Traditions
Poetic tradition is a phrase which critics use to refer to the history of poetry. Poetic traditions can vary between countries and cultures.
In western culture poetic tradition dates back to greek-roman epics like Virgil's Eneid or Homer's Odissey, epic poems.
In portuguese culture the most relevant epic poem dates back to the XVI century with «Lusíadas», by Camões, a very long poem with a clear narrative (or story) throughout.
Shakesperiam sonnet - rhyming scheme - abab cdcd efef gg
Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
That thou consumest thyself in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die.
The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.
Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused, the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murderous shame commits.
Petrarcan sonnet - rhyming scheme - abba cddc efgefg
Camões sonnet
Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver;
É ferida que dói, e não se sente;
É um contentamento descontente;
É dor que desatina sem doer.
É um não querer mais que bem querer;
É um andar solitário entre a gente;
É nunca contentar-se de contente;
É um cuidar que se ganha em se perder.
É querer estar preso por vontade;
É servir a quem vence, o vencedor;
É ter com quem nos mata, lealdade.
Mas como causar pode seu favor
Nos corações humanos amizade,
Se tão contrário a si é o mesmo Amor?
Florbela Espanca
Amar!
Eu quero amar, amar perdidamente!
Amar só por amar: Aqui... além...
Mais Este e Aquele, o Outro e toda a gente
Amar! Amar! E não amar ninguém!
Recordar? Esquecer? Indiferente!...
Prender ou desprender? É mal? É bem?
Quem disser que se pode amar alguém
Durante a vida inteira é porque mente!
Há uma Primavera em cada vida:
É preciso cantá-la assim florida,
Pois se Deus nos deu voz, foi pra cantar!
E se um dia hei-de ser pó, cinza e nada
Que seja a minha noite uma alvorada,
Que me saiba perder... pra me encontrar...
Contemporary versions of Shakespearean sonnets
Two (inspired by Sonnet 36)
Don Paterson
These two, if two, can only half-exist,
their being so lost, so inwardly inclined
that were somehow the universal mind
to make its inventory, they would be missed,
their bodies having slipped between the hours
and dropped down to this silent underland,
the white torque of their sheet still in her hand
like the means of their escape. From the light purse
of their mouths, they pass their only coin
endlessly, so none may buy or sell.
Each has drawn so long and drank so deep
from the other’s throat or root, they cannot tell
tongue from tail or end from origin.
Sleep will halve them so they will not sleep.
Poetica francesa - https://www.poetica.fr/
Alicia Stallings - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ae-stallings , contemporary poet influenced by the classics
The classical greek mythology in contemporary poetry:
Song for the Women Poets – A. E. Stallings
Tartarus - is the place where, according to Plato's Gorgias (c. 400 BC), souls are judged after death
Orpheous - legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion.
Literary magazine that launched modernism in Portugal was called Orpheu - https://modernismo.pt/index.php/orpheu.
Old Norse Tradition
Eddic poetry’ – was anonymous, and told mythological stories of the Norse gods and heroes.
Skaldic poetry had many purposes: it was used to glorify rulers (‘King, another lord loftier than you will never be born under the sun’); to commemorate friends (‘I have piled a mound of praise that long will stand without crumbling in poetry’s field’); to insult enemies (‘Bjorn the windbag, wide of arse and loathsome, remains a useless loser’); and even to woo sexual partners (‘I looked at the ankles of the finely grown woman by the threshold – this yearning will not die from me all my life’).
10th-century poem called Höfuðlausn by Egill Skalla-Grímsson - this poem is especially of interest to us in York, as it was composed in honour of the city’s last Viking king, the formidable Eric Bloodaxe (Höfuðlausn means ‘Head-Ransom’, and the story goes that Egill composed the poem to save his life, as Eric Bloodaxe was angry with Egill and his family).
The Waste Land, by T. S. Elliot
The Waste Land by T.S.Elliot is a long (5 sections) modern poem, published in 1922. Elliot was influenced by Baudelaire's poetry, who wrote about the city, while traditional poets would write about rural environments. The strict metre and scheme rhyming was abandoned and «free verse» adopted.
James Joyce published in the same year Ulysses. Elliot seems to have borrowed the mythic narrative structure. Elliot wrote an essay in praise of Joyce’s use of ancient myth.
The Waste Land remains a polissemic challenge in spite of many analyses, some collected in the website of the University of Illinois, a great repository of literature, which aggregates many poets.
World War I had a great impact and references are made in the 2nd section where one of the characters may seem to suffer from shell-shock. In fact, there are old films quite impressive about the traumas caused by war on soldiers - https://youtu.be/IWHbF5jGJY0
The last section "What the Thunder Said’, a quest for water in a dry land, is written in unpunctuated, unrhymed, irregular free verse.
A short introduction to The Waste Land - https://youtu.be/PSI5AejsFbU
The voice of T. S. Elliot - https://youtu.be/CqvhMeZ2PlY
