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Author Archives: Dennis Clark
in verse # 18 : a monstrous fable
Like many a medieval manuscript, Piers the plowman has no title as such. Walter W. Skeat, who gave it that title, notes, however, that, in the manuscript he used as the basis for his Oxford edition, “we find here [in … Continue reading
Posted in In Verse, Mormon LitCrit, The Past through Literature
Tagged a monstrous fable, Albert C. Baugh, allegory, Book of Mormon, fantasy, Herman Melville, Joseph Smith, Joseph's Myth, Kemp Malone, mimesis, mimetic & fantastic, Moby-Dick, Mormon Literature, outsider art, Piers the Plowman, poetry, Scott Hales, the alliterative revival, verse and prose, Walter W. Skeat
14 Comments
in verse # 17 : a fair field full of folk
I could hardly call my younger self a political junkie, and I would never claim that I had a sophisticate’s understanding of poetry in elementary school. I tried, and tried again, as often as I could, to understand how poems … Continue reading
Posted in In Verse
Tagged Alliterative revival, Alliterative verse, Piers Plowman, poetry, the alliterative revival
2 Comments
in verse # 16 : rime royal
In “The horrors of the German language,” chapter 8 of his Words and rules, Steven Pinker reminds us that “no one is biologically disposed to speak a particular language. The experiments called immigration and conquest, in which children master languages … Continue reading
Posted in In Verse
Tagged Albert C. Baugh, alliteration, Alliterative revival, Alliterative verse, Chaucer’s major poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer, Green Armor on Green Ground, John McWhorter, Our magnificent bastard tongue, poetry, rhyme, rime, Steven Pinker, syllabic rhyming verse, the continental form, The Oxford companion to English Literature, verse, Words and rules : the ingredients of language
3 Comments
in verse # 15 : the alliterative resuscitation
When alliterative verse came roaring back to life in the mid-fourteenth century, it was more as a Wolfman than as a creature of some demented Frankenstein. In the century and a half between Laȝamon’s recasting of Wace’s Roman de Brut,[i] … Continue reading
Posted in In Verse
Tagged Alliterative revival, Alliterative verse, contemporary American verse, E. V. Gordon, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Simpson, Middle English poetry, poetry, Simon Armitage, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tess Gallagher, The alliterative Morte Arthure, verse, verse; Simon Armitage; The Alliterative Morte Arthure; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; J. R. R. Tolkien; E. V. Gordon; Alliterative revival; alliterative verse; contemporary American verse; Middle En
3 Comments
in verse # 14 : the alliterative revival
Literary wayfaring in England did not end with the Norman Conquest in 1066. It forked, one fork following the lead of the French conquerors, the other the lead of the English conquered. Both of these were excursions into vulgar territory
Posted in In Verse, The Past through Literature, Thoughts on Language
Tagged A Literary History of England, Albert C. Baugh, Arthurian romances, Kemp Malone, Medieval English verse and prose -- in modernized versions, poetry, Roger Sherman Loomis, Rudolph Willard, the alliterative revival, verse
4 Comments
in verse # 13 : free verse, and bound
The observant amongst you will have had cause to wonder at Rolfe Humphries’ use of the term “free meters,” in the subtitle of his Green armor on green ground : poems in the twenty-four official Welsh meters, and some, in … Continue reading
in verse # 12 : notes upon the staff
When I was quite young, I thought “certain” was a verb. I was sure of this because I could think of no other reason that a choir of angels would tell a coven of shepherds that there was no well … Continue reading
in verse # 11 : last of the awdl
To me, turkey has always meant dark meat — the leg and the thigh. This may be because of an association I made early on between dark meat and the dark lady of the sonnets. I had no idea who … Continue reading
in verse # 10 : aged in charcoal
Rolfe Humphries’s fine poem, “Winter, Old Style,” with which he illustrates the Welsh meter rhupunt, ends with these lines: The trees are bowed in the bare wood; there is no shade in any vale. The reeds are dry and … Continue reading
Posted in In Verse
Tagged An introduction to Welsh poetry from the beginnings to the sixteenth century, An Old Man's Winter Night, Green Armor on Green Ground, Gwyn Williams, Leslie Norris, Midnight lantern, poetry, Robert Frost, Rolfe Humphries, Tess Gallagher, To Whom Can I Open My Heart?
6 Comments
in verse # 9 : for batter or for verse?
I just got home from a performance of the Chinese Opera Orchestra of Shanghai, which was founded in 2010 to preserve and popularize Chinese traditional music, according to the program booklet, and they do play Chinese traditional music and Chinese … Continue reading
