Across the planet, written language in its most basic beginnings flourished, and it most certainly flourishes still. There is no end to the sheer infinitude of things requiring description by humans in language. As times change, so does interest in various modes of language, especially in manners of expression considered artistic. In the poetry arena, this is certainly evident and we have a large backdrop of styles and forms that make up the structure of this style of lingual art. Translations are in high demand these days, and you'll notice a large number of venues in the small press looking for them. Translation poses problems between languages, of course, but in languages of similarity, it can be managed somewhat well. The meeting of east and west, and later, the far east with the far west, however, created a kind of rift in translation. What happens when poetry in a specific language uses strong elements and a construction that simply doesn't or can't exist in another language? Can these works be translated well? This is a difficult question, though translations do abound from form to form, language to language. Even more difficult to capture are the very forms in which certain poems are written. One may be tempted to discern the differences in Japanese tanka or haiku and their western counterparts to be minor, but they are not. One might be very comfortable writing in Adelaide Crapsey's version of a cinquain, a form inspired by both French and Japanese forms, yet find difficulty with a study of the base roots of the form.
***
Kyrielle (KEAR-ee-EL) is a form that shares a hearty lineage alongside the pantoum and other French forms. Like the pantoum, its history is longer than that of most poetry forms.
o/o/o/o/ A
o/o/o/o/ A
o/o/o/o/ B
[refrain (o/)] B
o/o/o/o/ C
o/o/o/o/ C
o/o/o/o/ B
[refrain (o/)] B
o/o/o/o/ D
o/o/o/o/ D
o/o/o/o/ B
[refrain (o/)] B
o/o/o/o/ E
o/o/o/o/ E
o/o/o/o/ B
[refrain (o/)] B
/o/o/o/o A
[refrain (o/)] B
/o/o/o/o A
[refrain (o/)] B
/o/o/o/o C
[refrain (o/)] B
/o/o/o/o C
[refrain (o/)] B
Whether in quatrains or couplets, the kyrielle has a rich history evolved from christian church liturgy, and its survival, or revival, in modern poetic usage is an indication of its powerful nature. The use of exact refrain drives a point or plead quite far, and while the kyrielle is not as versatile as the sonnet, and not as stringent as the pantoum, it has its own place among poetic form aficionados, and writing in it is a superb experience that carries both great tradition and longstanding history.
***
What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole;
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone.
-Oscar Wilde: The Nihilists, act 2. Referring to Prince Paul
Considered at times to be a lyric, though of diminutive shape and length, nothing defines an epigram more than its wit. It shares a trait with the Japanese haiku in that its primary usage requires concision, subject, and brevity, but that's where the similarity ends. The concentration of the subject, usually with a focus on a turn of wit near the end, and with an exacerbating tone, is tantamount in the epigram. Considered a staple form for many humorists and poets alike through the centuries, the epigram has been mastered by a wide variety of individuals, from poets the likes of Coleridge, Baudelaire, Dickinson, and Balzak, to various humorists. 20th century playwright and author Oscar Wilde was notorious for his epigrammatic wit, as was satirist Ambrose Bierce, and writer / humorist Mark Twain. You'd be hard-pressed to find a performing comic that doesn't make use, even without knowledge of the term, of epigrammatic lines, especially in segue and in interactions with hecklers.
Some folk sayings share the epigram root as well, like in the proverbial:
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
It could even be inferred that many of the world's bumper sticker sayings (really just stick-on inscriptions, yes?) are epigrammatic. For example:
My wife said it was either her or the truck.
I'll miss her.
Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
Now she's at rest — and so am I.
-John Dryden
Of old when folk lay sick and sorely tried,
The doctors gave them physic, and they died.
But here's a happier age; for now we know
Both how to make men sick and keep them so.
-Hilaire Belloc
Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend,
Unnerves his strength, invites his end.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Tanka:
It is usual that westerners group forms by ethnicity, and where you'll find haiku, you'll usually find a mention of tanka. Like haiku, the history of tanka can be a little confusing, though not once the few clear changes in how it was officialized are understood. The lifespan of tanka, through several names and cultural shifts during many periods of Japanese history, is much longer than that of haiku or its base form, hokku. Like all Japanese poetry, it is short, concise, and requires expert construction to pull off.
