03-22-2016, 07:48 PM
jameso - there is no such thing as 'ye olde poetry' - the poetry of Chaucer is vastly different, and of vastly inferior quality (the not so sorry truth) than that of Spenser, in turn very different than Shakespeare, he from Dryden, he from Tennyson, he from Yeats, and so on.
I don't mean personal styles - I mean the basic language itself.
So the first question for you is: which of these eras are you trying to imitate? My personal favourite is the Elizabethan, which is not quite as here's-a-crapper-let's-take-a-shit barbaric as the language of Chaucer, nor as prissy and periwigged (to steal an expression from Anthony Burgess) as the poetry of the 18th century, nor as suggestive of repressed sodomy as that of the Victorians (barring the great Hopkins).
The romantics are entirely different, Keats in particular. They were the greatest, and there's nothing you can do that will not look like a worthless imitation.
If I were you, I'd pick sweete Spenser, bard of the mercenary Elizabethan gods, and read Book 3 of the Fairie Queene, and all of Amoretti.
You can also look at Kipling, but only if you want to become an anachronism in your own lifetime
But you need to read for yourself and decide.
I don't mean personal styles - I mean the basic language itself.
So the first question for you is: which of these eras are you trying to imitate? My personal favourite is the Elizabethan, which is not quite as here's-a-crapper-let's-take-a-shit barbaric as the language of Chaucer, nor as prissy and periwigged (to steal an expression from Anthony Burgess) as the poetry of the 18th century, nor as suggestive of repressed sodomy as that of the Victorians (barring the great Hopkins).
The romantics are entirely different, Keats in particular. They were the greatest, and there's nothing you can do that will not look like a worthless imitation.
If I were you, I'd pick sweete Spenser, bard of the mercenary Elizabethan gods, and read Book 3 of the Fairie Queene, and all of Amoretti.
You can also look at Kipling, but only if you want to become an anachronism in your own lifetime
But you need to read for yourself and decide.
~ I think I just quoted myself - Achebe