Archaicisms

[Quixilated]

Hello, I have a question.  I’m not trying to start an argument, this is an honest question that I have always wanted to ask.  

What is so bad about sounding archaic, or using archaic words, etc?  Why is it considered to be a detriment to the writing?  More often than not, the thing being called archaic is a part of the writing that I found to be charming and delightful.  Is this not the case for other readers?  Is it truly ‘bad’ to be archaic, or is it only that there are those who enjoy it and those who don’t? 

 Sincerely,
Confused and curious

[Tiger the Lion]

Hello, I have a question.  I’m not trying to start an argument, this is an honest question that I have always wanted to ask.  

What is so bad about sounding archaic, or using archaic words, etc?  Why is it considered to be a detriment to the writing?  More often than not, the thing being called archaic is a part of the writing that I found to be charming and delightful.  Is this not the case for other readers?  Is it truly ‘bad’ to be archaic, or is it only that there are those who enjoy it and those who don’t? 

 Sincerely,
Confused and curious

I would suggest that the instances you found charming and delightful were likely well executed and deliberate. Where archaisms have no purpose other than to "sound" poetic is where they stand out as scars on a piece, As with most devices, they work best when used with purpose.

[Lizzie]

Piggy-back question: what's archaic about anthropomorphism? And, to Quix's question, if it's seen as old-fashioned, isn't it possible to make it new again through clever/intentional use?

P.S Looks like Tiger slipped in and addressed the second part, but the first remains.

[Tiger the Lion]

Piggy-back question: what's archaic about anthropomorphism? And, to Quix's question, if it's seen as old-fashioned, isn't it possible to make it new again through clever/intentional use?

P.S Looks like Tiger slipped in and addressed the second part, but the first remains.

I'm not a scholar but I can think of nothing archaic about anthropomorphism. You may as well call metaphor archaic. Again, it's a tightrope where originality defines the effective balance.

[Quixilated]

What if a word is used that is not archaic to the user but is archaic to the reader?  I don’t mean used out of place to sound cool, but just that writer and reader have a different understanding of which words have stopped being in use. If it is confusing to a reader, does it have to be changed?  How does someone know when a word becomes archaic?  Also, why is it wrong to use a word that has become archaic? Does it become acceptable if its definition is the most correct one for the situation?  Is it better to use a less accurate word if the more accurate word is considered archaic?  I understand that using archaic speech patterns would possibly throw the reader off, but what about if it’s just a word that’s gotten a little dusty?

Isn’t there a degree of subjectivity involved?  Or is that just wishful thinking?

[Lizzie]

What if a word is used that is not archaic to the user but is archaic to the reader?  I don’t mean used out of place to sound cool, but just that writer and reader have a different understanding of which words have stopped being in use. If it is confusing to a reader, does it have to be changed?  How does someone know when a word becomes archaic?  Also, why is it wrong to use a word that has become archaic? Does it become acceptable if its definition is the most correct one for the situation?  Is it better to use a less accurate word if the more accurate word is considered archaic?  I understand that using archaic speech patterns would possibly throw the reader off, but what about if it’s just a word that’s gotten a little dusty?

Isn’t there a degree of subjectivity involved?  Or is that just wishful thinking?

Well, this is just my opinion about specific words: I object to them most when it's clear that the writer is only using those words to make a rhyme work. Then they stick out compared to everything else, which is usually typical modern speech. 

I also feel like the practice of deliberately shortening words with an apostrophe to make meter work is frowned upon these days. Four hundred years ago, it was common to write whole narratives and plays in meter, and so I can understand using the apostrophe in those contexts because you're attempting an epic work and concessions need to be made. But, if it's just a sonnet....no. Think of another word. 

As to entire poetic techniques being old fashioned....I don't know about that. Extremely sus.

[busker]

Shelley wrote poems addressing the west wind. It’s charming. Very much in tune with the prevailing zeitgeist
We don’t do that today anymore, except ironically or in allusion
That’s because we see it as an outdated rhetorical device. Why? Because it’s rhetorical. And rhetoric is outdated. Why is rhetoric outdated? Because so much of it was done over the years that it’s become stale. Cliched.

So it is with the anthropomorphising. Not in a metaphor, which is impossible to avoid, but in a salutation, address, and the like.

Tastes are cyclical. Today, people like the rude rimes of Chaucer. It’s like eating dry bread after a heavy diet of restaurant quality French food. People always go back to what the last few generations dismissed.

No one thinks Shelley should be read anymore.
People read Emily Dickinson, even though she’s intolerable.
Wankers profess to like Bob Dylan.
No American has read Iqbal and his stirring call to Jihad, to topple the evil forces of what is ultimately science and progress

[Lizzie]

Shelley wrote poems addressing the west wind. It’s charming. Very much in tune with  the prevailing zeitgeist
We don’t do that today anymore, except ironically or in allusion

Challenge accepted.....

[TranquillityBase]

Hello, I have a question.  I’m not trying to start an argument, this is an honest question that I have always wanted to ask.  

What is so bad about sounding archaic, or using archaic words, etc?  Why is it considered to be a detriment to the writing?  More often than not, the thing being called archaic is a part of the writing that I found to be charming and delightful.  Is this not the case for other readers?  Is it truly ‘bad’ to be archaic, or is it only that there are those who enjoy it and those who don’t? 

