Donne likes to shock his readers, and even shake them up (perhaps explaining his somewhat 'dromedary' rhythms). He will usually start off with a surprising first line to gain your attention. And nearly always begins in media res. This poem is no exception.
(He is also fond of the oxymoron to the point of embracing the absurd.)
The fantasy novelist Diana Wynne Jones uses this poem as the heart of her novel Howl's Moving Castle. A character in the book thinks the poem is a spell/riddle that must be solved. And so it turns out to be, even though the entry of the poem into the world of the book was an accident.
In a delightful twist, the female protagonist of the novel is the woman who is faithful and true, while the brooding wizard/ love interest is fickle and false. I hadn't really appreciated before now how Sophie's fidelity and Howl's roving is an inversion of the poem. Wynne Jones has Sophie puzzling over the beginning of the poem, not its end; thus leaving it to the reader to finish the puzzle.
The anime version is very good as a film. It departs quite a bit from the book but I think in ways that work for the different medium. The film has a whole layer of exploration of the horrors of war that's not really in the novel, but which is very Japanese.
The 'Song' was sung 1968 by John Renbourn and folk-rock group Pentangle. Is on YouTube https://youtu.be/ZMhRfDzQadM?feature=shared I think is the link. Still works for me! But I'm a child of the 60s.
I like this idea. I like that it can free us from being affronted by the unfaithful woman trope, so that we can instead enjoy the witty repartee. Thanks for this poem and analysis today.
Aug 2Liked by Sally Thomas, Joseph Bottum, Joseph Bottum
Each feature of a successful poem seems trivial by itself (and could appear in a less successful poem), but transforming a sentence—each stanza here is punctuated as a single sentence—with line breaks, meter, and rhyme somehow seems like magic. In this poem, I can note some features that interest me, but I don't think they explain the magic:
(1) In the last stanza especially, Donne makes an argument, and the beginnings of the lines outline the turns in Donne’s stubborn reasoning: line 1: “If”; line 3: “Yet”; line 4: “Though”; line 5: “Though”; line 7: “Yet.” But perhaps my favorite example is in the second stanza: Line 1's "If thou" is taken up by the emphatic placement of "Thou" at the beginning of the 5th stanza.
(2) I like the use of subjunctive mood in the last stanza ("she were true... / And last"). I envy the ability to use subjunctive: I have found I can't, and nobody would notice it anyway.
(3) Someone (a book or teacher I encountered as an undergrad) told me that Donne's poetry gets its sinewy feel from its monosyllables. The 3- and 4-syllable words stand out in contrast, like "invisible" and "pilgrimage," both of which occur, by chance, in the second line of a stanza.
If this is all wrongheaded and pedantic, I won't do it again.... today.
The poem calls to mind a quest. The hero goes off, has impossible adventures, and does return with the gift - the discovery of faithful women. But our hero's friend is too busy with his eloquent pity party to notice that the gift means there may be a faithful woman for him, maybe even living next door.
Donne likes to shock his readers, and even shake them up (perhaps explaining his somewhat 'dromedary' rhythms). He will usually start off with a surprising first line to gain your attention. And nearly always begins in media res. This poem is no exception.
(He is also fond of the oxymoron to the point of embracing the absurd.)
The fantasy novelist Diana Wynne Jones uses this poem as the heart of her novel Howl's Moving Castle. A character in the book thinks the poem is a spell/riddle that must be solved. And so it turns out to be, even though the entry of the poem into the world of the book was an accident.
In a delightful twist, the female protagonist of the novel is the woman who is faithful and true, while the brooding wizard/ love interest is fickle and false. I hadn't really appreciated before now how Sophie's fidelity and Howl's roving is an inversion of the poem. Wynne Jones has Sophie puzzling over the beginning of the poem, not its end; thus leaving it to the reader to finish the puzzle.
I meant to but never did get around to watching the anime version. Did you?
The anime version is very good as a film. It departs quite a bit from the book but I think in ways that work for the different medium. The film has a whole layer of exploration of the horrors of war that's not really in the novel, but which is very Japanese.
The 'Song' was sung 1968 by John Renbourn and folk-rock group Pentangle. Is on YouTube https://youtu.be/ZMhRfDzQadM?feature=shared I think is the link. Still works for me! But I'm a child of the 60s.
Poor heart, having been broken, assumes all must have known the same. He would rather be down hearted, than find that love can yet spring anew.
"the eternal comedy of the war between the sexes"
I like this idea. I like that it can free us from being affronted by the unfaithful woman trope, so that we can instead enjoy the witty repartee. Thanks for this poem and analysis today.
Each feature of a successful poem seems trivial by itself (and could appear in a less successful poem), but transforming a sentence—each stanza here is punctuated as a single sentence—with line breaks, meter, and rhyme somehow seems like magic. In this poem, I can note some features that interest me, but I don't think they explain the magic:
(1) In the last stanza especially, Donne makes an argument, and the beginnings of the lines outline the turns in Donne’s stubborn reasoning: line 1: “If”; line 3: “Yet”; line 4: “Though”; line 5: “Though”; line 7: “Yet.” But perhaps my favorite example is in the second stanza: Line 1's "If thou" is taken up by the emphatic placement of "Thou" at the beginning of the 5th stanza.
(2) I like the use of subjunctive mood in the last stanza ("she were true... / And last"). I envy the ability to use subjunctive: I have found I can't, and nobody would notice it anyway.
(3) Someone (a book or teacher I encountered as an undergrad) told me that Donne's poetry gets its sinewy feel from its monosyllables. The 3- and 4-syllable words stand out in contrast, like "invisible" and "pilgrimage," both of which occur, by chance, in the second line of a stanza.
If this is all wrongheaded and pedantic, I won't do it again.... today.
The poem calls to mind a quest. The hero goes off, has impossible adventures, and does return with the gift - the discovery of faithful women. But our hero's friend is too busy with his eloquent pity party to notice that the gift means there may be a faithful woman for him, maybe even living next door.