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From: reid@uwvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.poems
Subject: Re: Re: Form in Poetry
Message-ID: <969@uwvax.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 2-Jul-83 01:58:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwvax.969
Posted: Sat Jul  2 01:58:39 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Jul-83 22:46:26 EDT
References: <346@houxf.UUCP>
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 53

In response to the article about Milton and rhyme -- I agree.  I never said
that rhyme, per se, was necessary, nor necessarily stanza structure, but you'll
certainly find structure in Milton's verse.  He alliterates like crazy, uses
strings of nouns, all kinds of "specialized" constructs which, in a sense,
cause the Form of the poem (the Language--including syntax, phonetics, seman-
tics, whatever works) to *reinforce* the Meaning of the poem.  You will find
in Milton, for example, that the syntax, especially, is carefully controlled
so that in descriptive passages or action passages the syntax will flow
smoothly or be particularly rocky, depending on the sense of the passage. 
I'll see if I can dig up an example out of "Paradise Lost" . . . .

       "Before the Gates there sat
	On either side a formidable shape;
	The one seem'd Woman to the waist, and fair,
	But ended foul in many a scaly fold
	Voluminous and vast, a Serpent Arm'd
	With mortal sting: about her middle round
	A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark'd
	With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
	A hideous Peal:  yet, when they list, would creep,
	If aught disturb'd thir noise, into her womb,
	And kennel there, yet there sill bark'd and howl'd
	Within unseen.  Far less abhorr'd than these
	Vex'd Scylla bathing in the Sea that parts
	Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore:
	Nor uglier follow the Night-Hag, when call'd
	In secret, riding through the Air she comes
	Lur'd with the smell of infant blood to dance
	With Lapland Witches, while the laboring Moon
	Eclipses at thir charms."

There are only two sentences here, and they are very complex. There are many
instances of alliteration, he uses apostrophes to modify the pronunciation
slightly (since the way the passage *sounds* was crafted very carefully by
Milton), and so on.  It is pretty hard to deny that there is structure in
this stuff, although not your basic iambic pentameter.  Milton is probably
a bad one to pick to illustrate lack of form.  In any case, I should 
generalize more:

	In "Good" poetry there is some connection, or parallel, between
the language used and the sense of the poem.  It sounds pretty stupid, but
if you think carefully about your favorite poems, the flow, sound, and
esthetic beauty of the language itself is what makes it such a good poem,
not just what is said.  Poetry is not merely a method to make some point,
but is like story-telling or art in that the medium itself is important.
Enough said.  But it is a good topic for discussion.  It is the essense
of poetry, methinks.

Glenn Reid (I started all this, I must admit....)

...seismo!uwvax!reid