Syllabic verse continues to generate controversy even though
it has been an accepted form of poetry for more than a century. While some may
dispute the nature and extent of its acceptance, the fact that a British poet
laureate championed the style suggests it cannot be dismissed as mere doggerel.
This author continues to find it both ironic and amazing that
some of the sloppiest and most rambling forms of free verse are reckoned as
profound, authentic and artistic poetry and yet if someone writes rhyming verse
based on syllables as opposed to iambic beats, their work is decried as lacking
form, void of scansion, pseudo-poetic and unworthy of being deemed as verse.
This is despite the fact that many examples of Continental
and Asian speech have poetry based on syllable counts and that English perhaps
more than other tongues is an ever-changing language. In fact what is modern
English, but a hybrid and dynamic global dialect? It is well attested that
English versification was itself a synthesis between continental syllabic form
and the accentual metre handed down from the Anglo-Saxons. Are we still bound
by a Norman aesthetic? One would think such pseudo-sacred sensibilities would
have been challenged centuries ago if not by moderns, then by the intellectual
and artistic propensities of religious nonconformists in the era subsequent to
Milton.
Was his generation not at the cutting edge of a challenge to
doctrinal and cultural orthodoxy? Why did they feel the need to retain the Late
Medieval aesthetic born of the Conquest? If Robert Bridges was right, then
Milton indeed championed a form which was not revived until the 19th
and 20th centuries, the very syllabic form being advocated in this
essay.
Syllabic poetry is admittedly modern and is suited to the
cultural and artistic shifts which took place in the 19th and 20th
centuries. The Industrial Revolution, the demise of Christendom and the
disintegration of Western Philosophy have all played their part in the shaping
of both art and language. Philosophy must be particularly appealed to. As the
intellectual battle raged between modernity and romanticism, between realism
and idealism, language itself so often became the subject of debate and the
focus of epistemological struggle. Poetry, a realm of ideas and expression is
ultimately a question of aesthetics. Art, beauty and communication are all
questions that hark back to philosophical inquiry and debate.
To retain and insist upon older forms of structure is not
only a commitment to a type of pseudo-romanticism but it is to ignore the
necessary and even desirable corrective and reaction to some of the most
extreme forms of both avant-garde and artistic nihilism. Just as Jackson
Pollock must be understood in his context, the most unrestricted and
unrefrained forms of free verse must also be comprehended. While these forms of
artistic expression and communication are bound to continue, and perhaps
rightly so, a reaction to them, even an alternative is appropriate. The
reaction need not be an absolute rejection or a call for a full return to or
commitment to past rules and forms. Indeed we see such trends in the realm of
philosophy as one considers the various hybridised forms of thought that emerged
from philosophical debates rooted in subjective vs. objective attempts to
describe and explain reality. Synthesis is (all would admit) a natural process
in the realm of human experience and expression. Sometimes synthesis generates
new forms and expressions which so transcend the old order as to become
incompatible with previous norms and expectations.
Must poetry be constrained between two choices? Are the only
aesthetic options that of Aquinas and Derrida?
It could be argued that some of the most satisfying if yet
incomplete forms of philosophical discourse are able to draw from both analytic
and continental traditions and develop a means of functioning within both
realities, drawing from their strengths even while dispensing with their
weaknesses, the shortcomings that all too often result from rigid and even
dogmatic adherence to certain epistemological or metaphysical commitments.
In terms of verse, Syllabic prose returns something of a form
to poetry and yet in a most modern fashion dispenses with centuries of
subjective and even arbitrary rules and delineations.
It can be described as a liberating structure as opposed to
the meandering and chaotic abuses of free verse as well as the rigid and
subjective mathematic formulae of traditional English verse.
Traditional metre is subjective because tone emphasis is
occasional and contextual. The written word, (let alone the spoken) cannot be
reduced to such a system. This is the ultimate falsity in the presuppositions
of traditional verse. While claiming to be adhering to a systemic order it is
in fact subjective and in terms of language, limiting and restrictive. At times
beautiful to be sure but if the form is meant to reflect a reality regarding
the nature of English speech, such an assertion is not above challenge. If a
defense rooted in aesthetics is mounted, let the apologist beware for apart
from a subjective appeal to a metaphysical ideal, such an argument will quickly
collapse. And even when the ideal is appealed to, once again we must ask, why
is the Norman synthesis the unchangeable and universal norm for the language?
The question itself collapses.
With regard to the perils of system adherence, syllabic verse
(it could be countered) is also subject to mathematic reduction being based on
counting sounds. However enumerating syllables if it is indeed mathematic is no
less (or more) arbitrary or subjective than metre. The rhythms of the English
language are far from static. Inflection and emphasis vary by class, region and
continent. English is spoken one way in the north of England, another way in
India, and yet in other forms in places like Canada and Texas. For that matter
without effort the author can think of a dozen words pronounced and emphasised
with different inflection between Western Pennsylvania and Western New York.
Developing an objective formula for determining stressed and unstressed
syllables breaks down if regional dialects are granted validity. For that
matter it could be easily argued that speech cannot be reduced to a simple
combination of stressed and unstressed feet.
Is not traditional metre rooted in the pedantic snobbery of
so-called 'proper or Received English'? Does the south of England lay claim to
the only correct form and pronunciation of the language?
