This is kind of a test of Blogger's new post-ahead option. Since I post from the public library these days, I won't be here to post on Monday, as I usually do here. Memorial Day, guys.
So, if you can read this on Monday, then Blogger's "scheduled post publishing" works!
BTW, I've made some small but significant edits on the previous post. See if they clear anything up for you.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Fallacious Pathos
It may seem that I was contradicting myself last week when I pointed out the illogicality of a coined word (at least as its original definition went), then continued to praise a certain logicality of organization in traditional poetry.
Especially since free-verse poets (like me) often sing the praises of nonlinear thinking (and feeling) in the first place.
Superficial logic makes for a poor poem, IMHO. And it rarely has much to do with an organic thing like human language.
My emphasis on a logical outline for fixed-verse poems (did I just coin the term "fixed-verse?" I hereby take credit, until someone shows me otherwise. ;P ) comes from experience, and it mainly applies to the outline itself. I outlined a possible outline for a metaphorical conceit in last week's post.
And that brings me to today's topic, my friends. A rather strange dude named John Ruskin described the issue for all writers in an essay on it called "The Pathetic Fallacy."
I'll let you look this essay up for the details, along with some of Ruskin's other works (His book The Stones of Venice is his best-known.). He's one of those late Victorian writers who could make a prose sentence work like a Liszt sonata.
But for here and now, I'll do my best to sum it up: you fall into pathetic fallacy when you metaphorically give natural forces or objects human feelings, as in something like "the winds weep for grief over lost Lenore."
OK, I don't think that's in "The Raven." I just made it up. Ruskin called the fallacy "pathetic" after the original sense of the word indicating "suffering," as in "experiencing." In your poem, when you have the wind weeping or starlight laughing or some such, you're giving human attributes to inanimate forces.
And that's why I stress a little planning in the "pre-poem" phase of writing fixed-verse poems (I've now decided I hate the term -- so please attribute it to someone else!): it's just so easy to fall flat on your face.
I believe there is an exception (in a manner of speaking) to the pathetic fallacy: it's found somewhere in the distinction between symbolism and allegory.
Maybe I'll get into that someday.
Especially since free-verse poets (like me) often sing the praises of nonlinear thinking (and feeling) in the first place.
Superficial logic makes for a poor poem, IMHO. And it rarely has much to do with an organic thing like human language.
My emphasis on a logical outline for fixed-verse poems (did I just coin the term "fixed-verse?" I hereby take credit, until someone shows me otherwise. ;P ) comes from experience, and it mainly applies to the outline itself. I outlined a possible outline for a metaphorical conceit in last week's post.
And that brings me to today's topic, my friends. A rather strange dude named John Ruskin described the issue for all writers in an essay on it called "The Pathetic Fallacy."
I'll let you look this essay up for the details, along with some of Ruskin's other works (His book The Stones of Venice is his best-known.). He's one of those late Victorian writers who could make a prose sentence work like a Liszt sonata.
But for here and now, I'll do my best to sum it up: you fall into pathetic fallacy when you metaphorically give natural forces or objects human feelings, as in something like "the winds weep for grief over lost Lenore."
OK, I don't think that's in "The Raven." I just made it up. Ruskin called the fallacy "pathetic" after the original sense of the word indicating "suffering," as in "experiencing." In your poem, when you have the wind weeping or starlight laughing or some such, you're giving human attributes to inanimate forces.
And that's why I stress a little planning in the "pre-poem" phase of writing fixed-verse poems (I've now decided I hate the term -- so please attribute it to someone else!): it's just so easy to fall flat on your face.
I believe there is an exception (in a manner of speaking) to the pathetic fallacy: it's found somewhere in the distinction between symbolism and allegory.
Maybe I'll get into that someday.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Conceited Metaphors
As best I can recall, a word in today's title recalls an earlier subject: making up words.
"Conceit" is some kind of parallel formation from "deceit" -- as if a "conception" of something true is the opposite of a "deception" of something false. You can see the cracked logic right away, can't you? But logic rarely puts a word in the dictionary -- usage does.
And in the case of a so-called "metaphorical conceit," usage is often the problem. (I know I'm careening all over the place today, but ... well, it's that kind of a Monday! Windy, that is.)
Another earlier post pointed you, dear readers, to the sonnets of Shakespeare as models of English form. And we can return to him as the model for the metaphorical conceit. Basically, the idea is to take a single metaphor and then keep running with it to the end of the poem (or nearly there, anyway).
Let's say I compare metaphorically (no "like" or "as" -- remember?) my love's heart to a bird's wings beating. Then I compare her voice to a bird's chirping, then her touch to a feather's, etc.
