Rhymes and Meters Part 6

CHAPTER X

VERSE TRANSLATION

A working knowledge of some foreign language--say French or German--is often very profitable to the verse maker. With a dictionary and a couple of text books he can make very good translations of the poetry of the language--work which may not bring a money return but which as an exercise is both interesting and valuable. The process is not complicated, though a good verse translation may be made as hard a task as any falling to the lot of the literary worker.

Take a poem that strikes the fancy; read it and reread till every word is clear and then shape the translation into a stanza and meter as near the original as possible. If there are four three-line stanzas in the original, build the translation into four three-line stanzas as closely line for line as the ease of the verse will permit. In translating from the German the original meter can be followed accent for accent, though this is impossible with the French, whose syllables are without emphasis, and would scarcely be advisable with any of the more complicated Latin meters.

At first it is a good idea to make the English verse rigorously exact in its meaning--to study every word until the verse not only rhymes and runs with some degree of naturalness, but also is a correct rendering of the cold facts. This is not so hard as it seems if one sits down and thinks the right word out, and it gives opportunity for an excellent overhauling of the vocabulary.

Any one who has had a high-school course in Latin can experiment with Virgil, turning it either into couplets like Pope's Iliad or into the more appropriate meter used by Longfellow in his Evangeline. With a dictionary and a literal translation it is easy enough to puzzle out Horace, who is more modern in his thought and who is, in a way, the ancestor of our present _vers-de-societe_ writers. There is also this advantage in the translation of Horace: One finds a chance to compare his translation with the work of many others, for Horace has been more widely translated than any other poet unless we except the Biblical writers. The fame of Father Prout rests largely on his renderings of Horace. Austin Dobson has translated several of the odes into the French forms and many other poets have turned their hand to the task.

Among the Germans, Heine is a favorite with English translators, though many of his songs from their shortness and delicacy are hard to express properly. Goethe and Schiller have also been much translated and any collection of German poetry will show a dozen poems with which one has become familiar through the English versions.

Among the French it is difficult to specify any particular authors, as they have not been so widely translated as the Germans. Alfred de Musset, Theophile Gautier and Paul Verlaine are, perhaps, as well known as any other of the more modern writers.

In making translations with a view to the artistic side the result is apt to differ from the exercise which aims only at accuracy. For practice one should render line for line as nearly as possible. When one can do this it is allowable to take more liberties and reproduce the poem, not line for line as it stands, but rather as the author might have written it had he composed in English; to preserve the meter and general arrangement but to sacrifice details when necessary to the spirit of the poem. When the two qualities can be combined and a poem is translated in such a way that the lines correspond and yet do not crowd out the poetry the result is a masterpiece. But such things very rarely happen and require not only hard work but a flash of inspiration and good luck as well.

Very often a poem can be imitated from its mother tongue. A stanza or two may be expanded into a ballade in English containing an elaboration of the original thought. It is perfectly allowable to offer a composition of this sort for sale provided the source is acknowledged.

XI

ABOUT READING

CHAPTER XI

ABOUT READING

To write good verse one must read good verse. The world has spun too long for a man to succeed who depends wholly on his own ideas; he must profit by the work of others. The more poetry and the more kinds of poetry the verse maker reads the broader his knowledge of the subject becomes. First it touches his vocabulary, then his rhymes and meters and lastly his methods.

Though all good literature is helpful in this way, the book which gives the most enjoyment is very apt to bring the most profit. But it should not be forgotten that many authors are unpopular because of a hasty first impression. A rainy day and a disagreeable companion will spoil the effect of the prettiest scenery in the world, and a bad dinner and a headache may turn a masterpiece into a lasting abomination. Any poet whose work has lived must possess some quality which is worth appreciating if not acquiring. Given a fair trial without prejudice he will speak for himself.

It is not in the compa.s.s of this chapter to list the "Poets Who Should Be Reverenced." It is better for the verse maker to experiment and select his patron saints for himself. Yet attention may be called to certain accepted masters with whose work even the beginner should be familiar.

At the head of the list stands the Bible. The beauty and simplicity of its speech fully explain how this book has inspired generation after generation of poets. Job, Isaiah, the Psalms and the writings of Solomon are in themselves a treasury of phrase and suggestion.

Shakespeare is to be read for the poetry of his lines and picturesque word-grouping if for nothing else. For that matter, the songs of all the Elizabethan dramatists are worthy of study and restudy. They have a lilt and a lightness which make them live even now when so many literary fashions have pa.s.sed away.

