If words and wisdom could fill February
Betsy Peters
Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: Opinion
It is February now. The snow is melting prematurely, and the first paper deadlines draw near. Midterms begin in just two weeks. Splashing through the puddles and drowned in my reading, I wonder how I will write again this semester. Do I dare? How shall I begin? Like many students at Hillsdale College, I first learned style like a chemical equation, decanting three strong verbs, one adjective, and two adverbial clauses into every paragraph. Substitute a synonym. Add a short sentence. Repeat.
With every semester I spend at Hillsdale, I continue to learn the chemistry of language as a sort of cooking where no chef follows the recipe exactly.
I filled fall semester with Whalen, Somerville, Simmons and a smidge of Ward, seeking to improve my own prose. Over the semester, I practiced writing, not only by arranging and rearranging my own words, but also by reading poets and authors of fictional prose who understand the interplay between the sound and sense of words. I can always work on the organization of my essays, but, as this semester speeds ahead, I find that I really ought to spend more time loitering in Hopkins and Yeats, Joyce and Lewis.
In poetry, the cadence of a line serves to extend its meaning, teaching that sound does not merely adorn; it too has a voice. When Hopkins describes his windhover with "air, pride, plume, here, buckle," the words build and collapse in their definition and their sound.
The written word argues its case; the spoken word bolsters that argument in a very different way. "Peace comes dripping slow" on Yeats' isle of Innisfree, Dr. Whalen argues, for the line itself demands hush and lull. The very order of the words teaches you to read the line slowly. If Yeats had used more p's in the sentence, they would overwhelm the retarding s's.
This auricular particularity trains the stylist to write prose that is not only precise but lovely and doubly meaningful. Having grown up in a home measured by the King James cadence, I need more rhythms. Today I need more Yeats. More Hopkins. More poetry.
With every semester I spend at Hillsdale, I continue to learn the chemistry of language as a sort of cooking where no chef follows the recipe exactly.
I filled fall semester with Whalen, Somerville, Simmons and a smidge of Ward, seeking to improve my own prose. Over the semester, I practiced writing, not only by arranging and rearranging my own words, but also by reading poets and authors of fictional prose who understand the interplay between the sound and sense of words. I can always work on the organization of my essays, but, as this semester speeds ahead, I find that I really ought to spend more time loitering in Hopkins and Yeats, Joyce and Lewis.
In poetry, the cadence of a line serves to extend its meaning, teaching that sound does not merely adorn; it too has a voice. When Hopkins describes his windhover with "air, pride, plume, here, buckle," the words build and collapse in their definition and their sound.
The written word argues its case; the spoken word bolsters that argument in a very different way. "Peace comes dripping slow" on Yeats' isle of Innisfree, Dr. Whalen argues, for the line itself demands hush and lull. The very order of the words teaches you to read the line slowly. If Yeats had used more p's in the sentence, they would overwhelm the retarding s's.
This auricular particularity trains the stylist to write prose that is not only precise but lovely and doubly meaningful. Having grown up in a home measured by the King James cadence, I need more rhythms. Today I need more Yeats. More Hopkins. More poetry.
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