Verse

American Men of Mind by Burton Egbert Stevenson.

Chapter three, Writers of Verse, part one.

Poetry, says the Century Dictionary, is that one of the fine arts which addresses itself to the feelings and imagination by the instrumentality of musical and moving words, and that is probably as concise a definition of poetry as can be evolved.

For poetry is difficult to define.

Verse we can describe because it is mechanical, but poetry is verse with a soul added.

It is for this very reason that there is so wide a variance in the critical estimates of the work of individual poets.

The feelings and imagination of no two persons are exactly the same, and what will appeal to one will fail to appeal to the other, so that it follows that what is poetry for one is merely verse for the other.

One technique tip, notice when Shakespeare shifts between prose and verse.

Prose is used for comic scenes and lower status characters.

Verse, specifically iambic pentameter, signals seriousness and elevated emotion.

When Benedict switches to verse after the gulling scene, it signals his genuine emotional shift.

That's AO2 gold.

One of them is in poetry, and the other...

One is just straight poetry, and the other is called Voicing the Verse, which is about how we use language and how we use what, what we find in language that is poetic to bring people towards you.

'Cause that's my biggest thing about what my main teaching is, poetry is language that brings people towards you.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And if we're thinking about it like that, then we go about constructing the type of language that makes people lean in and not pu- and not push away.

So the straight poetry class is about the, the mechanics of it, and Voicing the Verse is about what poetry can do.

Mm.

A. this edition of milton's poetry is a reprint as careful as editor and printers have been able to make it from the earliest printed copies of the several poems first the sixteen forty five volume of the minor poems has been printed entire then follow in order the poems added in the reissue of sixteen seventy three the paradise lost from the edition of sixteen sixty seven and the paradise regained and samson agonistes from the edition of sixteen seventy one the most interesting portion of the book must be reckoned the first section of it which reproduces for the first time the scarce small octavo of sixteen forty five the only reprint of the minor poems in the old spelling so far as i know is the one edited by mitford but that followed the edition of sixteen seventy three which is comparatively uninteresting since it could not have had milton's oversight as it passed through the press we know that it was set up from a copy of the sixteen forty five edition because it reproduces some pointless eccentricities such as the varying form of the chorus in some one hundred thirty six but while it corrects the errata tabulated in that edition it commits many more blunders of its own it is valuable however as the editio princeps of ten of the sonnets and it contains one important alteration in the ode on the nativity this and all other alterations will be found noted where they occur i have not thought it necessary to note mere differences of spelling between the two editions but a word may find place here upon their general character generally it may be said that where the two editions differ the later spelling is that now in use Thus, words like goddess, darkness, usually written in the first edition with one final S, have two, while on the other hand, words like vernal, youthful, and monosyllables like hug, far, lose their double letter.

Many monosyllables, for example, sum, S-O-M, course, C-O-U-R-S, glimpse, G-L-I-M-P-S, where, W-H-E-R, Verse, V-E-R-S, aw, A-W, else, E-L-S, done, D-O-N, I-E-Y, lie, L-Y.

So written, in 1645, take on in 1673, an E, mute, while words like harp, H-A-R-P-E, winds, W-I-N-D-E-S, only, O-N-E-L-Y, lose it.

By a reciprocal change, air, and Cypress, C-I-P-R-E-S-S, become air, A-I-R, and Cypress, C-Y-P-R-E-S-S.

Youth and Age by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Read for LibriVox.org. Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding like a bee:— Both were mine; Life went a-Maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young! When I was young, a woeful when! Ah for the change 'twixt now and then! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong; O'er airy cliffs and glittering sands, How lightly then it flashed along! Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide; Nought cared this body for wind or weather, When youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely, Love is flower-like, Friendship is a sheltering tree; Oh the joys that came down shower-like Of friendship, love, and liberty, Ere I was old! Ere I was old, a woeful ere! Which tells me youth's no longer here.

Oh youth! for years so many and sweet, 'Tis known that thou and I were one; I'll think it but a fond conceit, It cannot be that thou art gone.

End of poem.

This recording is in the public domain.

Sonnet XVII: Who Will Believe My Verse? by William Shakespeare.

Read for LibriVox.org. Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.

[foreign language] Ah![speaking in foreign language] Mm-hmm.

[speaking in foreign language] Verse number eleven [speaking in foreign language].

Hmm.

[speaking in foreign language] Verse twelve [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] Sixteen.

Verse number sixteen.

And seventeen.

[speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] Ah, [speaking in foreign language] Eh heh.

Chorus, Chor.

A verse is a section of a song with its own lyrics and melody, usually different from the chorus.

Verse, Verse.

Refrain refers to a recurring line or phrase in a song that reinforces the main idea.

Refrain, Refrain.