01-28-2015, 02:56 PM
Filíocht,
ellajams suggestion for line 2 is spot on, it gets you back to a four foot line.
Regarding line 4, neither what you have or ellajam suggestion is in iambic tetrameter like the rest of the poem. It is going to be difficult to use vultures. If the line started with vultures with the second syllable being stressed it would work out to one foot of iamb.
"did those vultures revel his demise."
Here is ella's suggestion
"than vultures reveled his demise" As is plain her suggestion is better than what you have, but still has two groupings of two non-accented syllables. To be grammatical it needs the preposition "in", so it reads:
"did those vultures revel in his demise" To leave it in its current state would be equal to saying "He jumped boat."
With that in place the problem becomes one of meter, inserting the "in" into the sentence. Here is how it is accented now:
"did those vultures revel in his demise"
As you can see you are one accented syllable short, along with your other problems related to the meter.
At the moment I have nothing to recommend. The last four lines are dead on as far as the meter. Lines 5-6-7 are very good iambic tetrameter, the last line is a bit shaky, but I do not have the time to examine that.
As far as the thesis of the poem to me it really does not come out in the poem. Were the title not there I doubt that anyone would guess it has to do with a " Lament for a Working Man". There is nothing within the poem that revels the old man is the working man. Plus the poem should be able to stand on its own without needing the title to support it. To me, introducing the speaker as a character in the poem seems a little odd, especially as he states the strangest thing. Due to his father dying, as we must assume it is the father dying that leads the speaker to the state his soul has died. One would generally think his soul might ache, or feel battered, but it seems somewhat nonsensical for him to state that his soul died. I think most would agree that losing a parent is a terrible thing and takes awhile to recover from such an event. Yet I doubt many would think the event was such as to kill someone's soul
Dale
.
ellajams suggestion for line 2 is spot on, it gets you back to a four foot line.
Regarding line 4, neither what you have or ellajam suggestion is in iambic tetrameter like the rest of the poem. It is going to be difficult to use vultures. If the line started with vultures with the second syllable being stressed it would work out to one foot of iamb.
"did those vultures revel his demise."
Here is ella's suggestion
"than vultures reveled his demise" As is plain her suggestion is better than what you have, but still has two groupings of two non-accented syllables. To be grammatical it needs the preposition "in", so it reads:
"did those vultures revel in his demise" To leave it in its current state would be equal to saying "He jumped boat."
With that in place the problem becomes one of meter, inserting the "in" into the sentence. Here is how it is accented now:
"did those vultures revel in his demise"
As you can see you are one accented syllable short, along with your other problems related to the meter.
At the moment I have nothing to recommend. The last four lines are dead on as far as the meter. Lines 5-6-7 are very good iambic tetrameter, the last line is a bit shaky, but I do not have the time to examine that.
As far as the thesis of the poem to me it really does not come out in the poem. Were the title not there I doubt that anyone would guess it has to do with a " Lament for a Working Man". There is nothing within the poem that revels the old man is the working man. Plus the poem should be able to stand on its own without needing the title to support it. To me, introducing the speaker as a character in the poem seems a little odd, especially as he states the strangest thing. Due to his father dying, as we must assume it is the father dying that leads the speaker to the state his soul has died. One would generally think his soul might ache, or feel battered, but it seems somewhat nonsensical for him to state that his soul died. I think most would agree that losing a parent is a terrible thing and takes awhile to recover from such an event. Yet I doubt many would think the event was such as to kill someone's soul
Dale
.
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.