History and Origin: Tanka is Japanese, with it's very name meaning "short poem". It evolved off the end unit of another, older form, the chōka. The late Nara and early Heian periods (early 10th century) of Japanese history saw the modification or abandonment of various styles of poetry, and was a time of poetic nationalism, when the Japanese sought to distinguish their own poetry forms, waka from that of the well-known Chinese styles, kanshi. Waka (also referred to in earlier times as Yamato uta) and kanshi mean, respectively, 'Japanese poem' and 'Chinese poems'. It is also a time of revision, and many styles of poetry were left to history during the Heian period, while some were augmented or reaffixed in academics and poetry circles of the time.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the famed Japanese poetry critic and revivalist Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), himself a poet of much renown, sought to separate the historical notions of many Japanese poetic forms from the modern usage, and appropriate names accordingly. With clarity and disambiguation in mind, he began liberating many poetry forms from their confusing family names, and trying to give each its own, modern identity, or at the very least, its own name. You may remember Shiki from our study of the recreation of Haiku, in a previous post. Shiki felt the history of these forms was messy, and caused many modern writers to lose focus on what certain forms were, and why. He wanted a renewal to the pantheon of Japanese poetry, a modernization that would carry both clarity and simplicity. It is Shiki that we owe our knowledge and usage of haiku to, as well as other forms, including the modern hanka, which he gave the title "tanka". Shiki used the term tanka for a specific short poem, educating many on the differences in the new terminology. Waka would come to be a term of certain poetry structures again, in general, and tanka would be a specific sort of poem itself.
In English, the tanka is extraordinarily young, having been adopted into English only in the late 20th century. The earliest English tanka collections date from 1974, which means the tanka, in English, is roughly the same age as the author of this post. This is quite a juxtaposition with its Japanese age, which is well over a millennium.
More information regarding format: Waka poems are often divided into sections, much in the same way western sonnets consist of an octave and a sestet. Waka uses a similar system of division. Kami-no-ku (upper phrase), refers to the topmost phrase or system in the poem, and shimo-no-ku (lower phrase) refers to the second, lower phrase or system. These poem structures are measured in mora phrases as well. A mora is a unit of sound in many languages that determines syllable weight, or stress. Japanese is a language that uses moraic qualities extensively, in contrast to English, which uses syllables. This causes much disability when translating poems from Japanese into western language. 'Nippon' (the Japanese name for their country, for which westerners extracted the name 'Japan') has 2 syllables in English, NIP-PON, but 4 moras in Japanese: NI-P-PO-N. A mora phrase, in Japanese poetry, is a portion of sounds that can serve as a refrain or stress pattern. These are as similar to English metrical rhythm as they are dissimilar. Their function is alike, but in a wholly different metrical system, much like the functional difference between the American mile, in measuring distance, and the metrical kilometer in Europe. They serve the same purpose, in the same means, but are entirely different machines that operate in distinctive methods. Look to the example of tanka below to see how these phrases and functions operate.
The Waka Forms
Chōka:
The pattern for this form, in Japanese is 5-7-5-7-7-7. There is no modern English equivalent to this poem, as one of the hallmarks of bussokusekika is that it be carved in slate. I suppose if one so chose, he/she could make a western version using the above pattern in syllables, however, I don't know of any poets who earn enough from penning verse to afford chisels and slate instead of paper. If anyone decides to write a bussokusekika in western language and actually carves it in slate, send me a picture.
Tanka (originally hanka):
Japanese: A mora upper phrase of 5-7-5, followed by a lower phrase of 7-7. You can see now how this matches the end phrasing of a chōka, which was mentioned in the above history.
Western: 5 lines made of the following syllable count: 5-7-5-7-7.
In closing, the tanka is an adapted form that has a high degree of popularity in both the east and west, created openly with identical construction, but dissimilar base units. There are many small press western magazines that actively seek English tanka, and the number of them grows by the year. The only changes the tanka has seen are in the sometimes obfuscating, though necessary, measurement definitions when crossing the language barrier between east and west, and its title as a poetic form, which was a matter of officializing the form and giving it a new name for clarity in the early 20th century. The tanka has seen a long, millennial advancement across many eras and periods of history, and in that time has undergone virtually no change in construction. From its conception onward, it has kept itself both pure and provident. It is, to use a cliche, a form both tried and true.
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Cinquain:
What makes a cinquain ('sing-KANE', though in some circles pronounced 'saw-KAHN') is a bit of a controversy among those who write it with regularity. The reason for this discongruence is that two different forms of poetry (and in great error, others at times) claim the same nomination of title: Cinquain. I'll describe them both to you, with tablature, and mention some of the others that have snipped the title on occasion. In this article, the older cinquain will keep its name, and the second form will be referred to as Crapsey's cinquain, after it's inventor, Adelaide Crapsey, an American poet and promulgator of many verse forms, of some prominence in the early 1900's. What these two forms share is brevity in the use of 5 lines. That's where the similarity exists, and only there.
