A Lost Eloquence: Memorizing Poetry
CalGal -- Sunday, December 29, 2002 -- 05:27:07 PMI thought this Times Op Ed piece was kind of interesting. I've heard the wails about this before, but I started thinking about it more based on a comment in the article.
Do you think we've abandoned memorization? Or is it that we use the skills on different art forms?
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My son knows the lyrics to many songs. I can recite movie lines effortlessly at great length.
Maybe we needed help in memorizing in years past, because we didn't have so many opportunities that interest us? It's hardly intuitive to memorize poetry, but it's easy enough to memorize song lyrics.
On the other hand, it seems that we could do more to encourage an appreciation of poetry in kids. What poems are good candidates for memorization?
The one and only poem I have ever memorized is still embedded in my brain.
RONDEAU by LEIGH HUNT (1784-1859)
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
I learned Jabberwocky when I was 12. I learned some Shakespeare for auditions, but I've forgotten it now.
We had to learn "Jabberwocky," "I wandered lonely as a cloud," most of which I can still do, "The Road Not Taken," and "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The most successful one was inadvertent, though- my seventh-grade teacher had a big poster of an eagle on the bulletin board with Tennyson's "The Eagle" inscribed around it, and what with the amount of staring at the walls you do in seventh grade, everyone I know who was in that classroom can rattle it off to this day. When drunk at parties in high school my friend JR would recite it, thudding to the floor on "And like a thunderbolt- he falls."
No.
My parents made me memorize reams of poetry and about half the Bible. Which in the KJV can be rather poetic.
I just don't see the point in it. Torturing the children and making them memorize something. It isn't useful for anything. At least, not that I have found. Except for maybe a party trick. And that one time I was stuck in a train station and struck up a conversation with some guy and somehow it came around to his favorite poem which I promptly spouted at him. Impressed the heck out of a total stranger...whoopee.
Then again, I may have unresolved issues about this. I am still a little squinty-eyed at the memories of being trotted out to recite for guests. I felt like a trained monkey and didn't appreciate it at all.
I always loved the "Culture Night" piece in one of Jean Kerr's books- in fact I memorized "Spring and Fall" from it. I can imagine having my kids memorize poetry under those circumstances, but not to trot out for guests- agree with Arlene on that.
My mother was a great memorizer for pleasure--she had big chunks of Shakespeare and Milton by heart. I used to memorize poems for fun--Keats's poem on Chapman's Homer, for example, which I read when I was 12 and just loved. I have also memorized a plethora of Bible stories, hymns, some consciously, and some just by repetition.
P. doesn't have as good a rote memory. I had thought that we would have these golden hours of fun memorizing, but it just hasn't worked out that way. He can learn something by heart when he cares about it, though.
When he was in kindergarten, I thought I would never get him to memorize his phone number and to count by 5's and 10's to 100. These were school requirements which we were supposed to carry out at home. I was a little worried about him until I found out that he'd learned long speeches from Much Ado About Nothing, which he would murmur to himself while he rode his bicycle.
I've found actually trying to get him to memorize poetry to be more trouble than it's worth. I don't know if this is his personality or a sign of the times.
There's a bit in one of Daniel Pinkwater's books about how he had a boring factory job, and he used to tape up and memorize a new poem every day. Then they fired him for looking too happy.
I think there's something to be learned from memorizing a poem. For one thing, it's best done by saying it out loud, repeatedly. This is a good thing, because there is no better way to get a feel for the rhythm of words and an understanding of why certain poems are more successful than others.
Plus, reciting things out loud is the first step toward successful public speaking, which is a major phobia for most Americans. (The second step is figuring out something of your own to say.)
Well, you try memorizing the entire book of John and tell me what you describe it as.
It was the poetry and the Bible stuff that my parents made me memorize that I found torturous. It was a) boring and b) full of moral lessons that I was supposed to be learning. I can quite happily memorize anything that I have a need to that isn't preaching to me or that I find amusing. I have memorized a few things for the fun of it. Swathes of the HHG for example.
Lila, my sister was made to memorize the same things as I was and she shakes like a leaf every time she finds she has to give an oral report etc...
