Richard Vallance.

August 2002 Vallance Review: The Sonnet as the Landscape of Mystery Walter de la Mare’s "Silver" INTRODUCTION Look out your window the next night there is a full moon. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the city or the country. Something strange has happened: the house across your very own street, the (gas) street lamps, the fields, the trees and the fence grills have all been transformed by the light of the moon. It has somehow made them appear at once simpler and more mysterious. It has bathed them in a magical aura , which has transformed a number of apparently unrelated objects into the elements of a unique backdrop. Lyric poetry causes this effect, "by the light of the silvery moon". It makes things simultaneously simpler and more mysterious. It reveals hidden relationships, which we had never seen in our lives. This aptitude for simplicity the lyric poem has borrowed from song. (translation mine). Citation d'origine : Regardez par votre fenêtre la prochaine nuit qu’il y aura pleine lune. Que vous soyez à la ville ou à la campagne importe peu. Les maisons d’en face, la rue familière, les becs-de-gaz, les champs, les arbres et les grilles : il leur est arrivé quelque chose. Mais le clair de lune leur a prêté comme un aspect plus simple et plus mystérieux à la fois ; il les a revêtus d’une sorte d’éclat magique, si bien qu’au lieu d’un certain nombre d’objets différents - sans relation apparente - ils sont devenus les éléments d’un décor unique. La poésie lyrique produit cet effet de clair de lune. Elle rend les choses à la fois plus simples et plus mystérieuses ; elle révèle des ensembles que nous n’avions pas vus clairement auparavant. Et cette aptitude à simplifier est le don que le poème lyrique a reçu de la chanson. Peres, Yves. Poésie pour tous : Initation à la poésie. [ Préface de Jean Cocteau ]. Paris : Seghers, éditeur, © 1953. ( Collection Seghers ). 204 pp. THE SONNET For the August, 2002 Vallance Review, I have chosen to honour Walter de la Mare’s ethereal Sonnet, Silver, a Summer’s Beatitude, befitting the season and the impending harvest-time. To listen to this sonnet is to hear the minstrelsy of moonstruck magic! Reciting it aloud is bound to send shivers up and down your spine. Here it is, in all its natural silvereen simplicity: Silver Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon [1]; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps the dog; From their shadowy cote [2] the white breast peep Of doves in silver-feathered sleep; A harvest mouse goes scampering by, With silver claws and a silver eye; And moveless [3] fish in the water gleam, By silver reeds in a silver stream. Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) You may also wish to peruse it at these links: 1. Here, if you would like to acquaint yourself with musical adaptations of Walter de la Mare’s Silver, by such prominent composers as Benjamin Britten, C. Armstrong Gibbs and John Koch. (The songs may be played on your computer): Silver. Text by Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) 2. Or here: Minstrels. Poems. [725] Silver – where the sonnet is accompanied by “glowing” comments by some of its readers. From these, may I quote en passant a couple of observations, one spontaneous and one philosophical? I leave it to you to judge for yourself which response mimics best the poem’s diffuse light. Try this - close your eyes and be inside the frame of this poem. Its a pleasure beyond words. This poem has something that needs to be felt rather than just read or admired … i (sic) quote from "Three Pillars of Zen", (sic) Every koan is a unique _expression of the living, indivisible Buddha-nature, which cannot be grasped by the bifurcating intellect...To people who cherish the letter above the spirit, koans appear bewildering … passim… (koans) force us to open ours mind's eye and see the world and everything in it undistorted by our concepts and judgments". Maybe its (sic) stretching it, calling this poem a koan, or maybe it isn't? [Author (sukrit)] Well, to my mind, it isn’t. If this sonnet can be “read” as a koan, or calls to mind such compact Oriental verse forms as tanka and haiku, we may well imagine how the moon has so marvelously influenced Walter de la Mare, in a singular moment of spontaneous inspiration. Perhaps it would be expedient here to seek a more succinct definition of a Koan, according to the precepts of traditional Buddhism: [A] From the WEB Site, Zen Buddhism Koan Studies Pages [Definitions]: Zen Buddhism Koan Studies The koans do not represent the private opinion of a single man, but rather the highest principle ... the spiritual source, tallies