Tablature, in iambic pentameter:
o/o/o/o/o/ A
o/o/o/o/o/ B
o/o/o/o/o/ A
o/o/o/o/o/ B
o/o/o/o/o/ B
Crapsey Cinquain form: Once the tanka and French form is understood, we can better understand the Crapsey form. Adelaide's cinquain was an unrhymed poem, of five lines, and consisting of just 22 syllables from beginning to end. As with tanka, haiku and other Japanese forms, she gave each line a specific metrical count (in English, syllables). The first line has 2 syllables, the second uses 4, the third carries 6 syllables, and the fourth line uses 8. Line 5, the last and final line of the poem, reverts in size and is but 2 syllables, just as at the beginning. She gave her cinquains titles, just as with original French cinquains, and unlike modern tanka.
Of Note: There is yet another alternate definition of a cinquain that one may find in various places online, attributed to the French cinquain, though I found no history to back it up at all, just numerous mentions. The alternate form and definition is as follows: A French form in five lines. The initial line is a title, with the second line describing this title in but two words. The third incorporates action words, again regarding the title line, and the fourth line uses exactly four 'sensory' or 'feeling' words. The last line of this French cinquain line involves a description of the title in a single word. (Author's note: This alternate definition doesn't coincide with French poetic tradition much, and I have to question the validity of the statement that it is French at all. This alternate definition seems more like a hybrid of the original French cinquain and Crapsey's American cinquain).
More confusion? Indeed. The turns and gyrations of definition keep coming, and if this alternate description of the 'original French cinquain' with its improbability and strong difference from the one we studied before hasn't confused you enough, read on.
The Americanized Crapsey version of the cinquain, inspired by the tanka, has spawned and inspired numerous offshoots of its own in the poetry world. It has been breeding all over the place. All of these offshoots share certain ideals in Crapsey's rulings, but with their own eccentricities and grooming habits:
Cinqku, a spin-off form created by American Poet Denis Garrison (Garrison and Crapsey are both mentioned frequently in studies of 20th century poetic forms), is a concise, five-line cinquain in 17 syllables, like a haiku, bearing no title, and usually with a 'twist' or 'turn' in the last two lines.
Lanterne, another sprig from the Crapsey cinquain stem, is a five-line verse, but shaped like a Japanese lantern. It carries the rule that the syllable count must follow this precise pattern: One, two, three, four, one. In addition to this, each line must be able to function as a separate phrase. The lanterne can also go without a title, though if one is used, it is in service to a sort of '6th line', which often summarizes the poem, like a title, as a 'handle' to the image of the lantern.
Tetractys is another form from the Crapsey cinquain origin. For this one, we have British poet Ray Stebbings to thank. A tetractys, like those above, is a 5-line poem, but has 20 syllables throughout, and certainly a title. The syllables are utilized in the 5 lines as follows: One, two, three, four, ten. As with the lanterne, each line must stand on its own as a phrase.
Quintiles are a bit different from those above, in that they are longer. The reason for this is obvious when one considers what makes a Quintile. This form is created when multiple cinquains (Crapsey's) are linked together around a common theme or image. A quintile is a chain of cinquains that forms a new, larger, unique poem, similar to a "crown" of sonnets being a chain of multiple sonnets.
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Ruba'i:
Ruba'i is the Persian singular for 'quatrain', the plural being rubáiyát (sometimes written as ruba'iyat, ruba'iyyat or rubaiyat). The ruba'i is a rhymed quatrain, often linked into longer chains of quatrains with an interlaced rhyme scheme. While there are numerous poets renowned for their rubaiyat in Iran, the western world has few translations of these keystone poets. Some of the works of Rumi have seen publicity in the west, and there are many others to be found, particularly in various divans (collections of verse by a single poet, the Persian version of a 'reader'), but the most famous example of rubaiyat, internationally, is the well-known Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam, which exists in various language translations, with the English version translated by Edward Fitzgerald being far and wide the most known and distributed. Fitzgerald was a major reason for this Persian system of quatrains becoming known to the west, and also one of the primary players in getting Omar Khayyam more notice in his own country (historically, Khayyam was often dismissed as hedonistic and of lighter talent, and even accused of not writing all of his own verses, for a time, but the popularity of Fitzgerald's translation caused critics to rethink his abilities, and certain manuscripts discovered later proved that Khayyam did write all of his verses).
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ A
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ B
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ A
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ A
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ B
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ C
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ B
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ B
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ C
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ D
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ C
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ C
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ D
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ A
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ D
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/ D
Opening 5 quatrains from 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam', translated by Edward Fitzgerald
AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted -- "Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."
Now the New Year reviving old Desires.
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand Of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,
And Jamshýd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows;
But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
***
Villanelle:
"The villanelle is often used, and properly used, to deal with one or another degree of obsession.[...] There is even the potential for the two repeating lines to form a paradigm for schizophrenia... The mind may not fully know itself or its subject, may not be in full control, and yet it still tries, still festers and broods in a closed room towards a resolution that is at least pretended by the final couplet linking of the refrain lines."
-from "Modern Versions of the Villanelle," by Philip K. Jason. College Literature, 1980.