It didn't do much for her in that regard, that is for certain.
I do agree with saying poetry out loud, however. Poetry should always be read aloud. It has a cadence that you can't do justic if you don't open your mouth.
Do you remember what I said to you about your pathetically inaccurate parallels? Print it out. Memorize it. Really, Arlene, you're too smart to be this annoyingly stupid.
You need to get a handle on the difference between my doing my normal rambling stream-of-consciousness stuff in side conversation and me drawing a parallel. No, memorizing the book of John isn't a parallel to memorizing poetry. But it is part of what gives me issues with the whole rote memorization thing.
Also, I've been doing the same thing since you've known me. Why are you suddenly so irritated by it?
It's when it is accompanied by a conclusion that I find it unreasonable. Don't have your kids memorize things because I had to memorize the book of Job, don't worry about an 8 year old crawling in to bed with teenagers because my kid used to sleepwalk.
But you're right, it's not new. I've snarled. It's done.
Marya, you know that "Tyger, Tyger" is the most-anthologized poem in the English language? Surprisingly, I think "Sir Patrick Spens" is #2.
We had to memorize 200 lines of poetry - anything from the Norton Anthology was fair game - in my senior English class. The teacher strenuously disliked Tennyson, so several of us made a point of learning "The Lady of Shalott" for him and trooped up to recite it, one after another.
In college my Dante professor made us memorize the first canto of the Inferno in Italian, whether we read Italian or not. Every class opened with our chanting it together, while he drummed the beauty of the language into our heads.
In my 20s I used to carry this book around and memorize poems on the subway. Got through a couple dozen that way, I think. I keep meaning to load some on my PDA for dull meetings.
I always liked A.A. Milne for amusing rhymes.
Christopher Robin
had sneezles and wheezles
They bundled him into his bed.
They gave him what goes
for a cold in the nose
and some more for a cold in the head.
etc.
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.." is Macbeth, btw.
Oh yeah - I forgot
James, James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."
James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."
King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"
James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he:
"You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me."
James James
Morrison's mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
If people go down to the end of the town, well,what can anyone do?"
(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/0 his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-if-you-don't-go-down-with-ME!"
Whenever I lose something I always find myself thinking "lost or stolen or strayed, Debby's ATM card seems to have been mislaid..."
That would be one of the things I memorized for fun. I like Poe. I like the way it rolls off the tongue.
I think maybe, for me, there is a big difference between the stuff I had to memorize under threat of slow death and the stuff that actually had some benefit (e.g. grades, knowledge of a subject etc.) or that I enjoyed for myself.
I didn't gain anything from the former and did with the latter.
There are many things that are like that for me. I'm not all that approving of enrichment exercises for children that don't do much but make their parents happy.
Is there any real tangible benefit to be derived from memorizing poetry (or anything else) that is either not self-directed or not required for educational reasons? Not that I can tell. Not unless it is something that you enjoy. So why make your children do it? If they show an interest...sure...but I don't think this is something that is an acquired taste. You either enjoy it or you don't.
I'm sure someone here could argue me out of this if I am wrong. I just can't think of a single real advantage that the ability to quote things at length gives you. Unless you end up being an education major with a focus on literature.
The knowledge of poetry itself isn't educational reason enough?
I memorized part (but only part) of "The Lotos-Eaters" because I loved the sounds. Here, let me inflict it on y'all:
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals of blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And through the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
When recited in a soft, sonorous, mesmeric tone, it puts babies to sleep. Well, sometimes.
I also have part of Maud comitted to memory, bits of Alfred J. Prufrock, Auden's Funeral Blues (thank Four Weddings and a Funeral for that), and of course all kinds of stuff from childhood -- A.A. Milne and Roald Dahl and Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss. Also some stuff in French from college. Here's one: Le Pont Mirabeau by Guillaume Apollinaire.
From my gother days:
From too much love of living
From hope and fear set free
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life's lived forever
That dead men rise up never
That even the weariest river
winds somewhere safe to sea.
We had to write a sonnet once for an English class, and mine was terrible. I forget what it was, now. But I'll never forget the last two lines of my best friend's effort.
