Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Nigel Cameron's avatar

Thank you so much. One thing you do not note about this extraordinary man was his role in founding UNESCO, which included his penning that immortal line, now (in revised form) its motto: Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.

Expand full comment
Keir's avatar

I beg to differ that this poem is "building toward a vers libre construction", Jody: it is robustly metered!

The two hexameters are logically placed (both concluding a third rhyme. The "Spain" rhyme on line 4 is the 3rd of five; the remaining two surround the hexameter on the penultimate line, closing on the dimeter).

And line 8...

"Of swords, of horses, the disastrous war,"

...is what I call a "balanced line": a light middle beat is rhythmically demoted to secondary status, leaving two primary beats either side in a syncopated 4-beat rhythm. You can see it employed, for instance, by King Richard, angrily resigning himself to his fate, comparing what he must forego to what he avows to take up in their place:

"I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,

My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,

My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,

My figured goblets for a dish of wood,"

In MacLeish's line, the sounds "Of swords, of horses" are balanced with what they represent: "the disastrous war".

I can see why that line struck you as unusual: it *is* unusual for the middle light beat, when it's a monosyllabic word, to be an article as opposed to a connecting word (a conjunction or preposition). But it's perfectly metrical.

The hexameters, too, provide a superb sense of balance.

"The dead against the dead and on the silent ground", with its even number of beats, and the conjunction landing straight after the 3rd beat, has a robust symmetry. The two halves are then tied together by the final dimeter, "The silent slain", which both echoes "the silent ground" and, in its consonance, "dead...dead" (while "slain" simultaneously echoes "against").

The extra beat in "The horn of Roland in the passages of Spain", meanwhile, provides the capaciousness to convey the robust sound of the horn rolling out through Spain's "passages", with its initial tightly spaced pair of long, drawn out beats falling into two successive slides of three light syllables running into a matching pair of primary consonating beats (di-*di*-di-DUM-di-*di*-di-DUM): "the HORN of ROland *in* the PAssa*ges* of SPAIN" (and at the word level, the long roll out of "PAssages" builds beautifully on the initial fall of "ROland").

I've discussed light beats with Sally, also: https://substack.com/@snapdragons/note/c-117921072?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=9w4rx. Juliet's line, "my BOUNty is as BOUNdless as the SEA", in contrast to the balanced line, has light, demoted beats *either side* of the central beat, which enhances the default enlarged (or dipodic) 3-beat rhythm of the iambic pentameter. I call this the "golden line".

That the rhythms of iambic pentameter can vary so easily (depending on the placement of light beats, of caesuras, and of the use of enjambment) is what makes the meter so wonderfully subtle, flexible, and expressive, which should be fully embraced, in my opinion!

Expand full comment
2 more comments...

No posts