02-12-2012, 02:45 PM
Tectak,
If I remember correctly this was set off by Henry IV, although it is not based on that, although it is a king speaking to his troops at a banquet before the battle on the morrow."
"Abandonement of rhythm should never be half-hearted"
I think all rhymed. Sometimes it alternated or came three at a time. In the second to last stanza the last three lines the rhyme is hickories, thee, and victory. It is done this way to show him stumbling to make a rhyme with "hickories".
One other place is:
"“For it is God we are fighting for!”
(if I the King should die?
After all, it is me you fools are really dying for!
this boy here will die, a dagger in the eye"
Line three echoes line one as a parody and so does not really rhyme as it is the same word. The soldiers say they are dying for God, the king is basically saying he is God.
Less an allegory and more a satire or parody. What keeps it from being parody is that there is not a specific example that it mock. It is simply mocking leaders in general who get young men to die for "a cause"! In general it shows the discrepancy between what the leader says to motivate the "troops", and what he really thinks.
Billy and TT,
You and Billy have a point about the weakness of the opening line. My intent was to set up the use of cliche, and insincere statements that would be used throughout by the king.
Billy,
"it shows the cheapness of me to a monarch and feels a little Shakespearian in it's telling; though in the modern idiom. it's one of those poems i can't truly figure out"
Seems like you have. If you are thinking there is something more profound, there isn't. It's pretty straight forward, and is not referring to a specific event. It is a generalization of how kings have used young men to promote their own goals, at the cost of those men's lives.
"“There you go lad, have another joint,
Go ahead, drink large of that good ale,"
Would probably make a better opening, and although it might need it, I think it would be difficult to change the opening as everything follows from that. I would have to rewrite about a third of the poem to get that to work.
In terms of form, it is written in accentual and varies between a three and five foot lines.
It was something I wrote a number of years ago and ran across recently. It was allover the place form wise, so I tightened it up a bit. It came about while I was writing some poems related to King Arthur, basically filling in some holes in the stories. For some reason I was re-reading Shakespeare's Henry IV 1 and 2 looking at how Hal changed to Henry and it somehow arose from that.
Thanks for reading and comments guys,
Dale
If I remember correctly this was set off by Henry IV, although it is not based on that, although it is a king speaking to his troops at a banquet before the battle on the morrow."
"Abandonement of rhythm should never be half-hearted"
I think all rhymed. Sometimes it alternated or came three at a time. In the second to last stanza the last three lines the rhyme is hickories, thee, and victory. It is done this way to show him stumbling to make a rhyme with "hickories".
One other place is:
"“For it is God we are fighting for!”
(if I the King should die?
After all, it is me you fools are really dying for!
this boy here will die, a dagger in the eye"
Line three echoes line one as a parody and so does not really rhyme as it is the same word. The soldiers say they are dying for God, the king is basically saying he is God.
Less an allegory and more a satire or parody. What keeps it from being parody is that there is not a specific example that it mock. It is simply mocking leaders in general who get young men to die for "a cause"! In general it shows the discrepancy between what the leader says to motivate the "troops", and what he really thinks.
Billy and TT,
You and Billy have a point about the weakness of the opening line. My intent was to set up the use of cliche, and insincere statements that would be used throughout by the king.
Billy,
"it shows the cheapness of me to a monarch and feels a little Shakespearian in it's telling; though in the modern idiom. it's one of those poems i can't truly figure out"
Seems like you have. If you are thinking there is something more profound, there isn't. It's pretty straight forward, and is not referring to a specific event. It is a generalization of how kings have used young men to promote their own goals, at the cost of those men's lives.
"“There you go lad, have another joint,
Go ahead, drink large of that good ale,"
Would probably make a better opening, and although it might need it, I think it would be difficult to change the opening as everything follows from that. I would have to rewrite about a third of the poem to get that to work.
In terms of form, it is written in accentual and varies between a three and five foot lines.
It was something I wrote a number of years ago and ran across recently. It was allover the place form wise, so I tightened it up a bit. It came about while I was writing some poems related to King Arthur, basically filling in some holes in the stories. For some reason I was re-reading Shakespeare's Henry IV 1 and 2 looking at how Hal changed to Henry and it somehow arose from that.
Thanks for reading and comments guys,
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.