Last year I found that one of the many benefits of studying literature is that as I read and discuss and study, ideas for my own writing organically rise to the surface of my consciousness. Art spawns art. This is has proved to be less true in my second year, but every now and then I’ll come across something that I’d like to try.

When I was in the upper school I spent a month of each of my four years studying the history of literature. By looking at a variety of texts from Gilgamesh to Oedipus Rex to The Tempest to the Lyrical Ballads to Riddley Walker, I was able to gain a rather comprehensive overview of the evolution of literature, and one of the main things I remember from these classes is writing poetry. Whatever era or subject we were studying, we were encouraged to write poetry in a similar style. So I wrote sonnets and villanelles; I wrote in iambic pentameter and trochees; I wrote quatrains and free-verse; and I often enjoyed the freedom of subject juxtaposed with the structure of the form. I also very much liked the way in which I now, in a contemporary setting, I am free to pick and choose from past forms and find one that will fit whatever poem I would like to write.

However, since leaving school, I haven’t written much poetry. There are a few poems on this site, and even one I am quite fond of, but for the most part they’ve been written quickly and without all that much care¹. Poetry is by no means a dying art – there are plenty of poets out there if you care to look for them! – but it is less in the public eye, and has been somewhat usurped by the rise of the novel.

It’s ironic really: when the novel first appeared (around the beginning of the 18th Century), it was looked down upon as a lowbrow form of literature, not fit to sit on shelves besides poetry, romance and epics. Novels were printed to be read once and thrown away, like we might do with a newspaper. Yet now the BBC covers the Man Booker Prize every year, extensively, and I can’t even call to mind the name of a poetry prize – although, again, there are plenty of them.

But I digress…

The reason, I suppose, that I haven’t written much poetry lately is that usually my creative ideas are narrative ideas. Of course, I could write narrative poetry, but it was never my preferred style. My ideas seemed to lend themselves far better to prose. However, given my lack of narrative inspiration, I thought perhaps now would be a good time to return to looking at poetry. This realisation is, of course, heavily influenced by what I’m currently studying – Troilus and Criseyde (Chaucer) – and a lecture I had the other night on Early English Poetics. The guest lecturer himself – whose name I wish I could give you, but for privacy reasons I can’t – writes modern poetry in the style of early English poetry. Whilst there are various different forms, I was particularly interested in the structure used in Caedmon’s Hymn, which I looked at a few weeks ago.

Given the structure of this poem and the difference in language, writing in this form using modern English is no small feat. In Old and Middle English (OE, ME), the stresses in words are not standardised, as they are now. For example: in the word ‘genius’ we naturally put the stress on the first syllable – ‘genius’ – and it would sound strange if we were to put it on the second – ‘genius’ – or the third – ‘genius.’ However, in OE and ME, the stresses are flexible, and can change depending on the context and how they are spoken. Therefore OE and ME lend themselves very well to poetry, and when early English poetry was being written, the language was often changed and manipulated to serve the form itself.

The structure used in Caedmon’s Hymn is thus:

• 4 stresses/emphases per line
• 3 alliterations per line
• A caesura² in every line

In terms of the length of the poem and stanzas, there are no hard and fast rules, and in fact, even the above rules are often subverted; for example, some of the lines in this poem use two or four alliterations.

Interestingly, due to the fact that the earliest poetry comes not from written word but from the oral tradition, in the early manuscripts poetry is often written without line breaks. Therefore, modern scholars have used the alliteration to work out the lines.

Using the style of Caedmon’s Hymn, I decided to write a short stanza and test how the form would work in modern English. (The following was written purely to illustrate the form):

Sing to me o’ muse, bring forth my words
And let the meaning, lilting from this
numb mind, measure the metre.
But bereft of syllables, I’ll count in beats
And watch the stress, as I make the break,
Running without reason, against the rest.

Perhaps the easiest part of early English poetry to recreate is the alliteration:

Sing to me o’ muse, bring forth my words
And let the meaning, lilting from this
numb mind, measure the metre.
But bereft of syllables, I’ll count in beats
And watch the stress, as I make the break,
Running without reason, against the rest.

Although it may pose some challenge when writing with a more intentional subject, and I have done it rather crudely, it is not something alien to us, and is used often in modern poetry.

Of course, writing in modern English it is extremely difficult to have only four stresses per line. However, given the clear form of the poem, we can see where the emphases should perhaps be:

Sing to me o’ muse, bring forth my words
And let the meaning, lilting from this
numb mind, measure the metre.
But bereft of syllables, I’ll count in beats
And watch the stress, as I make the break,
Running without reason, against the rest.

I have also inserted commas to illustrate where the caesura would be, although some editors choose to print early English poetry with a physical break between lines to show the importance of the caesura:

Sing to me o’ muse                bring forth my words
And let the meaning             lilting from this
numb mind                            measure the metre.
But bereft of syllables             I’ll count in beats
And watch the stress             as I make the break,
Running without reason       against the rest.