 Sincerely,
Confused and curious

I think it's all about the writer's skill in using those archaicisms, whether they add to the poem or simply distract the reader.  Also, we sometimes forget that the reader has some responsibilities too; it's not all up to the writer.  To automatically reject an archaicism as a reader is just plain laziness.

I'd add that poets have a duty to keep the language alive and that may very well include resurrecting words that are labelled obsolete by the compilers of dictionaries.  There are many beautiful words out there that have been consigned to history and we have every right to bring them back to into use, if only for a brief moment.

TqB 

[dukealien]

Hello, I have a question.  I’m not trying to start an argument, this is an honest question that I have always wanted to ask.  

What is so bad about sounding archaic, or using archaic words, etc?  Why is it considered to be a detriment to the writing?  More often than not, the thing being called archaic is a part of the writing that I found to be charming and delightful.  Is this not the case for other readers?  Is it truly ‘bad’ to be archaic, or is it only that there are those who enjoy it and those who don’t? 

 Sincerely,
Confused and curious

Speaking for myself, I have a sticky note in the notebook I  use to compose poetry (sometimes) which reads, "Eschew archaisms!"

To me, the problem with archaisms is that, whether or not they're comprehensible to modern readers, they tend to be formulaic - those that are not cliches have some attributes of a cliche.  They're lazy - they fit the meter (because they were either written in metric verse originally or evolved conversationally to become that way).  Inversion of normal word order is an archaism, dating from when the language was actually Yoda-form; it's tempting to use an inversion when you've written yourself into a corner and that's an easy way to evade your thoughts re-ordering so the sentence normally proceeds.

[rowens]

I found this version online. I didn't check if it was typed as Shelley wrote it.
He nor Shakespeare spoke the way they wrote. Some spoke like a failed version of Harpo Marx onscreen post 1948. The language
of the poem and others is a realm you are invited to explore. An equation with culture and change included. 



I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

---

Notice how the first letter of every line is uppercase. And, if that bothers you, it bothers you for a reason or reasons that have nothing to do with the poem.


And if things like this bother you, that adds passion to your poetry, so embrace the hate.

[Tiger the Lion]

I found this version online. I didn't check if it was typed as Shelley wrote it.
He nor Shakespeare spoke the way they wrote. Some spoke like a failed version of Harpo Marx onscreen post 1948. The language
of the poem and others is a realm you are invited to explore. An equation with culture and change included. 



I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aëry surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

---

Notice how the first letter of every line is uppercase. And, if that bothers you, it bothers you for a reason or reasons that have nothing to do with the poem.


And if things like this bother you, that adds passion to your poetry, so embrace the hate.

If the hate is fueled by the potential to do better, I too encourage it. Every poem we love is open to subjective criticism. Even accepted masterpieces have flaws.

[rowens]

They don't have flaws, maybe faults, in the sense of openings.

Each masterpiece, in its good and bad, are portals into the allusive playground.

This is how poetry works in a religious sense. The linkage.


You don't have to do that.
But you can, and that seems to be a technique that enriches.

Enriches what?


that's the question

---

is/are portals

you see?

---

With the Bible and other Mythology and pop culture, you can play with quirks, mistranslations, all this stuff.

The same with language. Archaic or not.

---

I have a quirk. I say that genius resides in silence. And that many biblical authors didn't know how rich with meaning their works were/are.
The same with poetry. But/And, all these things are games of context.
Deny the bible and shakespeare, you deny allusions straight down the line to right now poets writing.

The faults are important. The arguments are important.


People are interpreting things today. Did the poets plant all that stuff, knowingly?

Things come together, "after the fact",

Even if it's really stupid and ignorant sounding. Some things are masterpieces, they are, why? They are, anyway, because of what can be got out of them.


The faults, even. You can misinterpret that Shelley poem forever and get stuff. That's what makes it lasting.

---

I take poetry as literal magical reality.

Shelley is a powerful magus. Why? there is no answer to that question other than 1) I like his poems and 2) I can use his magic to make my own.


But the point I'm making in the context of this thread is:

Shelley was not talking like people talked. I've read 19th century autobiographies: even then, they were using their thous and thees theatrically.

---

We should all, before continuing this conversation, get drunk on milk and his or her or whatever vices of choice, read Shakespeare and Boswell, listen to Mozart (beethoven/chopin, whatever) and consider the Cold War.

Consider the Cold War.


And be glad.


.........



This whole message was built on allusion. Allusion which only works if you know the source material.


Or at least like what I wrote enough to digest the source material


UNKNOWINGLY


as most readers, and glad readers, of their favorite poetry do

---

Instead of looking at things and saying: wrong or archaic,
there's a lot more use in reading stuff and seeing how you can use it.

I'm not a regular person when I read poems. I read poems and say, that ties in with the things I write, I'm going to make that work with me.
I'm going to take everything that I read and appropriate it into what I write.

I'm not going to say: This syntax was distorted by Robert Browning, and complain about it.
Hell no!!! I'm going to utilize that last name Browning, and the critique of that man and his wife, and play with his eccentricities to enrich my own.


Forward and Upward

[TranquillityBase]

 to digest the source material 


UNKNOWINGLY


as most readers, and glad readers, of their favorite poetry do

This is how I read most poetry.

[Lizzie]

Is apostrophe and anthropomorphism the same thing?