with the mysterious meaning, destroys birth-and-death, and transcends the passions. It cannot be understood by logic; it cannot be transmitted in words; it cannot be explained in writing; it cannot be measured by reason. It is like [...] a great fire that consumes all who come near it. (Chung-feng Ming-pen [1263-1323] quoted in Miura and Sasaki 1966:5) [B] From the Site:The Seventh World … the koan is a question that sounds logical but, in fact, is nonsense [4]. Because it sounds logical, it engages the intellect, challenging it … to find a solution to the question posed… a famous koan is, "We know the sound of two hands clapping; but what is the sound of one hand clapping? If I engage myself in this sonnet, if I allow myself to be flooded by its Taoist outer/inner light mantra, I find myself asking just such a mind-boggling question. Perhaps you too have found yourself outside: on a cool evening, in a pacific milieu, in a park after dusk, in a fresh country meadow or walking leisurely along a forest path with a loved one, or anywhere else you may have chanced to discover an hour or so to share in nature’s surpassing peace. What is all this, this “silver”? Where Criticism Singularly Fails Having said this, it would be a sheer waste of time for me or (I suppose) anyone to “criticize”, to analyze or dissect this transcendent sonnet, for to do so would, without the slightest doubt, violate its ineffable purity. We do well to recall Wordsworth’s own perspective on the (self-important) poetry “Critics “ of his own day, in his sonnet I cited (and for good reasons) in the July, 2002, Vallance, Review, When is the Sonnet a Song? Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frown'd, Mindless of its just honours; … More to the point, the problem is that all too many literary and poetry critics and soi-disant “experts” (that bane of the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries) are themselves all too often not poets or writers of the Imagination. Theirs is the criticism of the intellect, rather than a heartening response to fountainhead of Inspiration. Harking back to the Romantic concept, as enunciated by the likes of Samel Taylor Coleridge and John Ruskin, in his lyrical essay, The Queen of the Air [5], we learn that they, along with so many other writers and informed critics of their day, were intimately familiar with the quintessence of Wordsworth’s Vision. Now, to be sure, Walter de la Mare wrote this aurally pleasing sonnet a full Century later. Yet, for all those intervening years, the timelessness of the Romantic vision, of the human Imagination in the face of the mysterious poetic symbolism of the Moon throughout the ages, all these aspects, and more, are fully and naturally conveyed in de la Mare’s uncannily “Romantic” or Neo-Romantic verse. DE LA MARE’S GENIAL POETIC DEVICES De la Mare has made judicious use of several unobtrusive devices to embellish this awe-inspired sonnet. 1. Silver Silver Silvery! Of these, the most imminently visible is his transparent, yet strangely subtle, repetition of variants of “silver” throughout the poem — a total of 11 times, if we include the title (as I deem we should). But there is more. A synergistic equilibrium pervades not only the language, but also the structure of the sonnet. “Silver” is used twice over in three verses, 4, 12 and 14. While the balance is not strictly perfect, insofar as “silver” is the first word of verse 4, but takes second place in lines 12 and 14, the equilibrium is carefully crafted in verses 12 and 14, where “silver” is in the second and second-last positions. Had de la Mare placed it in the second position in verse 4, the balance might have been technically perfect, but technically perfect is one thing, and idyllic beauty, in the tradition of John Keats [6] is quite another. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that he in fact minutely and deliberately skewed this delicate balance to draw the reader’s or reciter’s mesmerized attention to the clarifying melody he plays. Echoes of something approximating Debussy’s, “Clair de Lune” (Suite bergamesque no. 3) abound. This is no accident or happenstance. This is deliberate, polished poetic style. Yet notice that his style never intrudes on the sonnet’s simplicity: simplicity of vocabulary and structure, where “the medium is the message” [7]. The poem directly appeals to both the senses and the human spirit, and this it does simultaneously, quietly and without pretension. The poet remains thoroughly in the background, offstage, in the wings, almost, as it were, in absentia. As with Archibald Lampman’s Canadian sonnet, Winter Uplands [8] and Frederick George