Denethor Poetry
Challenge Details
Yes, you read that right. There is no doubt, in our fevered minds at
least, that the Steward had a drawerful of stuff hidden away. No-one
Must Ever Know. But we think these jewels should see the light of day,
and we want you to supply them.
They would, of course, be *ghastly* - except that technically they would be superb. Denethor would pretend he's writing for the technical challenge, and would admire forms that had strict rhyming and metrical schemes. They would also be very compact and involve word-play.
We have a number of suggestions, but you can take this particular challenge wherever you would like. There is no need to supply them in Sindarin, or even in Quenya - which would of course be Denethor's code, sorry, language of choice.
They would, of course, be *ghastly* - except that technically they would be superb. Denethor would pretend he's writing for the technical challenge, and would admire forms that had strict rhyming and metrical schemes. They would also be very compact and involve word-play.
We have a number of suggestions, but you can take this particular challenge wherever you would like. There is no need to supply them in Sindarin, or even in Quenya - which would of course be Denethor's code, sorry, language of choice.
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The haiku. The presence of this particular form in Gondor is
something of a mystery, although the extended voyages of the
Númenoreans might have brought this particularly attractive and
compact form back to Gondor. "Haiku is a contemplative poetry that
valorizes nature, color, season, contrasts and surprises. Usually it
has 3 lines and 17 syllables distributed in 5, 7 and 5. It must
register or indicate a moment, sensation, impression or drama of a
specific fact of nature. It's almost like a photo of some specific
moment of nature. More than inspiration, it needs meditation, effort
and perception to compose a real haiku." The thinking man's verse.
"White tower stands watch
Yet falls the shadow, despite
Our far-sightedness."
The rubáiyát. The Haradric influence on Gondorian verse provided a particularly attractive form for the Steward - despite his misgivings about the impurity of a non-Númenorean form (there would be just a hint of decadence about writing these).
These are quatrains, each complete in itself, and generally epigrammatic. The first, second, and fourth lines rhyme, and sometimes also the third. The pre-emininent practitioner of this form in Gondor was Sathros, who was born in Umbar under the reign of Taranon Falastur, and was the son of a Númenorean lord and a Haradrim lady. He had as his motto: 'Abridge, concentrate, distil' and his verse are filled with a sense of the transience of all things human, the pleasures of existence, and the resignation with which the stoics and the people of the South accepted good and evil as alike predestined.
"But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays."
The linnod. A form of word play, consisting, in its original form, of a single line of matching halves. Each half is made up of a trochee, a dactyl, and a trochee (dum dum, dee dum dum, dum dum; dum dum, dee dum dum, dum dum).
The linnod, of course, developed its form in the South Kingdom, becoming an 'extended linnod' or 'linnod couplet', with the North Kingdom retaining the shorter, 'purer' form. Denethor would be more familiar with the linnod couplet, a rhyming pair of linnods. It would no doubt be particularly galling that Thorongil could probably extemporize the shorter and punchier form on demand.
"Grief tears my soul in morning - harsh tares in soft fields of corn.
Tears dull the growing of grief, rain the gold tiers of new dawn."
"To she who seeks the free-soaring seabirds at night--I try."
The love sonnet. Because you just know there's a bunch of these hidden away as well. You can pick your own form for this (http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sonnet.html), if you're brave enough to go there.
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