"Nature's world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden". —Sir Philip

The Sonnet

By lisala on 11/7/09 6:36pm
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The "standard" definition of a sonnet is fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, but such was not always the case. The most frequent departures from the standard, especially in the very early Italian sonnets involves a number of lines other than fourteen, or, especially in sonnets after the Elizabethan era, all sorts of metrical differences. The sonnet was an Italian poetic form that entered English literature by way of two sixteenth century English poets, Thomas Wyatt and Sir Henry Surrey. The two translated the sonnets of the medieval Italian poet Petrarch, their sonnets were printed in Tottle's Miscellany, and from there, the form became increasingly popular with court poets and musicians alike.

There are three principal sonnet styles or forms, with a number of minor variations and hybrid forms.

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Tam Lin: Love, Sacrifice, and Halloween

By lisala on 10/31/09 11:52am
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I can't really think about Halloween, or Samhain, if you prefer, without thinking of the ballad of "Tam Lin," especially this part:

"And pleasant is the fairy land,
But, an eerie tale to tell,
Ay at the end of seven years
We pay a tiend to hell;
I am sae fair and fu o flesh,
I’m feard it be mysel.

"But the night is Halloween, lady,
The morn is Hallowday;
Then win me, win me, an ye will,
For weel I wat ye may.

"Just at the mirk and midnight hour
The fairy folk will ride,
And they that wad their true-love win,

"Tam Lin" Child Ballad 39A.24

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How to Talk About Poetry

By lisala on 9/18/09 12:31pm
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Let's be honest. Reading poetry, in the greater scheme of things, is just this side of engaging in an obscenity. Poetry is meant to be spoken or sung or chanted; it's meant to be heard, not to be engaged in as a quiet, sullen and solitary vice. Poems live when they are shared; they are meant to be spoken and heard and passed on and celebrated.

Anyone can read and enjoy and comment appreciatively and intelligently about poetry. You don't have to be some sort of creative writer, or a poet, or an artist, or sensitive, or anything much, beyond a thoughtful reader.

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Queen Elizabeth I Poems

By lisala on 9/15/09 11:41am
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Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) is, perhaps, the most famous ruler England has ever known. But far fewer people realize that Elizabeth I was not only the patron of poets Elizabeth I 1555Elizabeth I 1555like Raleigh, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Sidney, she wrote poems herself. She also wrote brilliant speeches, thoughtful letters and astonishingly eloquent translations from Latin, French and Italian. Her best known poem is "On Monsieur's Departure"; it's generally agreed that it was likely about either the end of marriage negotiations between Elizabeth I and The Duke of Anjou in 1582, or, possibly, the Earl of Essex, once her favorite but who was executed for treason in 1601.

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They flee from me . . . Sir Thomas Wyatt

By lisala on 9/14/09 10:19am
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They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

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Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1502)

By lisala on 8/5/09 9:53pm
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Thomas Wyatt was born c. 1503, to a good family. His father was the Constable of Sir Thomas WyattSir Thomas WyattNorwich Castle. Wyatt was educated at Cambridge University. As an adult, Wyatt proved an adept courtier, and was sent by the king on several missions to Italy, the Vatican, and France. Because of tangential involvement in a conspiracy that he may or may not have even had knowledge of, in 1536 Wyatt was imprisoned for a time in the Tower. While there, he witnessed the speacilaly imported French executioner  wield his sword against the neck of Ann Boleyn, and wrote about the event in a Latin poem. On release, Wyatt retired to his country estate in Kent and is known to have produced some of his better poetry there. He was subsequently sent to the Tower again in 1541.

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Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind

By lisala on 7/26/09 5:16pm
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Anne BoyleynAnne Boyleyn

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind ,
But as for me, alas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

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Ich Am From Irelande

By lisala on 7/26/09 11:04am
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Ich am of Ireland
And of the holy londe
Of Ireland.
Gode sire, preye ich thee,
For of saynte charite
Come and dance with me
In Ireland.

This Middle English lyric is by one of my very favorite poets, Anonymous. She's quite prolific, and exceedingly long-lived. "Ich am of Ireland," or "I am of Ireland" is from c. 1400, and is preserved in a single manuscript, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson D.913.

Here's the same thing in Modern English:

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Western Wind

By lisala on 7/15/09 5:55pm
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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 c. Early Sixteenth Century



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