Formalism as Analysis: Part One
The idea of formalism is that there are forms in literature that can explain a work of literature. So a sonnet has 14 lines, written in stanzas. Those stanzas
can be an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines), or they can be three quatrains (a four line stanza) and a couplet (a two line stanza). The stanzas can even be
four tercets (three line stanzas) and a couplet. The first use of formalism is to identify the stanzas. But what difference do stanzas make?
Start with this sonnet by Wordsworth:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Where is the first stanza? Follow the last words (end rhyme) and you soon find out: soon, powers, ours, boon, moon, hours, flowers, tune. The rhyme
scheme changes after that; nothing after “tune” rhymes with anything before “tune,” so let’s stop there.
This is a pattern for the octave in an Italian sonnet. That pattern is written out as “a” for the first word, and “b” for the next word that doesn’t rhyme with
“a.” The words that rhyme with “soon” in this poem are the “a” rhyme. So the rhyme scheme is: a b b a a b b a. There’s your octave, then. Now, what do
we do with that information?
In an Italian sonnet, the octave presents the “problem.” In terms of an essay, the octave is the opening paragraph and the body paragraphs that set out the
issue or problem the essay is about. Of course presenting a problem without a solution is not presenting an argument, but simply a whine. If you go back to
the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem in the previous discussion, the octave ends with the poet setting up her situation: she’s alone at night in her bedroom on a
rainy night, thinking about all the lovers she used to know. But are they gone for the night, or forever? That’s the “problem” in that poem. The sestet, the
last 6 lines of the poem, answer the question: for the night, or forever? In the poem above, by Wordsworth, the “problem” is that the world, the human
made world, cuts us off from the natural world, the wider world. That’s what the first 8 lines are about. And what do we do about it? That’s what the last
six lines are about.
But first, formalism: how do we know this is a sestet, a formal stanza? Again, rhyme scheme: be, outworn, lea, forlorn, sea, horn. This is a significant
change from the octave. Now the rhyme pattern is: c d c d c d. And what has happened? The poem is no longer about how the world of human effort
separates us from the natural world, but a cri de couer (cry from the heart) by the poet directly about what he would do. And what he would do is go back to
(what he thinks would be) a simpler time, when the natural world was full of gods who were closer to humans (basically people with god-like powers)
present directly in the natural world. That’s why he’d see Proteus rising from the sea, or hear Triton blowing his horn. Those experiences, he thinks, would
connect him to the natural world in ways the modern (well, for him; early 19th century) world cannot do, because it can only separate him from the natural
world.
You should see from this that a sonnet is a kind of essay, except it’s written in poetry instead of prose. Being in poetry it has to be shorter than an essay
could be; a sonnet can’t be longer than 14 lines. The lines also have to be a set length (because of the meter). Fortunately, poetry can compress a great deal
of information into a few words. So Wordsworth manages in 14 lines what it might take a prose writer several pages to explain. But without the formality
of an Italian sonnet, he would not have the same poem (or essay) as he does now.
Now try a sonnet by Shakespeare. This is an English sonnet, or one written in quatrains and a couplet. That arrangement forces Shakespeare to do things
differently than Wordsworth does.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Listen
ENGL-1302 6320 1 Composition & Rhetoric II SK
Content Grades Course Acƭviƭes Collaboraƭon Support
Reflect in ePortfolio Download Print Open with docReader
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
First, look at the rhyme scheme: behold, hand, cold, sang. But then it changes after only four lines: day, west, away, rest. And changes again, after those
four lines: fire, lie, expire, by. Now there are only two lines left: strong, long. Every four lines, there is a different rhyme scheme. We can identify the
pattern this way: abab; cdcd; efef; gg. That’s the rhyme scheme of an English sonnet. And where the Italian sonnet creates two paragraphs, one two lines
longer than the other, the English sonnet is more balanced: three four line stanzas (quatrains) and one two-line stanza (couplet). But the shorter stanzas
make a radical difference in the argument presented in the poem.
Wordsworth’s argument broke between the longer presentation about the world (human made) being too much with us, and what the poet would do about it
(go back to a simpler time, if he could). The Millay poem presents the “real world” of her quiet bedroom against the metaphor of the lonely tree.
Shakespeare, however, presents three different measures of time: time of year in the first stanza, time of day in the second, and finally end of day in a
home, in the third stanza. Along the way he makes clear his use of time is metaphorical: time of year, time of day, even the dying of the fire at day’s end,
are all metaphors for the age of the narrator of the poem (Shakespeare was a young man when he wrote it, so the narrator is not him). But each stanza also
moves through space: from time of year, which affects the world itself, to time of day (which especially affects humans, v. the nocturnal creatures), and
finally the fading of the hearth fire (the home, the most private domain). The narrator is in the winter of his years, but by the last quatrain the poem is
personal: the home at night is a place of great intimacy, and not shared with the public the way the seasons, or even twilight, is.
Each of these quatrains explains a part, an aspect, of the central idea of this poem. These quatrains are more clearly and deliberately like paragraphs in an
essay. Like a paragraph written on a single topic, each quatrain is a topic related to the idea of time and old age; but each topic is a different take, or aspect,
of the matter of time and old age. Each stanza narrows the discussion: from the year, which everyone experiences, to the end of day in a private home,
which only the residents of that home, a family, experience. And it all leads, not to the gloomy conclusion that the narrator is old and soon to end, but that
the beloved the poem is addressed to realizes they have a shortened time together, and they agree they must make the most of it while they can.
One more Shakespeare poem before we move on:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Again, we start with the quatrains: sun, red, dun, head. That’s the first one. The second: white, cheeks, delight, reeks. If you notice, the really insulting
language comes in the last two lines, if not fully in the last line. Here’s the third stanza: know, sound, go, ground. The really harsh stuff comes in the end
of each quatrain, and none of it is flattering. Again, aspects of physical beauty are addressed, from her hair to her eyes to her skin to even her breath and her
gait. It is the couplet (rare, compare) where everything (again) is explained.
Shakespeare uses the sonnet form to do this: to set up an expectation that he challenges in the final couplet. It’s an idea no other poet ever quite copies (few
poets besides Shakespeare use the English sonnet form), but even when they stick with the Italian form, they can show Shakespeare’s influence. Like this:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
We’re back to the Italian form here: thee, so, overthrow, me, be, flow, go, delivery. That’s the octave (a b b a a b b a). The sestet is not quite c d c d c d,
however. It’s: men, well, well, then, eternally, die. Or: c d d c e e. The last lines, in other words, are a couplet. What should be a sestet is actually a
quatrain and a couplet, instead. Why? Donne has changed the form, but for what reason?
He changed the form because he wants that Shakespearean twist at the end of his poem. The octave boldly opens with the declaration that death is neither
mighty nor dreadful, and gives explanation by saying death can’t kill anyone. Not much of an explanation, really, but the poet goes on in the octave (a
single paragraph, remember) to describe what death is like (it’s like rest and sleep!) and why our best die early (their reward for being good!).
He hammers death in the first four lines of what should be the sestet, as he begins to explain why death is neither might nor dreadful. Death is a slave, not a
power, and a slave to everyone from kings down to desperate men. Death lives with agents of death, not in the halls of the powerful and well-to-do. And
The post Formalism as Analysis appeared first on My Assignment Online.
