jacobs say he be colorblind,But got to tighten belts and loosen ties.Two-eyed woman rockin' a man stone blind.Winter becoming angry, rent behind.Strapping spring sun needed to make mud pies.Cake in the oven, clothes out on the line.Looked in the mirror, Bessie's face I find.I be so down low, my man be so high.Two-eyed woman rockin' a man stone blind.Policeman's found him; d.a.m.n near lost my mind.Can't afford no flowers; can't even cry.Cake in the oven, clothes out on the line.Two-eyed woman rockin' a man stone blind.

A form that seemed so dead in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries brought back to rude and glistening health in the twentieth and twenty-first. Why? The villanelle has been called 'an acoustic chamber for words' and a structure that lends itself to 'duality, dichotomy, and debate', this last a.s.sertion from 'Modern Versions of the Villanelle' by Philip Jason, who goes on to suggest: there is even the potential for the two repeating lines to form a paradigm for schizophrenia...the mind may not fully know itself or its subject, may not be in full control, and yet it still tries, still festers and broods in a closed room towards a resolution that is at least pretended by the final couplet linking of the refrain lines.

Hm. It is a form that certainly seems to appeal to outsiders, or those who might have cause to consider themselves such. Among the poets we have looked at as authors of villanelles we find an African American lesbian, a Jewish lesbian, a lesbian whose father died when she was four and whose mother was committed into a mental inst.i.tution four years later, two gay men, two alcoholics who drank themselves to death and a deeply unstable and unhappy neurotic who committed suicide. Perhaps this is coincidence, perhaps not. Once again I am forced to wonder if it is ironic interplay that might make the most convincing explanation. As I suggested earlier, sometimes the rules of form can be as powerfully modern a response to chaos, moral uncertainty and relativism as open freedom can be. The more marginalised, chaotic, alienated and psychically damaged a life, the greater the impulse to find structure and certainty, surely? The playful artifice of a villanelle, preposterous as it may appear at first glance, can embody defiant gestures and att.i.tudes of vengeful endurance. It suits a rueful, ironic reiteration of pain or of fatalism. We mustn't exaggerate that characteristic of the form, however: Heaney's 'Anniversary Villanelle' and some very funny examples by Wendy Cope demonstrate that it need not be always down in the dumps.

Technically the trick of it seems to be to find a refrain pair that is capable of run-ons, ambiguity and ironic reversal. I think you should try one yourself.

Poetry Exercise 14 Any subject, naturally. The skill is to find refrain lines that are open ended enough to create opportunities for enjambment between both lines and stanzas. This is not essential, of course, your refrain line can be closed and contained if you prefer, but you will gain variety, contrast and surprise if run-ons are possible.

Don't hurry the process of chewing over suitable refrains. Naturally the middle lines have to furnish six b b rhymes, so words like 'plinth' and 'orange' are not going to be very useful...enjoy. rhymes, so words like 'plinth' and 'orange' are not going to be very useful...enjoy.

The Sestina Let fair SESTINA start with this first start with this first LINE LINE,So far from pretty, perfect or inSPIRED.Its six-fold unrhymed structure marks the FORM FORM. The art is carefully carefully to choose your to choose your WORDS WORDSEspecially those you use at each line's END END, If not you'll find your effort's all in VAIN VAIN.Look up: that final hero word was 'VAIN'And so it ends this stanza's opening LINE LINE.We use up all our heroes till the END ENDAnd trust that somehow we will be inSPIRED To find a fitting place for all our To find a fitting place for all our WORDS WORDSAnd satisfy the dictates of the FORM FORM.It's simple, once you get the hang, to FORM FORMYour verse in sections like a weather-VANE: The secret lies in finding six good WORDS WORDSThat seem to suit the ending of a LINE LINE.Your pattern of ideas should be inSPIREDBy heroes who will see you to the END END.Their cyclic repet.i.tion to that END ENDEnsures your poem will at least conFORMTo all the rules. From time to time inSPIRED Solutions will occur. Write in this Solutions will occur. Write in this VEIN VEIN,Just interweaving neatly line by LINE LINEUntil you've used your stock of six good WORDS. WORDS.Composing in this form is knitting knitting WORDS WORDS:You cast off, purl and knit and purl to END ENDEach row, then cast off for another LINE LINEUntil a woolly poem starts to FORM FORM.You may believe sestinas are a VAIN VAIN,Indulgent, showy, frankly uninSPIREDIdea. Yet many modern poets have conSPIRED,To weave away and knit their scarf of WORDS WORDS.I'll not feel my my attempt has been in attempt has been in VAIN VAINIf by the time this chapter's reached its END ENDJust one of you has learned to love this FORM FORMAnd taught your hero words to toe the LINE LINE.EnvoiINSPIRED by fair S by fair SESTINA now I now I END ENDThis run of WORDS WORDS. I hope that you will FORM FORMAnd not in VAIN VAINa poem in this LINE LINE.