My 16 year old and I are currently reading Jane Eyre and as I read this poem I can't help but remember the severe punishments poor Helen Burns received for her disorderly dress. It's interesting to ponder how Herrick is both in a way challenging that punitive approach to disorder; but also in a way affirming it -- in that he affirms that disorderly dress is an invitation to wantonness and flirtation, which is precisely what Lowood Institution is trying to beat out of the girls.
In terms of the prosody, I like the effect of "Into a fine distraction," where the last word is transformed into four syllables--an effect of the regularity of the meter. The apparent distraction is absorbed into the artistic plan for the poem, in keeping with my sense of the poem's light irony.
I'm pleased to see the occasional epigram in the substack. The essay on Landor (which I've just read for the first time) is a good intro to the epigram in English. A type of epigram it does not list is the heroic. Simonides' two-line epigram on Thermopylae--"Go tell the Spartans, you who pass by, / That here obedient to their laws we lie"--was imitated several times by First World War poets. H.W. Garrod's "Epitaph: Neuve Chapelle" was published in 1919: "Tell them at home, there’s nothing here to hide: / We took our orders, asked no questions, died." But I remember few lines of poetry with as much pleasure as the liquefaction of Julia's clothes.
My 16 year old and I are currently reading Jane Eyre and as I read this poem I can't help but remember the severe punishments poor Helen Burns received for her disorderly dress. It's interesting to ponder how Herrick is both in a way challenging that punitive approach to disorder; but also in a way affirming it -- in that he affirms that disorderly dress is an invitation to wantonness and flirtation, which is precisely what Lowood Institution is trying to beat out of the girls.
In terms of the prosody, I like the effect of "Into a fine distraction," where the last word is transformed into four syllables--an effect of the regularity of the meter. The apparent distraction is absorbed into the artistic plan for the poem, in keeping with my sense of the poem's light irony.
Appreciate the look through some of modern poetry’s under appreciated roots. And the attention to prosody and how it’s used ….thanks so much.
One of my favorite portraits
I'm pleased to see the occasional epigram in the substack. The essay on Landor (which I've just read for the first time) is a good intro to the epigram in English. A type of epigram it does not list is the heroic. Simonides' two-line epigram on Thermopylae--"Go tell the Spartans, you who pass by, / That here obedient to their laws we lie"--was imitated several times by First World War poets. H.W. Garrod's "Epitaph: Neuve Chapelle" was published in 1919: "Tell them at home, there’s nothing here to hide: / We took our orders, asked no questions, died." But I remember few lines of poetry with as much pleasure as the liquefaction of Julia's clothes.
When we read this at school, our English teacher said, don’t expect your house mistresses to agree with this