/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7367843]

Fun Question: I enjoy writing poetry, and enjoy reading it as well, and a question I've slowly come to ponder is how much did the classical poets realized they were writing in a specific meter? I assume they just enjoyed the sound, but they were never perfect in their use. It's one of those questions of the actualization of specific literary techniques, or the process of analysis implanting ideas for meaning that were completely accidental.

In a more concise manner, how much did Shakespeare realize he was using the certain meter to give his work a certain form? And how has the process of modern poetry being more free form characterized it as trying ostracize the classic forms of meter in order to indulge in differing forms of meaning?

[Anonymous No.7367868]

they did it on purpose

jfc anon

[Anonymous No.7367913]

>>7367843
>how much did the classical poets realized they were writing in a specific meter?
Thoroughly. They knew everything they were doing, it was all concise and nuanced.

>how much did Shakespeare realize he was using the certain meter to give his work a certain form?
He knew everything he was doing. If he deviated from perfect iambs it was for a reason.

>And how has the process of modern poetry being more free form characterized it as trying ostracize the classic forms of meter in order to indulge in differing forms of meaning?
Looser form wasn't generally an attempt to ostracize from formal structure, modernist period poets like Pound were some of the most formal yet. Free verse wasn't "free", it was simply loose. Pound, Eliot, Crane, and so on, they all knew what iambs and dactyls were, they knew what pentameter meant. They knew what effects they communicated and how to use them, and they DID still use them, just in a more free-flowing, liberated type of way. They made them tools more than many of the poets that came from before, rather than using it because it was the standard mode.

Today's poetic landscape can be attributed to Whitman and his legacy, although how exactly is somewhat nuanced and I'd rather not write you an essay while intoxicated. But yes, free verse today is less free verse and more ignorant verse, and that at least is not Whitman's fault, at least not directly.

[Anonymous No.7367935]

>>7367913
Well, the use of those strict forms and the common breaks from the forms in order to supplant the common meaning and insert a more complex meaning, does that cause the poems to seem contrived? Like, what subtle nuances did Shakespeare employ by using Iambs that if I did the same thing today would seem very indicative of a forcing the structure? Is this a common discussion of his poetry, because I've not seen much on it if so.

[Anonymous No.7368264]

>>7367935
>Iambs