Home » Reading & Literature » Essays on American Literature » Classic Vs. Modern Poetry (Part One)

Classic Vs. Modern Poetry (Part One)

© Audrey McCrone

There are some key differences between classic and modern poetry, while this verbal art form is constantly evolving into increasingly complex forms. The simplest way to approach such vast subject matter is by addressing our transcendence from formal to free verse. Poetic technique has changed over time, as well as women’s role in the realm of poetry. Students of poetry must recognize both forms as learning tools, in order to provide timeless insight through verse.

Formal poetry generally speaks of those poems written as couplets or sonnets. While couplets are series of paired lines (in varied lengths), sonnets can be divided into two categories: the Italian sonnet (consisting of, traditionally, 8 grouped lines, followed by 6; or a question followed by the answer), and the English sonnet (where lines will still equal 14, but the form will vary, dividing stanzas in a varied way or leaving them grouped, while still posing some problem to be solved or coming to some sort of conclusion or epiphany). Here is one example of the sonnet:

Yet Do I Marvel

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

Countee Cullen (1903-1946)

While Cullen displays his epiphany through use of common transitory words (“If” and “yet”), he also utilizes the sonnet (in English form), inferring how he holds traditional thought dear. This Harlem Renaissance poet mentions mythological forces, along with God, noting “catechism” as a religious rite one can easily recognize as Christian. Not that this poem is an exception to Modern poetic form, because Modern poets may also mention philosophical figures (God[s]), but please realize free verse is more often seen, more recently. I personally tend to prefer what I’ll refer to as free verse, which relies much less on physical form, often with physically expansive lines varied with short ones, relying much less on rhyme. Images become intensely important. An example of Modern form follows:

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

The copyright of the article Classic Vs. Modern Poetry (Part One) in Essays on American Literature is owned by . Permission to republish Classic Vs. Modern Poetry (Part One) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.