The Fascination Of What's Difficult
William Butler Yeats

The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road-metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

And yet Yeats, like the rest of us, was fascinated with the difficult as well.



Post Edited (01-17-05 02:08)

The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart.

This is sort of how I feel about the idea of "scanning" a poem. Although it probably serves good purpose in a classroom setting when studying poetry, particularly older works, I wonder the merit of doing so when looking at poetry for leisure/entertainment. Are there any poets out there today who adhere to the discipline of structure displayed years ago? It seems to me that metered poetry is a thing of the past.

Marty

Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content

Obviously Yeats was unaware that the adjective is pronounced conTENT and the noun CONtent. No wonder poets have abandoned metered works.

Kidding. Just kidding, WB.

I see a JOKE in the fact that Yeats chose to express his exasperaton with "what's difficult" by writing a rhymed sonnet.

Kidding. Just kidding, WB.

Earth shook. He turned.

(Brachylogia. My latest obsession - rhetorical devices.)



Post Edited (01-18-05 00:26)

Hugh-

You never know. He may have been talking about his natural CONtent.


Jack

Brachylogia

Oh, brevity. For a second there I thought you meant borborygmus.

rhetorical devices ...

Good subject - what is this one?:

Rhetorical de-freaking-vices.

If he'd really been annoyed, he'd have written a villanelle.

pam

Abso-effing-tively !

For a second there I thought you meant borborygmus.

You know - to my eastern ears, some of the terms sound just like that. I CANnot pronounce this word from memory: aposiopesis. If i look at it, and read syllable by syllable, slowly, I get it. Then, I try without looking and I go : Ap so so pia.

Rhetorical de-freaking-vices.

Hugh, Hugh, that phrase had and has hyperbaton/anastrophe.

(I got two in that one. )(Three if you count alliteration.) (Four if you count assonance.)

Inference - the more rhetorical devices used, the more it corny sounds.
Anaphora
(Haaalp - En-already-ough)

Yeah, I enjoy obscure terms as well.

In writing my graduate thesis
On chiasmus, plus other caprices
And rhetorical tropes,
I failed like the dopes
For mentioning t-freaking-mesis.

Ah tmesis! Did not know of that one.

was that KIDding or kidDING?

Margot Kidder and Captain Kidd
loved each other but hit a skid
so Captain Kidd and Margot Kidder
sold that skid to the highest bidder

I disagree. I think he knew what he was doing; natural CONtent and natural conTENT in one