I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be

[desperance]

Four Five Six lines, picked from the last paragraph of dialogue I wrote:

we are a burden and a cause of fear
if they can see their emperor abroad
but if they know for certain I am here
How can they know when they have never seen
when I've been kept more secret than a god
whose house at least is open to their prayers?

God save us, every one. It seems that when I'm being pompous (formal court speech, this is), I write iambic pentameter. Without thinking about it for a moment. (It was that last one that struck home suddenly.) Can it be that I have seen and read too much of Shakespeare et al...?

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

If you start writing in villanelles, that'd be cool. And pompous in a good way.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I kind of wish you had not made this post.
Now, of course, I want to go and do it.
We could save the villanelle for prose!

The end of all endeavour is dispos'd
To leave us wishing we had not gone to it.
I kind of wish you had not made this post.

And yet it's true that when a man plays host
He takes on obligations - and I knew it.
We could save the villanelle for prose!

Your challenge I regard as quite the most
enticing for some time, and I'll work through it -
and yet, I wish you had not made this post.

I gave up poetry long since; it is my boast,
but now I cannot trumpet it; I blew it.
I meant to save the villanelle for prose

But it's too late. See? Bloody rhymes arose.
My goal was good; I fear I must eschew it.
I really wish you had not made this post.
I cannot save the villanelle for prose.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I'm entranced! I shall make pilgrimage and bring you ottar of roses, cat treats, and cloudberry jam. That was excellent.

[time-freak.livejournal.com]

I like it.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

This is, I think, why blank verse works so well, because the iambic pentameter is a natural rhythm for English speech.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

Too much Shakespeare is impossible. Carry on!

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

I like that lots. Does that mean I've also been over-exposed to Shakespeare?

[szandara.livejournal.com]

I do not understand this phrase "too much Shakespeare." It maketh little sense.

Also, the rythms of iambic pentameter are excellently suited to formal, court speech.

c

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

Yesterday hot_climate called a paragraph of my dissertation pompous .

Just because one sentence was five lines long!

So I hit him with my sceptre.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

*laughs*!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Now, see, why am I not at all surprised to hear that you have a sceptre...?

Also, he clearly deserved it. Hath he not read Henry James? Five lines is a bagatelle.

[wishus.livejournal.com]

I've got that far in the exercises in The Ode Less Travelled (not too far), but it does mean I keep writing like that... at least in iambs.