And then maybe I can sum up with some idea of the fragility of love compared to a bird's fragile body, something like that. (Hey, maybe I've got something there ... !?)
The trick to a successful conceit goes back to what I've been saying all along: you've got to think it through first, apply some logic to its structure and some taste to its execution, and then set it aside for awhile before deciding on how well you did.
What prompted this is an effort by a columnist in a newspaper recently (I won't say which one) that made one of the worst attempts at a metaphorical conceit I've ever read (in prose, at least).
This writer seemed to think the very notion of a metaphorical conceit was somehow whimsical and kind of artificial -- but that didn't stop him (or her) from threading it through the first five or six paragraphs of the column. As if to say, "I'm so clever, but I don't need to take what I've done seriously!"
You do need to take it seriously, even if your tone is "tongue-in-cheek!" Because you're communicating, and that's never something to fool around with.
That goes double for those of us who write in the hardest form of creative writing there is. Even though we appear to do it for no practical reason at all.
Especially so -- because whatever value it possesses lives within what we've created.
"Conceit" is some kind of parallel formation from "deceit" -- as if a "conception" of something true is the opposite of a "deception" of something false. You can see the cracked logic right away, can't you? But logic rarely puts a word in the dictionary -- usage does.
And in the case of a so-called "metaphorical conceit," usage is often the problem. (I know I'm careening all over the place today, but ... well, it's that kind of a Monday! Windy, that is.)
Another earlier post pointed you, dear readers, to the sonnets of Shakespeare as models of English form. And we can return to him as the model for the metaphorical conceit. Basically, the idea is to take a single metaphor and then keep running with it to the end of the poem (or nearly there, anyway).
Let's say I compare metaphorically (no "like" or "as" -- remember?) my love's heart to a bird's wings beating. Then I compare her voice to a bird's chirping, then her touch to a feather's, etc.
And then maybe I can sum up with some idea of the fragility of love compared to a bird's fragile body, something like that. (Hey, maybe I've got something there ... !?)
The trick to a successful conceit goes back to what I've been saying all along: you've got to think it through first, apply some logic to its structure and some taste to its execution, and then set it aside for awhile before deciding on how well you did.
What prompted this is an effort by a columnist in a newspaper recently (I won't say which one) that made one of the worst attempts at a metaphorical conceit I've ever read (in prose, at least).
This writer seemed to think the very notion of a metaphorical conceit was somehow whimsical and kind of artificial -- but that didn't stop him (or her) from threading it through the first five or six paragraphs of the column. As if to say, "I'm so clever, but I don't need to take what I've done seriously!"
You do need to take it seriously, even if your tone is "tongue-in-cheek!" Because you're communicating, and that's never something to fool around with.
That goes double for those of us who write in the hardest form of creative writing there is. Even though we appear to do it for no practical reason at all.
Especially so -- because whatever value it possesses lives within what we've created.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Pencil It In
You gotta scan it yourself, if you're going to learn traditional verse. There are too many little ins and outs involved not to. Yes, it's great to have that pamphlet (forget what it was called) that gives you an overview of the different meters and such. But there's no replacement for scanning poem after poem yourself -- sort of like going to the gallery and learning painting from the masters.
What I used as a scanning text was my old Norton anthology from Poetry 101 (or whatever the course was called) -- a nice fat book, nice clear print with enough linear spacing to pencil-in (lightly!) your scans, and widely available. I owned the book, it wasn't going to anyone else, and there was no need to feel I was destroying posterity. The book was a teaching tool to start with, and I was just using it for some personal extended homework.
It was extended, all right. I ended up scanning (and analyzing) in pencil every poem in that edition (the seventh, maybe?) that rhymed or was in blank verse. From (Philip) Sidney to (Cecil Day-) Lewis.
I'll go into what I did in more detail later. But first, friends, choose your scanning text carefully -- please.
What I used as a scanning text was my old Norton anthology from Poetry 101 (or whatever the course was called) -- a nice fat book, nice clear print with enough linear spacing to pencil-in (lightly!) your scans, and widely available. I owned the book, it wasn't going to anyone else, and there was no need to feel I was destroying posterity. The book was a teaching tool to start with, and I was just using it for some personal extended homework.
It was extended, all right. I ended up scanning (and analyzing) in pencil every poem in that edition (the seventh, maybe?) that rhymed or was in blank verse. From (Philip) Sidney to (Cecil Day-) Lewis.
I'll go into what I did in more detail later. But first, friends, choose your scanning text carefully -- please.
