The Romantic brackets for this year’s tourney are filling up with haunting poems, some known, some neglected.
All the poets in this year’s hoop dreams tournament have one thing in common.
They have no problem using ”O” in their poems.
These poets can shoot the moon as they go for the “O.”
The so-called Romantic poem, the poetry of 19th century Romanticism, really exists all through history, though certainly the Major Romantic poets, Blake, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Coleridge, carried the Romantic Ideal for English speakers to perfection. That ideal includes:
1. Passion without vulgarity, 2. Taste combined with truth, 3. Formal virtuosity, and 4. Civilization Through Nature and Dream.
It would not be fair to say that Modernism, in its revolt against Romanticism, made such a severe reversal that it tossed the baby with the bathwater, losing all poetic virtues; yet something like this did happen—at least in the realm of -isms and tendencies of which the scholar is concerned, and which pervades poetic activity in general.
A poem may win 1) a lover 2) a scholar, or 3) the public.
The combination may go a long way towards influencing the final product.
High Romanticism sounds like it is was written for 1) and 3) simultaneously, not caring much for 2). Yeats sounds “Romantic” in as much as he wrote for 1) and 3) as well.
It might be said that poetry, in its old, time-honored sense, is characterized by having as its audience 1) and 3).
Romanticism is Default Poetry.
Who writes for the scholar? How many poets would admit to doing so?
Modernism perhaps could not quite make up its mind whether it wanted to win 2) or 3), but it did stop writing to 1) in the attempt to broaden its appeal, which, ironically, had the opposite effect.
Scarriet is beating the bushes of world poetry throughout the ages to find gems of the Romanticism genre to compete in 2013. The obstacles: bad translations, cultural distance, old time, are great, but here’s something we found from a German poet born in the 12th century:
Under The Lindentree (trans Michael Benedikt)
Walther von der Vogelweide (1170-1230)
Under the lindentree
on the heather
there a bed for two was
and there too
you may find blossoms grasses
picked together
in a clearing of a wood
tandaradei!
the nightingale sang sweetly.
I came walking
over the field:
my love was already there.
Then I was received
with the words “Noble lady!”
It will always make me happy.
Did he kiss me? He gave me thousands!
tandaradei!
O look at my red mouth.
He had made
very beautifully
a soft bed out of the flowers.
Anybody who comes by there
knowingly
may smile to himself.
For by the upset roses he may see
tandaradei!
where my head lay.
If anyone were to know
how he lay with me
(may God forbid it!), I’d feel such shame.
What we did together
may no one ever know
except us two
one small bird excepted
tandaradei!
and it can keep a secret.
What a splendid poem! Are there poems written today which elevate the mind with a sweet thrill as this one does? Where has that old intoxication gone? That sweetness of yore? Life is supposedly less brutal now. Let’s see if this year’s March Madness Tournament cannot be a small remedy for this.
Here is another exquisite poem we found to play in the tourney:
Las! Mort Qui T’a Fait Si Hardie (trans. Fred Chappell)
Charles D’ Orleans (1394-1465)
Death, you have made it your pleasure
To take the noble princess
Who was my comfort, my treasure,
And everything to bless
My life. Since my mistress
You take, take once again:
Take me, her servitor.
Better to die than bear
Such torment, sorrow, and pain.
She was beautiful past measure,
In the flower of youth she was.
May God work His displeasure
Upon your faithlessness!
My anguish would be less
If you had taken her when
Old age had burdened her;
But you hastened to show your power
With torment, sorrow, and pain.
I live imprisoned, my leisure
Lonely, companionless…
My Lady, goodbye. Now has our
Love departed. This promise
I make to you: largess
Of prayers and, until slain,
My heart, yours evermore,
Forgetting nothing in its sore
Torment, sorrow and pain.
God, Who art sovereign
Of all, in mercy ordain
That the bright spirit of her
Will only briefly endure
Torment, sorrow, and pain.
Slammin!!
