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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Wordsworth

What are your moves?

If I think of Wordworth, I know he has certain moves that he uses consistently. The Shakespearian / Miltonic enjambment that creates a rocking movement from line to line. The way of ending a phrase with two latinate words, like "abundant restoration." A certain trope, whose name I don't know, that consists of using two adjectives close in meaning to each other in close proximity:, like "steep and lofty." This trope has Shakepearian resonance, if we consider lines from Hamlet like "led by a delicate and tender prince."

A vocabulary is not just a set of words, but a set of moves or devices, of ways of making phrases and sentences. Marjorie Perloff will introduce a quote with an imperative: "Consider the following passage:... " I know I have my own moves as well. It would be good to have a certain self-awareness about them.

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