This has quite a dramatic effect on the way the poem looks on the page, and modern poetry is definitely concerned with its appearance as well as its meaning and its sound, but it perhaps says more about the editor than it does the poet.

You can see how many challenges are posed by this mix of old and new, but I think it has the potential to produce some interesting pieces, and to change the way I, at the very least, approach and feel about my work. And hopefully, over the next few weeks, I will feel inspired to write something slightly more interesting than the above.

1. Except for the “one I am quite fond of”, The Minotaur, which is the product of many careful hours’ work.
2. A break in the middle of a line.

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Chaucer’s take is a little different.

In Troilus and Criseyde Troilus is, in fact, rather passive in his actions. True, the drama of his feeling almost overwhelms the poetry of Book I, but he actually does very little. Meanwhile, Criseyde is continually resistant to any mention of his affection (and even when she gives into it, she is adamant that she wants to keep the independence she has as a widow).

But, of course, a passive hero and a resistant heroine are never going to come together of their own free will, and so Chaucer creates the character of Pandarus. Friend to Troilus, and uncle to Criseyde, Pandarus is a bizarre creature, who initially seems to genuinely care for both of the lovers, and even speaks some sensible words to Troilus. But as the narrative goes on, he becomes more and more manipulative, putting into action the things Troilus lacks the will to do.

By lying to her, Pandarus in fact takes over almost complete management of Criseyde’s physical being.

In Book III, for example, he uses lies to persuade Criseyde to come to his house, and then to stay the night, and then to take a room in a quieter, more intimate part of the house, and then to allow Troilus to visit her in her bedroom that night, and so on and so forth. Almost always, his final argument is that if she won’t do as he says, Troilus will surely die of heartache (and Pandarus will die from sorrow over the death of his friend).

Reading this, as the lies build and Pandarus becomes ever more manipulative, you can’t help but question Criseyde’s consent. At one point Pandarus practically strips Troilus and forces him into Criseyde’s bed. Criseyde often says no to things initially, but Pandarus always gets her consent in the end. However, the way he gets her consent is by lying to her, and whilst, to my mind, there is no question as to whether or not Criseyde is being coerced – she is! – this dynamic has brought to mind an entirely different question.

Can anyone give their consent if they are being lied to about their situation?

In the past I have been on all three sides of cheating; I have been cheated on, I have cheated on people, and I have slept with people who were cheating on their partners. I won’t ever deny this, and I still strive to withhold from judging those who do cheat – after all, every situation is unique – but I made a decision never to participate in cheating again. I wish I could say this was for moral reasons, but whilst I may have taken on some sense of morality, the main reasons I made this definitive decision were selfish: cheating made me feel bad, and I realised that I deserved more than half a partner.

Having given up the need to defend my own actions, I now have a different view of cheating, and, perhaps because I no longer have to deny it to myself, something about it really bothers me. Reading Troilus and Criseyde over the past five weeks, I have finally figured out what it is about cheating that makes me feel so uncomfortable, and it is this question of consent.

Let me give you an example:

John and Jane are married. Unbeknownst to Jane, John has been sleeping with somebody else. If Jane knew that he was cheating on her, she might withdraw her consent to sleep with John. But she doesn’t know, and so when they have sex, she is giving her consent based on the incorrect belief that John is being faithful.

Therefore, is there not a question as to the validity of Jane’s consent?

On the one hand, we as human beings have to take into account that at any given moment, we may be lied to. By being part of society, we accept that we may not always get the truth. Therefore, when anyone gives their consent to sleep with someone, they accept that there is a chance that the other person is lying to them, and that has to be taken into account as part of their decision.

But we all know how important trust is in relationships. There comes a point when consent may not be based on the individual’s own instinct, but on how much the individual trusts his/her partner. Therefore, if his/her partner is lying to the individual, the conditions of their consent may be undermined.

Really, what I wish to do here is to present uninformed consent as the grey area between informed consent, and non-consent.

There is no final answer to this problem: people cheat for a variety of reasons, and I have even come across cases – mostly where children are involved – in which cheating seemed to be the lesser of two evils. But still, this question of consent bothers me.

We can rarely be 100% sure that the conditions of our consent are being met, but there is most definitely a difference between the kind of knowledge we need in the early stages of dating, and the kind of trust we rely on in long term relationships in order to make an informed decision.

The only kind of conclusion I can come to is this: perhaps when we, as human beings, make the decision to sleep with someone, we ought to also take into account how that decision may affect the consent of the other people in our lives. Because in this world of sexual freedom, and BDSM, and polyamory, the importance of consent seems to be the one thing we all agree on. But are we really defining it honestly?

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