By eliminating the largely subjective form of beat and metre
the poet is free to express an idea and also allow for a certain ambiguity to
exist in how the poem is heard. It leaves open possibilities in tone and
emphasis. While communication depends on clarity and is best when direct, the
aesthetic and reflective nature of poetry functions better and is more
philosophically rich when it is able to rest in idea over strict form, symbol
over metre and in a developmental and
reflective potential rooted in the ambiguity and the subjective experience of
the reader.
Does this not remove poetry from the grip of the academy?
Syllabic poetry has the potential to bridge the hallowed haunts of the scholar
and the confused grittiness of the man on the street. Obviously free verse can
make a similar appeal; perhaps an even more poignant argument for accessibility
to the non-initiated. Yet, with a total lack of form, free verse consistently
falls prey to intellectual fad and ideal and though on the one hand its form
fits the mixed crowd of a coffee shop on a Saturday night, its value quickly
succumbs to the whims and sensibilities of the avant-garde and their proxies
within the academy.
What sort of free verse will be published, that which is good
poetry, or simply what is relevant? Free verse because it has no form quickly
becomes a proxy for other philosophical forms and expressions.
Syllabic poetry like any form of art can also fall into such
a trap but I would argue it has the potential to eschew such pitfalls. It is
free without being chaotic. It is ordered and thus (to a degree) protected from
the shock tactics, radical and extreme innovative tendencies of free verse.
Does it run the risk of slipping into doggerel? Even iambic
pentameter can produce bad poetry. Form can degenerate into mere rules. Form
cannot save verse from badly conceived and communicated ideas. Yes, mere
syllabic construction can fall into the doggerel trap and yet when one
considers the most famous and even notorious examples of dilettante composition,
one finds that syllabic form and structure apart from ill-conceived rhymes is
usually absent. Syllabic poetry is not doggerel. The Syllabic poet is labouring
to produce a form that may or may not include a rigid rhyme scheme. Syllabic
form can still generate musicality, word-play and generate a fine turn of
phrase and yet also retains the freedom appropriate to global English in a post
19th century setting.
Like the Symbolists, Imagists and other Modernist movements,
the Syllabic form allows the ideal, the mystical, the spiritual and the
dystopian reflection to exist in a form not tied to the Renaissance or Pre-Enlightenment
Europe. And yet retaining form can still connect with the archaic and the
classical in a way unrestricted free verse simply cannot.
Syllabic versification, especially when combined with some of
the late and even disintegrating movements associated with Modernism actually
rescues poetry from the chaos of late 20th century forms and the
confusion that has developed in the wake of post-modernism and its various
manifestations.
Syllabic poetry it could be argued bridges the gap between
the failures of Modernism and Postmodernism. It produces the type of poetry
which should have resulted from the postmodernist challenge. The myths of
Modernism and Enlightenment are rightly shattered but nihilistic forms of
thought and expression are not the only path forward.
Syllabic verse is not at present a popular form of poetry and
submissions of this form to mainstream publications are likely to be rejected.
This question needs to be reconsidered and syllabic verse should be embraced by
the artistic community if not the academy. In fact a return to form, even if
broad and relatively free is long overdue.
Marianne Moore argued that a form cannot produce good poetry.
A form does not a good poem make. She along with others argued that poetry is
about skill, honesty or what today would usually be termed authenticity.
These concepts while valid must be explored. They can easily
become vacant and devoid of meaning. Of course to explore these terms one must
resort to philosophical inquiry. Probing these issues one realises just how
shaky the traditional foundations are.
What is a good form for poetry?
Indeed that's a fine place to start. Poetry should have form,
but just what is a form? Is it something real? Is it reflective of something
mathematical? Is it based on consensus? Is it therefore subjective?
What is good? How is that defined? A simple question to be
sure but it is one that probes the depths of human inquiry, and is in
probability a question man in and of himself cannot fully answer.
Is 'good' in terms of the arts a concept wedded to authenticity
of experience, feelings, ideas, empirical data or religious truth? Depending on
the context any of these are valid (or invalid) to a certain extent. To answer
this question of what is good and therefore what is good poetry one must
entertain and embrace a wide arena of questions that transcend the doctrinaire
concerns of an arbitrary and subjective metre enforced by would-be cultural
gatekeepers.
Is poetry the province of academics who merely wish to
validate their credentials? Are they elitists defending the status quo? Are
they revolutionaries? Clamouring in their claims to the leadership of the
avant-garde have they turned into bureaucrats? While art for art's sake is a
debatable concept, the notion that poetry, so often a tool of the cultural
vanguard would be subject to the parameters of academic bureaucracy and the
in-fighting of the literati and cultural elites marks a sad state of affairs, a
decadence not artistic but cultural. We should not let the definitions of verse
rest in the hands of schizophrenics who waver between the prejudices of the
bourgeoisie and the desire to be the leaders and innovators of the avant-garde.
While all self-respecting art aficionados and connoisseurs find the
commercialisation of art to be repulsive, is not overt political and
self-serving vanguardism equally so? Both roads lead back to the same polluted
sources and motivations.
Syllabic verse is an appropriate and potentially vibrant form
of poetry for our day. It bridges the gap between classical and modern forms
and yet is equally capable of transcending them. It offers a form that is
compatible with a variety of aesthetic sensibilities and yet avoids the
pitfalls of both ill-conceived tradition and the wanton self-serving chaos of a
nihilistic avant-garde. Its hour has come. Opposition from the academy is
inevitable but what is needed at present is for literary editors to grasp the issue,
embrace the form and publish boldly.