september-before-a-rainfall
replied to your post “shelomit
replied to your post “Cheville”
…”I never thought I’d see an Isaac Watts joke on my dash but here we are
1) @shelomit is wonderful
2) I just remembered this but I haven’t read much Watts but I love him because he tried to write sapphics in English?1) I make Isaac Watts jokes all day, every day (although I have learned to only rarely state them aloud), and I really do have immense respect for Watts despite it all;
2) The clunkiness is presumably why he terms them an “attempt” at English Sapphick.* I’ve actually written on the fascinating use of sapphics in hymnody, which is partially the direct result of this one Watts poem, but also partially the result of one particular tune that, as it were, invited additional and increasingly devotional sapphics to be set to it. And my boy Cowper contributed his piece to 11-11-11-5 visions of apocalyptic destruction, of course.
*Woe to the Poetry Foundation for modernizing this clearly superior spelling!
Published
Mooncustafer 