Scott’s, The Laurentians [9], the poetry, the scenery and the imagery appear to “write themselves”. The cumulative effect is spellbinding. This phenomenon had once been quite rare in Western literature, at least prior to the mid-Nineteenth Century, when the American Transcendentalists, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Henry Thoreau, surfaced, and exerted a profound influence on subsequent poets (for instance, Emily Dickinson). Such writing is more in tune with Oriental poetry, such as the haiku and tanka, in which the poet gets out of the way of the poem, allowing it to speak for itself, quietly, whispering even its own “message”, whatever that may happen to be. Contrast this approach with the self-laudatory stance adopted by so many Occidental poets, Ancient and Modern alike, and you realize that here we are faced with an entirely new phenomenon. This avenue of poetic composition has historically been somewhat foreign to the sonnet, where the poet has traditionally and indeed consistently implicated him– or herself deeply in its theme, message or morale, come what may. Traditional quasi-universal sonnet themes are all too well known: love in all its avatars; hope and its foil, despair; spiritual struggle and exaltation; self-examination twinned with doubt, and the like. These conventions are common to Renaissance poetry (where they are termed, “conceits”), Romantic, Post-Romantic and early Modern sonnets. Just to cite two outstanding examples, we find the ancient Roman poet, Horace boasting: Exegi monumentum aere perennius. I have raised a monument more lasting than bronze. – a sentiment which has been echoed over and over in the history of poetry. Shakespeare mimics Horace, at least in spirit, when in his sonnet 50, he exclaims: And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. or yet again, more auspiciously, in sonnet 107: Since, in spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes: And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. which uncannily echoes Horace’s sentiments some 15 centuries earlier. I need hardly press the point. 2. Nature versus Natural Sonnets: In the Romantic tradition, Nature sonnets also abound. Certain poets, such as William Lisle Bowles, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hartley Coleridge and, I should note in passing, numerous Irish, American and Canadian sonneteers were quick to espouse the nature sonnet. Yet many of the latter were more at ease with natural sonnets. There is a discernible and substantive difference between a Nature sonnet and a natural sonnet. Examples of the former are: William Lisle Bowles’ “On a Beautiful Landscape”, “Ostend”, “Netley Abbey” (similar to Wordsworth’s blank verse, “Tintern Abbey”) and “Evening”; William Wordsworth’s “It is a Beauteous Evening”, “After-Thought”, (on the River Duddon) and “Composed During a Storm” (1819: possibly influenced by the paintings of Joseph Mallord William Turner– 1775-1861); Examples of the latter are, as noted above, the sonnets of: [8] bis Archibald Lampman. "Winter Uplands" – the imagery of which closely parallels that of de la Mare’s Silver. Lampman’s third quatrain bears out this all-too remarkable similitude: The stars that singly then in flocks appear, Like jets of silver from the violet dome, So wonderful, so many and so near, And then the golden moon to light me home-- (italics mine) Notice too how Lampman’s apparent simile, “Like jets of silver” is in fact more than mere simile — it is metaphor, it is symbol. De la Mare’s resilient “silver” also passes beyond mere metaphor almost into the fabulous. [9] bis Frederick George Scott’s (1861-1944), "The Laurentians", which I reviewed in May, is yet another example of the naturalist sonnet. As does de la Mare, Scott excels in this genre. A couple of verses suffice to illustrate the point: They (the mountains) drain the sunshine of the upper air.   verse 4 Beneath their peaks, the huge clouds, here and there,       verse 6 Through grey, burnt forests where the moonlight beams     verse 8 So similar are the language and style of these three sonnets, two Canadian and one British, that one is given to wonder how it is that such a poem should have been composed in Britain, where the Romantic tradition has traditionally and firmly held the upper hand. But de la Mare’s sonnet has broken the English romantic mould; it is more akin to its Canadian cousins, Lampman’s and Scott’s sonnets, and to Robert Frost’s, “I have been Acquainted with the Night” [10] than it is with the greater part of the English Romantic tradition. Whether this suggests that the influence of North American naturalist-transcendentalist poetry had crossed back over the Atlantic and resurfaced in Britain is anyone’s guess. But the verisimilitude cannot be easily ignored. 