This page, which has my name upon it,
Is proof I cannot write a sonnet.
I wish I'd written that.
Oh, and I probably can still recite from memory most of the poetry from Lord of the Rings as well as the "ballads" from the first Anne McCaffrey book; the first Dragon-whatever book, I mean. Learn these things as a child and they will stay with you forever!
I can rarely remember useful things. For example, I can barely remember any of Donne's sonnets. But I will never forget the poetic and heroic Handomas' words to the warrior chief Beast that averted the incipient roasting of the nubile Kaa:
"'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal."
I think that most people memorize things that interest them, and in years past there weren't as many interesting things around, so people had to be forced into it.
How do you memorize, as a general rule? Reading it over and over, or letting it happen naturally?
I still have pieces of Shakespeare, and the following, which I don't really know what it is:
I wish I could teach you how ugly decency and humility can be when they are not the elections of a contained mind but only the defenses of an incompetent. Were you taught meekness as a weapon? Or did you discover, by chance maybe, that it worked on Mother and was generally a good thing, at least to get you over the worst of what was coming? Is that why you bring these sheepfaces to Tuesday? They won't do. It's three months work I want and I'd sooner have it from the brassiest lumpkins in pimpledom than (hear?) these martyred repentances from you.
Oh, and my best party trick--the prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English.
The knowledge of poetry itself isn't educational reason enough
Not really. Unless you subscribe to some "well-rounded" educational theory. Which I don't. Especially where literary things are concerned. Poetry and plays are what people did to entertain themselves before the advent of the big screen or video games or Radio City and the invention of the radio.
I have this vision in my head of 150 years from now people bemoaning the fact that no one watches movies any longer. It is a lost entertainment, a lost knowledge. Because they will have real VR and people are more drawn to that. Much the same way some movie buffs bemoan the lost art of B&W cinematography.
None of it is "lost" really. It is there if we want it. If we enjoy it. The world just has other options on offer now.
Knowledge of poetry isn't necessary. For life or for success. I think the things we make our children learn should have some purpose that is a bit more concrete. Teach them what they *need* to know. Enrich them with the things they are interested in.
If poetry ends up being one of those things, so be it. But it could just as easily be the social order of bugs. A child who is interested in something like that would be much more enriched by an ant condo than they would by being made to memorize verse by a consumptive Romantic era poet. Because they are more likely to become an entymologist than they are the Poet Laureate of their generation.
I deliberately memorized the bit from the Lotos-Eaters because I just liked it a lot. By that I mean treating it like learning lines for a play: reading it out loud over and over to get the sounds lodged in my vocal memory. That's the only thing I've actually set out to memorize.
How about quotes that aren't poetry? Remember this bit from Mary Stewart's The Ivy Tree? (which I actually went and looked up to see where it came from; it was somebody or other's speech in the House of Lords, I think)
"Time too hath his revolutions; there must be a period and an end to all things temporal, finis rerum, and of whatsoever is terrene; and why not of de Vere? For where is Mortimer? where is Mowbray? Nay, which is more and most of all, where's Plantagenet? they are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality . . ."
Arlene, you're talking about ants to Cal? That's just mean. (OT, Cal, we had an ant invasion last week. I Raided their sorry asses and then spent all of our time at the ILs worrying that they would re-invade and carry off the furniture while we were gone. But only a small expedition was mounted and it was offed by Raid residue. I have yet to vacuum up the little corpses.)
The first poem I ever memorized I did under great duress in eight grade. To this day, I can still remember every line of Robert Frost's "Mending Wall". I hated it. I was not instinctively drawn to either the poem or reading it over and over - which is what I do to memorize anything.
But something clicked for me when I found I could still remember it all a year later...like you could carry all this great stuff with you that was weightless. I think I did acquire a taste for memorizing poems. I wish I could say that I spend more than 30 minutes a year memorizing poetry, but I don't.
Mary Oliver's "Rice" and "Wild Geese" are two poems that I've memorized in the past year.
Cal has a thing about ants? Or ant invasions or something? I'm lost.