{"id":481,"date":"2023-04-24T02:53:28","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T02:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/?p=481"},"modified":"2023-04-24T02:53:28","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T02:53:28","slug":"intimacy-through-anapests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/2023\/04\/24\/intimacy-through-anapests\/","title":{"rendered":"Intimacy through anapests"},"content":{"rendered":"

She walks <\/strong>\/ in beau\/<\/strong>ty, like \/<\/strong> the night <\/strong>(8)<\/p>\n

Of cloud\/<\/strong>less climes \/<\/strong> and star\/<\/strong>ry skies<\/strong>; (8)<\/p>\n

And all \/<\/strong> that\u2019s best \/<\/strong> of dark \/<\/strong> and bright<\/strong> (8)<\/p>\n

Meet<\/strong> in \/ her as\/<\/strong>pect and<\/strong> \/ her eyes<\/strong>; (8)<\/p>\n

Thus mel\/<\/strong>lowed to<\/strong> \/ that ten\/<\/strong>der light<\/strong> (8)<\/p>\n

Which hea\/<\/strong>ven to gau\/<\/strong>dy day \/<\/strong> denies<\/strong>. (9)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I guess it\u2019s the sounds in Michael Field\u2019s \u201cCyclamens\u201d that reminds me of the first stanza of \u201cShe Walks in Beauty.\u201d What first struck me about Michael Field\u2019s poetry is the intimacy in the poetic voice, which is quite absent in many of the love poems written from the male lover\u2019s prospective (thinking of Romantic and early modern poets). There are a lot of factors at play in regard to this difference, but I would like to focus on meter in this blog post. I have given my scansion on both texts. \u201cShe Walks in Beauty\u201d is in iambic tetrameter, so it consists mostly of iambs. While \u201cCyclamens\u201d consists of both iambs and anapests. Iambs have a skippy rhythm like the beat of a song, which serves the purpose of the poet praising, idolizing the beloved. Mixing anapests with iambs, \u201cCyclamens\u201d reads more like natural speech. This poem resists patterns and regularity. Anapests do not give the satisfaction of balance and rhythm like iambs. The rhymes also seem casually in place. There is not a clear rhyme scheme. This poem is inching towards free verse.<\/p>\n

By rejecting regular metrical and a rhyme scheme, \u201cCyclamens\u201d is rejecting the idealization of the beloved and stating that such idealization does not truly capture human intimacy. Byron\u2019s beloved contains \u201call that\u2019s best of dark and bright,\u201d has the tenderness of \u201ccloudless climes and starry skies.\u201d But there\u2019s a bit of tension, even violence in \u201cCyclamens.\u201d The flowers are \u201cterribly white,\u201d \u201cchiselled white\u201d; the sky is \u201ccut\u201d by the light. And the speaker is unimpressed by what Byron praises, the sky, the moonlight, the snow. The lines become longer as the poem goes on except for the last line, as if purposefully refusing to give any closure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She walks \/ in beau\/ty, like \/ the night (8) Of cloud\/less climes \/ and star\/ry skies; (8) And all \/ that\u2019s best \/ of dark \/ and bright (8) Meet in \/ her as\/pect and \/ her eyes; (8) Thus mel\/lowed to \/ that ten\/der light (8) Which hea\/ven to gau\/dy day \/ denies. … Continue reading Intimacy through anapests<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}