3. Unconventionality of Form, Metre and Style: If we examine de la Mare’s sonnet from the perspective of metre and rhythm alone, we light upon something remarkable. He has, apparently, “broken all the rules” of traditional sonnet writing. His lines are not consistently iambic; they are not consistently pentameters ten syllables in length. His metrics are surprisingly varied. He often relies on the trochee for effect, and when he does, he excels at it. I should point out en passant that the trochee is very often used as the metre of preference for the supernatural and the supranatural in poetry [11]. Let’s have a closer look. 3.1 Syllables: Verses 1,2,3,4,7,8 and 10 are eight syllables long (tetrameters) Verses 6,11,12 and 13 are nine syllables long (irregular?) Verse 14 alone is ten syllables (pentameter, but not regular iambic!) Sonnet purists and self-acclaimed “critics” abound, who have historically maligned, and continue to this day to deprecate such departures from the accepted norm of conformity to iambic pentameter. Yet it is at best difficult to imagine that a poet as great as de la Mare would have intentionally ignored the pundits, and “tossed out the iambic baby with the bathwater”, unless he had good reason to. And he did. Iambic pentameter would surely have ruined the natural, easeful flow of this melodic, harmonious sonnet. For all its apparent rhythmic irregularities — of which there seem many — the poem’s recitative appeal is totally convincing. Normally, tetrameter verse makes for rapid reading. Yet, in this case, de la Mare’s versification skills have achieved the opposite effect. Wonder of wonders! Why would Benjamin Britten and other composers have otherwise gone to so much trouble to set it to musical scores? I leave it to you to imagine why. 3.2 Trochees: Trochees are liberally peppered throughout this sonnet, especially at the head of verses, and at caesurae [12]. Right from the very outset, de la Mare pens these lovely phrases: — ^ — ^ ^ || — ^ — Slowly, silently, now the moon trochee anapest caesura beat iamb More trochees pop up, sometimes unexpectedly or in conjunction with an antipodal iamb, and with the most felicitous effect, at such places as: — ^ ^ — This way, and that, (trochee/iamb) verse 2 – or, if you like, ^ — ^ — This way, and that, (iamb/iamb) – though, for effect, I personally prefer the first rhythmic interpretation or extrapolation over the second. I could go on, but we all get the point. In spite of its not being in regular iambic pentameter, but in irregular tetrameter, the sonnet remains always effortlessly faithful to its core melody. There lies the key! De la Mare's sonnet evinces natural, not stilted, rhythms. 4. Strange as it May Seem! Not only are the style, structure and metrics of this sonnet unusual, so also is its vocabulary. De la Mare’s choice of words is often rather eccentric. Words such as “shoon” [1] “cote” [2] and “moveless” [3] serve to enhance the nebulous effect of the sonnet. Word order also plays a significant melodic and contrapuntal role. Phrases such as: “Walks the night”, “casements catch”, ‘sleeps the dog”, and “in the water gleam” (all inversions of “normal” English speech, and most trochaic) again underscore the sonnet’s fluent musical rhythm. It is this very eccentricity, which compounds the charm and subtlety of the sonnet. The moon is, and has been always, an eccentric phenomenon. She is flickering, ephemeral, all-seeing, mysterious, veiled, evasive, the feminine object of (often occult and bewitching) worship. In this poem, she is merely herself, the moon. But what a Moon! — she exudes her sheer, liquid beauty, her meditative presence, and an all-embracing tranquility. There is a sense, in every poised word and phrase, of a (her?) universal presence here. The very Universe seems to lie latent just behind the Moon’s translucent veil. Here Eternity casts a sideways glance through the Moon’s apparent Finity. Here abides the mystery of the Night. REFERENCES AND NOTES: [1] “shoon”. According to Dictionary.com’s definition, “shoon” is an archaic English plural (akin to the German) of “shoe”. The meaning suits the context beautifully. See: shoon - at Dictionary.com [2] “cote” = A small shed or shelter for sheep or birds. [Middle English, from Old English.] (Dictionary.com) [3] “moveless” =\Move`less\, a. Motionless; fixed. ``Moveless as a tower.'' From: Alexcander Pope (Dictionary.com) [4] “the koan … in fact is nonsense… ” In the context of this sentence and of this definition, the word “nonsense” acquires more