Mystical Linguistic Power of Meter and Rhyme
Since the beginning of the movie and TV era, and since consumerism became the dominant paradigm, society has become far more visual.
At the same time, the sonorous power and elegance of the word has declined. I find that sad. These days, "poetry that rhymes ain't worth a dime," as a recent poetry contestant quipped. I disagree.
I was raised on poetic rhyme and meter. Expressing profound ideas within formal constraints is memorable and impressive; it requires greater linguistic discipline and skill than the more current poetics of throwing words or images on a page to form visual patterns.
Certain lines of poetry from Shakespeare and my high school text books live, still able to reawaken within that ineffable something the sonorous lines first evoked. I respond powerfully to iambic pentameter; it echoes in my head, tramping out primordial rhythms that hark back to the days before writing was invented.
I still recall the inner harmonic resonance a line from Tennyson's Ulysses awoke in me, moving me to write it out in my best calligraphy to put on my teenage wall:
"There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail." An invitation to a larger life.
"In the beginning was the word." Sonorous liturgy from the powerful poetry of the King James Bible. The word is with us still, powerfully present, expressing the long history of human culture and the equally longstanding impulse to entertain the world's mystery.
At the same time, the sonorous power and elegance of the word has declined. I find that sad. These days, "poetry that rhymes ain't worth a dime," as a recent poetry contestant quipped. I disagree.
I was raised on poetic rhyme and meter. Expressing profound ideas within formal constraints is memorable and impressive; it requires greater linguistic discipline and skill than the more current poetics of throwing words or images on a page to form visual patterns.
Certain lines of poetry from Shakespeare and my high school text books live, still able to reawaken within that ineffable something the sonorous lines first evoked. I respond powerfully to iambic pentameter; it echoes in my head, tramping out primordial rhythms that hark back to the days before writing was invented.
I still recall the inner harmonic resonance a line from Tennyson's Ulysses awoke in me, moving me to write it out in my best calligraphy to put on my teenage wall:
"There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail." An invitation to a larger life.
"In the beginning was the word." Sonorous liturgy from the powerful poetry of the King James Bible. The word is with us still, powerfully present, expressing the long history of human culture and the equally longstanding impulse to entertain the world's mystery.