Those of you who have visited this column from time to time have come to know the First Poetry Quartet. Their performances are given on video at the end of each article. Today I’m giving them a little space at the start of things, as I asked them what period of poetry they most enjoyed performing, specifically which century. Their unified response was the Elizabethan Period because it encompassed so much of Shakespeare’s finest writing. Thereafter, George spoke up for the 17th century, Jill for the 18th and Norman for the 19th. That left Cynthia, quite happily, as the champion of poetry from the last hundred years. (See video link below.) We agreed that we would feature the fourteen-line sonnet whenever appropriate.
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The 17th century was a rich period for poetry with Shakespeare living the last sixteen years of his life. Later came lyric writers like Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick. In mid-century we worship one of the all-time greats in English literature, John Milton, the author of “Paradise Lost.” At the age of forty-four, living in a small house near St. Paul’s, he suffered total blindness and wrote this sonnet:
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Meanwhile, across the city in a kind of 17th century split screen, King Charles II was enjoying his restoration after six puritanical years of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate. Debauchery was now described poetically and practiced enthusiastically. The poster boy of debauchery was the Earl of Rochester, a skilled poet who could make Lord Byron seem almost saintly. Even today his pornographic verse is border unprintable. (Sorry!) More gentle, but still in the mood, is this lyric, “The Willing Mistress” by a lady of the Court, Aphra Behn, a prolific playwright and herself considered a libertine in good standing.
AMYNTAS led me to a Grove,
Where all the Trees did shade us;
The Sun itself, though it had Strove,
It could not have betray’d us:
The place secur’d from humane Eyes,
No other fear allows,
But when the Winds that gently rise,
Do Kiss the yielding Boughs.
Down there we sat upon the Moss,
And did begin to play
A Thousand Amorous Tricks, to pass
The heat of all the day.
A many Kisses he did give:
And I return’d the same
Which made me willing to receive
That which I dare not name.
His Charming Eyes no Aid requir’d
To tell their softning Tale;
On her that was already fir’d,
’Twas Easy to prevail.
He did but Kiss and Clasp me round,
Whilst those his thoughts Expressed:
And lay’d me gently on the Ground;
Ah! who can guess the rest?
Unison response from the Court: “We can!”
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With the 18th century came the Augustan Age and some major poetic changes. Firstly, the sonnet went completely out of fashion, replaced by stanzas of rhyming couplets known as “heroic couplets.” Poems about love were fewer, and poems with a satirical edge became more common, some of them of them quite sharp. Here is Alexander Pope observing that self-nominated literary critics seem to show up everywhere – even in a church:
Name a new play, and he’s the poet’s friend,
Nay show’d his faults – but when would poets mend?
No place so sacred from such fops is barr’d,
Nor is Paul’s church more safe than Paul’s churchyard:
Nay, fly to altars; there they’ll talk you dead:
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Here is Pope again, this time in a defense of his use of ridicule:
(Friend) You’re strangely proud.
(Pope) So proud, I am no slave:
So impudent, I own myself no knave;
So odd, my country’s ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me;
Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne,
Yet touch’d and shamed by Ridicule alone.
Pope is not much read these days except perhaps in college courses and not always there. But we still use and hear individual lines that came from his poems. Consider:
Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
The proper study of mankind is man.
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
To err is human; to forgive, divine.
Other 18th century poets that held pride of place in their own time are James Thomson, Samuel Johnson, and most importantly, Thomas Gray, who wrote this splendid verse that cries out to become a source of movie titles:
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
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Even before the century was out, a new age strode in, a veritable who’s who of famous poets. This was the Romantic Period that later morphed into the Victorian Period with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Tennyson writing in England, with Longfellow, Whitman and Dickinson in America among so many others. Nature, both botanical and human, was held in high regard as were individualism and imagination. In all, a Golden Age with a wealth of superb poems. Here is “Love’s Philosophy” by Shelley.
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
And as for sonnets, in the 19th century they returned to popularity with a flourish and in abundance. Coleridge wrote forty-eight; Keats wrote sixty-seven in a brief lifetime, but the champion was William Wordsworth with . . . are you ready? . . . five hundred and twenty-three!
Here is a Wordsworth sonnet I particularly like called “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, 1802” a description of early-morning London before it has awakened.
Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
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What constitutes the start of Modern Poetry is open to discussion. Some would say the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. I would select the end of World War One when the British Empire and the makeup of Europe were changing, and the Nineteen Twenties in the United States was bringing a new flavor to American life and culture. In fact, through the 20th century it’s fair to claim that our fine American poets were surpassing their British mates. Think T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Sylvia Plath.
Now here we are in 2023. There is a freedom and excitement in today’s poetry, and I’m cheered that so many people are writing, often adding their own music. Verse form can be free or structured; rhymes are unnecessary; all subjects are on the table and can be highly personal. Among my favorite modern versifiers is Lin-Manuel Miranda, a word-master and what’s more, a friendly voice. Here are some excerpts.
I wanted to wish you Good Morning.
I wanted to wish you Good Night.
I started to write these on Twitter,
A way of just being polite.
I’m really quite hooked on the Twitter,
They should take my phone out and lock it.
The biggest distraction for someone like me?
An audience up in my pocket.
So I start the day with a greeting.
And end with a night variation.
It safeguards my evenings and weekends at home,
To sign off, a mini-vacation.
I don’t have a book of quotations
Or wisdom I pull from the shelf;
Most often the greetings I wish you
Are the greetings I wish for myself.
So if I write “Relax” then I’m nervous,
Or if I write “Cheer Up’ then I’m blue.
I’m writing what I wish somebody would say,
Then switching the pronoun to you.
And it’s nice to have things to hold on to,
Some kindness right here, within sight.
You can read this whenever you want to.
It will be here. Gmorning. Gnight.
And what has happened to our friend the sonnet, originated centuries ago by the Italian poet Petrarch writing to his beloved Laura? Well, here’s an update by the irresistible Billy Collins.
All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,
and after this next one just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love’s storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here while we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.
Amen.
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VIDEO. Nothing pleases actors more than getting into costume and make-up as they flesh out a character portrayal. In support of today’s column, our First Poetry Quartet takes on roles representing four centuries.
Speaking for the 17th century is George Backman as Lord George Backman, the Earl of Amwell, patron of the arts and distinguished member of the Court of King Charles II. For the 18th century, Jill Tanner becomes Lady Jill Tanner, a prominent woman of letters and a close acquaintance of Dr. Samuel Johnson.
On behalf of the 19th century, Norman Snow portrays the Reverend Norman Snow, a New England minister whose sermons are widely read.
And for the last hundred years, Cynthia Herman is seen as, well, Cynthia Herman.
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: A VIEW OF FOUR CENTURIES