than its usual common meaning. As the definition is philosophical, it helps to break the word into its constituent syllables, to better appreciate its true significance and symbolic value. The word is a composite of “non” and “sense” — meaning, “that which cannot be made sense of, either through the medium of the senses, or of the intellect, or of human sensitivity, more or less synonymous with the French term, sensibilité. It is noteworthy that the English word, “sensibility” once carried this same meaning, in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (even as late as the 1830’s), where we have, from William Cowper (1731-1800) ``Sensibilities so fine!'' — or yet again, as defined in Dictionary.com: 2. The capacity of emotion or feeling, as distinguished from the intellect and the will; peculiar susceptibility of impression, pleasurable or painful; delicacy of feeling; quick emotion or sympathy, … passim … [5] Ruskin, John. The Queen of the Air. 1869. – in which Ruskin invites us all to share in the majesty, mystery and power of that Creativity, which is the province of the Greek goddess, Athena, daughter of Zeus, progenitress of Wisdom and Inspiration [Latin: inspiro = “I breathe in” (physically and spiritually] For a fascinating and compelling commentary on this brilliant essay by Ruskin, please see: Paul L. Sawyer (Professor of English, Cornell University). Chapter 10: The Structure of Myth -- The Firmament of Mind - in which he notably asserts (amongst other things): But the chief interest of myths lies in their highest development in the work of a great poet or artist. The mature stage of myth in Virgil or Phidias is therefore the consummation of human knowledge, standing to science not as fancies to fact but as a complete activity incorporating and transcending the limitations of scientific observation:… passim.... [6] Keats, John. Ode on a Grecian Urn. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. [7] McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Message. New York: Bantam Books, © 1967. [8] Vallance, Richard. The Vallance Review. Poetry Life and Times. February, 2002. [9] Ibid. The Vallance Review. Poetry Life and Times. May, 2002. [10] Frost, Robert. “I have been acquainted with the night.” [Sonnet], which may be found anywhere on the Web. [11] “Trochee” = In poetic metrics, a Trochaic Foot is one long beat followed by a short one, as in “flower”. It is the opposite of an Iambic Foot, which is one short beat followed by a long one, as in “delight”. The Iambic Foot is the backbone of the traditional sonnet, which is normally comprised of 5 Iambs; hence, the name, Iambic Pentameter. [12] “Caesura” =A pause in a line of verse dictated by prosodic sense or natural speech patterns rather than by metrics. We note that, in the example I have provided from Walter de la Mare’s sonnet, Silver, the Caesura naturally follows a comma (a pause in the breath), as in: Slowly, Silently, (caesura) now the moon,... © by Richard Vallance, July 21st., 2002 My Carousel Home Page is: Poesie’s laissez-faire Faire Foire Moderator, Describe Adonis: http://yahoogroups.com/group/Describe_Adonis Kawasaki Zen Haiku: http://yahoogroups.com/group/Kawasaki_Zen_Haiku

Vous pouvez enfin lire le volume 1, numéro 2, de l'e-zine canadien, SONNETTO POESIA - celui de l'été, 2002. Dans ce numéro, l'écrivaine en vedette, c'est Sara Russell, rédactrice de l'e-zine anglais, Poetry Life and Times chez le lien suivant : SONNETTO POESIA Dans le numéro actuel, on trouve aussi des sonnets par Brian Whatcott ( des États Unis ), de « la pomme de terre terrible » ( Royaume Uni ) et de Richard Vallance, le rédacteur ( Canada ). Les sonnets sont classés de façon thématique. On peut lire tranquillement des sonnets estivaux, des sonnets portant sur le sujet universel de l'Amour, sous la rubrique, "Love's Labour lost?" ( soit, « À la recherche de l'Amour perdu? » ), et si vous voulez bien, même des sonnets bizarres de « Commediadel Arte » ! Alors, c'est bien rigolo, n'est-ce pas? Et bien! Qu'attendez-vous? - l'apocalypse? Allez-y tout de suite!	The Summer, 2002 issue (Vol. 1, no. 2) of: SONNETTO POESIA - which features the sonneteer, Sara Russell, the Editor of the UK E-Zine, Poetry Life and Times, is now on the WEB here: SONNETTO POESIA Our Summer issue also features sonnets by Brian Whatcott (USA), the Potato Tarquin of Terror (UK) and Richard Vallance, Editor (Canada). The current issue arranges sonnets thematically. You may read at your leisure: Summer's sonnets, "Love's Labour Lost?" sonnets and even Commedia del Arte ones! Sounds like great fun, and it is! OK, so what are you waiting for? - the end of the world? Come on in!