In the 19th century, another French popularizer of the form, Theodore de Banville, under the notion that the villanelle was an antiquated form, began playing with it in earnest. In truth, he was following a form of 'villanelle' that he believed was originated by a poet, Wilhelm Tenint, and not the early farm songs for which villanelle were named, nor the works of Jean Passerat, from which the form he studied had sprung. His revival inspired other authors of the period, and especially authors that would come after him and take up the villanelle into their usage.
Origin: While the villanelle, as we know it in our most modern times, is considered a French form, there is only a small usage of the villanelle in French history, with the vast quantity of villanelles being written, instead, in English. The English villanelle is an imitation of the French model, which is an imitation of the rustic farm songs of old. The first English villanelles were written by Edmond Gosse, who was inspired by the above-mentioned Banville, and he praised the form and sought to give it life in English. He managed this in the late 19th century through the use of an essay, "A Plea for Certain Exotic Forms of Verse". It caught on, and many well-known writers began using the form, including Oscar Wilde and Austin Dobson. The English modernists of the era, however, saw villanelle as just another annoying detail of the stuffy, formal aesthetic that they sought to take literature away from. There is a notable example of James Joyce, in his 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', having his young main character writing a villanelle, to highlight the youthful naivety of the character.
In the 1930s, William Empson gave a strong effort to revive the form, and several other writers found it to be of interest. W.H. Auden began toying with the form, and then Dylan Thomas, in a point of well-known history, used the most basic format of the villanelle to compose his famous and heartily regarded "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night". Later authors of the villanelle included Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, and Theodore Roethke. Even with these well-known and highly regarded authors having utilized the form, it was still on the fringe of English poetic forms, yet to see major adoption by the English poetic pantheon. This didn't occur until the appearance of the New Formalism, in the 1980s. Since that time, the villanelle has become much more common, and large numbers of poets have used the form, often in slight variations of the original English villanelle, which has now become one of the most recent additions (recent in comparison to many other popular forms) to the reservoir of major, English poetic forms.
The Form: There are some poets who consider the villanelle, like the pantoum, to be nightmarish and unruly. There are very specific limitations and functions at work in the villanelle, and adhering to them can be difficult.
The villanelle is nineteen lines long, and written in tercets (three line stanzas, also known as triplets), except for the last stanza, which will be a quatrain (4 line stanza). There is no established metrical system for the villanelle, but most modern usage sees a habit of using a syllabic count of 10 syllables to the line. There are but two rhyme sounds in a villanelle, being exhibited in a somewhat staple rhyme scheme of ABA throughout, with an additional A closing the quatrain at the end. This is simple enough, and the complete rhyme structure will be: ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA. Now on to the intricate part: The difficult essence of what makes a villanelle anything to marvel at is its refrain system, and in the repetition of the refrains. A villanelle's first stanza, three lines long, consist of your first refrain, a 'normal' line, and then your second refrain, which will rhyme with the first. Thereafter, each stanza will end with one of those same two refrains, alternating. This continues until the last stanza, the quatrain, where the poem ends with both refrains, back to back, in order as the last two lines.
First Refrain (A)
Line (B)
Second Refrain (A)
Line (A)
Line (B)
Repeat of First Refrain (A)
Line (A)
Line (B)
Repeat of Second Refrain (A)
Line (A)
Line (B)
Repeat of First Refrain (A)
Line (A)
Line (B)
Repeat of Second Refrain (A)
Line (A)
Line (B)
Repeat of First Refrain (A)
Repeat of Second Refrain (A)
The two refrains, which hound the poem back and forth between them, meet at the end and deliver their hard, overall meaning in one, concise statement. This summarizing, finale can be fantastical, when you've made your way through the poem's interwoven lines and refrains to reach it. The power in this form comes from using refrains that have a sensible figure in the poem, each time they are placed, so as to avoid a stock or clumsy sound. The refrain should have new meaning, or augmented meaning, each time it appears, especially in the final quatrain. Like pantoum, one of the keys to writing villanelle is acrobatic word choice and a strong yet grammatically passive refrain.
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
***
There you have it, 6 forms and numerous sub-forms, in all of their distinctive flavors, histories, and essences. Attempts at any of these provide a unique and challenging opportunity to broaden your own work by taking on the habits of the form. A series of villanelle or kyrielle can teach you how powerful repetition and refrain can be (something most modern songs have adopted absolutely), whereas a tanka can show you how to bring concentration of statement and meaning into the shortest of lines, an excellent skill for any poet to practice. A ruba'iyat can give you indications on how to interlock your stanzas for both dramatic and indicative effect, as well as ease of statement, while writing epigrams is sure to sharpen your wit. Even the cinquain, in all its myriad definitions, can make you proud, at the very least, of knowing one from the other.
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