[New-Poetry] Aphorisms

[Robin Hamilton]

<<
Missed this term...
Obiter Dicta
>>

Yeah, but ...

Seems to me two things are at issue here -- aphorisms in general, and 
aphorisms in poetry.

Shakespeare puts it rather neatly, through the mouth of Phoebe, in AYLI, 
where he has her quote Kit Marlowe:

        So now dead shepherd do I find thy words of might,
        "Whoever loved, who loved not at first sight."

There you have An Aphorism -- "Whoever loved ..." -- used in a narrative 
poem (Hero and Lander), then recycled in a play.

... through the mouth of a singularly dumb female character who is in unknowingly love with another female, except they are both manifested by boy actors.

        {Jeezus wept, this is Deeply Involuted.}

Suggests among other things that the problem with aphorisms in poetry is 
that they are *already a bit over the top -- the brandy of the damned, if 
there was ever a trope that deserved to be tagged with that phrase.

I mean, where are you *most likely to find aphorisms in verse?

Halmark cards, but ...

        Roses are red, brandy is blue,
        My dog's a poodle
        And so are you.

Robin

[Then, still sticking to Bill the Bard:  Who pours out an entire cascade of 
aphoristic cliches?  Who but Polonious, with his neither a borrower nor a 
lender be.  So I mean, like, the heavy-handed use of the aphoristic trope 
was a standing joke as early as 1601.

More difficult to *avoid aphorisms in poetry than to deploy them, but.

            :-(

R.]
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