The old English ballads, to be found in Percy's Reliques, Allingham's Ballad Book and most collections of English Literature, are a help toward understanding the construction of a spirited narrative poem.

Kipling's "Ballad of East and West" shows how effectively this sort of treatment can be applied to a modern theme.

Robert Herrick is worth while for the grace and delicacy of his poems; with him might be cla.s.sed the better efforts of Lovelace and Sir John Suckling.

Milton's "Paradise Lost" is perhaps the best example we have of continuous blank verse. It should be read but not imitated, at least not imitated too much. It is hard to distinguish good blank verse from bad and it is so easy to write the bad.

Dryden's "Alexander's Feast" deserves a perpetual bookmark for the remarkable success with which the trend of emotion is interpreted by the rhythm. "The Bells," by Edgar Allan Poe, is another example of this treatment and is held by some critics to be equally good.

Pope's verse and that of his age generally is too cleverly artificial to be of much use to a modern, though his mastery of the epigrammatic couplet might be profitably noted.

As an exemplification of finished workmanship Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" stands alone.

Robert Burns, for the swing of his songs and the flavor of his words, should be read continually. Much of his Scotch vocabulary might be used, judiciously, in English verse.

In the "Eve of St. Agnes," Keats has revealed possibilities in the Spenserian stanza of which Spenser himself was not aware, and the "Ode to a Nightingale" and the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" have a cla.s.sic beauty which can be recognized though not successfully copied.

Of the more modern poets Browning's strange, uncouth phrasing is full of power; Tennyson's mastery is shown in his exquisite choice of words, and Swinburne's meters and rhymes are worth close application.

And so one might go on for a dozen pages and still have an incomplete list. It is not what one reads but how one reads. The books wait on the shelves and through reading and through reading only can one cultivate that most necessary though indefinable quality--Good Taste.

XII

HINTS FOR BEGINNERS

CHAPTER XII

HINTS FOR BEGINNERS

For one whose verse runs easily and whose occasional sales are an encouragement, this last chapter is perhaps unnecessary. Yet there may come times in routine, monotonous production when even he loses in interest, and with this loss his work falls off in quality. It is only through interest and desire that anything has ever been accomplished, and if these are not sustained the work must stay at a low level. Even the seasoned writer must look forward to his work if he wishes to improve.

For the beginner whose airy verse does not trip but rather lumbers, who is unable to write anything worthy of sale and whose ideas refuse to be crowded into the right number of feet, it might be an excellent thing occasionally to drop all thought of pentameters and amphibrachs and go back to the old-fashioned rhymed alphabet.

"A is for Ant That lives in the ground, B is for Bear-- A terror when found----"

and so on through the twenty-six harmless letters. It is an exercise in ingenuity if nothing else and if the writer has any skill at drawing it could be converted into a delightful gift for a five-year-old. Lear, the author of the Nonsense books, did not think it beneath his dignity to write six of these alphabets in varying stanza forms.

A little harder, but still not too hard, is the limerick, examples of which are given in Chapter IX. As a gift, a series of ill.u.s.trated limericks on people you know would have the merit of novelty at least.

To see one's productions in print is always an incentive to better work.

The type is cheering even when its legibility reveals several faults unnoticed in ma.n.u.script. Most small newspapers are glad to publish fairly good verse when the poet is willing to let it go for nothing. Be sure that rhyme and meter are correct and then send it in and let the General Public stand from under.

If it is a lack of verse ideas that bothers you, try a drama. Write it in blank verse and crowd the action with incidental songs. This is not for publication, of course; not even to show your dearest friend, but just for practice. Put in a troubadour if you like, or anything else a romantic imagination may suggest, and let them sing themselves hoa.r.s.e in every scene. In this prosaic century you might not be able to write a stirring love song, but if you become thoroughly identified with the characters, your troubadour or your fair lady would be bound to get off something creditable. The plot of the drama is a thing of no consequence; it may have as much or as little as you choose. Write the scenes as the mood strikes you and when you have lost interest think of it only as an exercise.

Tennyson's "Maud" shows how a narrative poem may be treated in a series of lyrics and suggests imitation. The German poets, as well as some English writers, have song cycles, a series of poems all bearing on one central theme. A pedestrian trip; the life of a bird couple; the coming of winter, and innumerable other subjects lie close at hand suitable for such treatment. Henley's city types and hospital sketches lead the way for similar verses of things familiar to you.