to be painfully honest, I'd only read a little of his poetry until this week. sure, I knew about "breathes there the man with soul so dead" and "lochinvar", but I didn't even know until around last thursday that "what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive" was a direct quote from marmion. walter scott! who knew, right?
so it was a wonderful surprise to find that he really did deserve that proffered poet laureate title, and that byron wrote an urgent request from italy to get a copy of rokeby. since I pathetically lack head knowledge of basic facts about scott's poetry, that will greatly shallow-fy today's post, and it will probably be a lot of my fan-girl fluff about "oh, I just love this poem, and isn't it fantastic, and don't you just want to swoon?"
well, a little boring history out of the way first. scott was writing poetry well before his novel-producing career; his first published poetry, in 1796, was a translation of burger's "lenore" and "the wild huntsman". (for history of the originals, see wikipedia. interesting, but tangential to this discussion.) between an edited/translated version of sir tristrem and his original the lay of the last minstrel, by 1805, scott had shot to fame as an accomplished poet. although he produced well-received works for the next ten years -- such as marmion (1808) and rokeby (1812) -- he felt that his popularity was dropping off, because the numbers that would have been the making of a lesser poet were a significant underachievement for him. discouraged about the reception of his anonymously published "the bridal of triermain" (1813), he stopped writing poetry altogether. -- fortunately for us; because then he turned to novel-writing, hijinx ensued, and we all lived happily ever after. except, of course, for
and now for the fun part!
these are some of the short poems I've read and completely enjoyed, though several of them (marked by an *) are from longer works. (you can find most, if not all, of his poetry here at poemhunter's ws page.)
- "answer"
- "coronach"*
- "eleu loro"*
- "farewell to the muse"*
- "flora macivor's song"*
- "wandering willie"
- "the maid of toro"
- "the noble moringer"
- "saint cloud"
- "harp of the north, farewell!"*
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and now for review-y discussions of three long, narrative scott poems that I've read over the past week. because you care what my opinion is.
the bridal of triermain
I really enjoyed this poem. it's long, but worth it. the frame story is the introduction; it involves the lovers, lucy and arthur, who are meeting in the woods, and arthur tells this tale to his beloved (though considering the content, I'm not sure ... why). the first inner story is about a certain roland de vaux who dreams of a beautiful girl and vows to search her out and marry her. during his search, he finds a man who tells the second inner story, a tale about camelot, hundreds of years before; de vaux comes to understand king arthur's illegitimate daughter is the girl he saw, cursed to sleep in an enchanted castle until the right dude comes along (sound familiar?). our man roland's adventures and exploits are described, as he must overcome fear, greed, lust, and pride before winning the girl. I'll let you guess how it all turns out.
you're right! lucy and arthur do get married and live happily ever after! how did you know?!
as far as the lyrical quality went... wow. his rhyme scheme is, like, impeccable and the words he uses are just beautiful. the meter changes several times throughout, but it moves the story along, switching between a more complicated pattern (with arthur and lucy) and a simpler, ballad-like pattern (for the medieval parts). I loved it.
it was really hard to find a full but easy-enough-to-read version of this poem, though; the best I could come up with was at 'the camelot project' -- click here.
the lady of the lake
with this one, I don't even know where to start. ("...the beginning?" thanks.)
the first three stanzas, which serve as a kind of prelude to the poem, were probably the most boring and worst parts of the poem. also, I loved them. after the first three stanzas, the poem got better and better and to sum up my experience in three words: I adored it. I mean, this was the best lengthy poem I have ever read. it was amazing. the lyrical quality was awesome (and I mean that in the colloquial way), the descriptions were breathtaking, the story was fast-paced and had enough characters to keep it interesting (but not too many for confusion). on a scale of 1-10, I'd give this 9.5. maybe 9.8. I refrain from a 10 just because I feel like there must be something wrong with it, right? ...you can get lady at gutenberg.org. I don't care if it looks hard to read, read it!!
gosh. it was beautiful. *dies in ecstasy
marmion
if this poem had been any longer -- especially if the introduction/dedications before each canto had been longer -- I don't know if I would have made it. maybe somewhere ages and ages hence, but it would have taken me a long time. I think this story, exciting as it is, would have been better as a novel; it has a distinct scott flavor, with battles and highlanders and mystical elements that can be fully explained. it has a bad guy who gets his comeuppance, a good guy who triumphs, a dramatic, melancholy, conflicted, beautiful fallen woman and her pure counterpart... very much sir walter's style. the plot is rather complicated, so being in rhyme makes it that much more difficult to grasp.
however. the plot is complicated, so it makes for a layered, complex story. the characters develop. the descriptions are fabulous (dude, the battle scene at flodden field. I had a serious adrenaline rush, scott does such a good job with the tension).
overall, I liked it; would I read it again? maybe, though I'd skip the dedication parts without qualms this time (oh no, did I just admit I skipped some of the poem? horrors). on a scale of 1 to lady of the lake, I'd place the entire thing at 7 -- good, enjoyable, but I have to say it had some tedious parts. and I feel bad about that, like it's wrong for me to not like it, or something. ...oh well. ignoring the dedications (which technically aren't part of the narrative), I would boost marmion an 8.5 -- not a 9 because, frankly, there were just some parts that were hard to understand. although I wouldn't be surprised if that's only because I'm used to 21st-century english and he was not. overall, I can definitely see why this would be a bestseller. (you can read marmion at gutenberg.org.)
[after writing my 'review' I was reading about the poem's original reception and found that my reaction was similar to others', even at the time. I feel a little better now :)]
- - -
so that was an overview of scott's poetry. I am really, really happy that I did it, because I would have missed so much had I stuck only to his novels.
tomorrow is the last day of ISWSW. how sad... but love will still be lord of all!*
*listen to loreena mckennitt's musical rendition of scott's poem "the english ladye and the knight". very good way to round out a day on sir walter's poetry.
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staying on topic would be nice, too, but I know that can be hard sometimes.