WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.760 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:01.760 --> 00:00:03.185 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.185 --> 00:00:04.810 align:middle line:84% Do you want me to summarize and repeat? 00:00:04.810 --> 00:00:07.527 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:07.527 --> 00:00:08.860 align:middle line:90% You want to go have a big drink? 00:00:08.860 --> 00:00:11.410 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.410 --> 00:00:12.190 align:middle line:90% What is your plan? 00:00:12.190 --> 00:00:12.940 align:middle line:90% What should we do? 00:00:12.940 --> 00:00:18.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:18.220 --> 00:00:18.720 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:18.720 --> 00:00:21.300 align:middle line:90% 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:32.780 align:middle line:84% I may have missed it, but in the Larkin poem, 00:00:32.780 --> 00:00:38.290 align:middle line:84% why is there no punctuation at the end of the first stanza? 00:00:38.290 --> 00:00:39.430 align:middle line:90% Why is there none? 00:00:39.430 --> 00:00:39.930 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:00:39.930 --> 00:00:41.680 align:middle line:84% Because the sentence is not-- the sentence 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:44.550 align:middle line:90% does not look powerful to me. 00:00:44.550 --> 00:00:46.240 align:middle line:90% Long, long the death. 00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:49.290 align:middle line:90% That's just a sentence fragment. 00:00:49.290 --> 00:00:50.220 align:middle line:90% Well-- 00:00:50.220 --> 00:00:51.600 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:56.340 align:middle line:84% Grammar would call for something because long, long the death. 00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:57.630 align:middle line:90% It's wide open. 00:00:57.630 --> 00:01:02.760 align:middle line:84% It dies-- something is necessary at the end of death 00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:07.710 align:middle line:84% to let the rhythm work before stanza two begins. 00:01:07.710 --> 00:01:10.080 align:middle line:84% Well, that is a classical temperament 00:01:10.080 --> 00:01:11.662 align:middle line:90% that is making that comment. 00:01:11.662 --> 00:01:12.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:12.810 --> 00:01:16.740 align:middle line:84% That's exactly what I'm talking about. 00:01:16.740 --> 00:01:18.660 align:middle line:84% If Justice -- If this were Donald Justice, 00:01:18.660 --> 00:01:20.700 align:middle line:84% he would feel the way that you do. 00:01:20.700 --> 00:01:22.500 align:middle line:84% He would feel the way that you do. 00:01:22.500 --> 00:01:26.580 align:middle line:84% He would feel that to have this open stanza that 00:01:26.580 --> 00:01:29.340 align:middle line:84% is so balanced in the first three lines 00:01:29.340 --> 00:01:33.090 align:middle line:84% and then has a sentence fragment so that you have 00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:35.670 align:middle line:90% to press on to make any sense-- 00:01:35.670 --> 00:01:38.550 align:middle line:84% Justice would have found that really painful, I think. 00:01:38.550 --> 00:01:40.200 align:middle line:90% That would be very hard for him. 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:42.870 align:middle line:84% It's not hard for Larkin because Larkin 00:01:42.870 --> 00:01:46.860 align:middle line:84% knows you are not going to stop at the end of the first stanza. 00:01:46.860 --> 00:01:48.660 align:middle line:90% Doesn't matter his rhyme scheme. 00:01:48.660 --> 00:01:49.980 align:middle line:90% Doesn't matter the meter. 00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:52.800 align:middle line:84% Doesn't matter any of this stuff because everything 00:01:52.800 --> 00:01:55.933 align:middle line:84% in your brain is saying where's the rest of the sentence? 00:01:55.933 --> 00:01:56.850 align:middle line:90% Where's the predicate? 00:01:56.850 --> 00:01:57.300 align:middle line:90% Where is it? 00:01:57.300 --> 00:01:57.800 align:middle line:90% Where is it? 00:01:57.800 --> 00:01:59.280 align:middle line:90% Where is it? 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:00.960 align:middle line:84% Well, if you don't know in your brain 00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:04.260 align:middle line:84% that you're not going to get it because you'll go back-- 00:02:04.260 --> 00:02:06.810 align:middle line:90% your brain will smile. 00:02:06.810 --> 00:02:10.860 align:middle line:84% Long, long-- the death that it dies is long. 00:02:10.860 --> 00:02:12.850 align:middle line:90% That is a full sentence. 00:02:12.850 --> 00:02:15.900 align:middle line:84% When its elided, he doesn't say the is because he 00:02:15.900 --> 00:02:17.460 align:middle line:90% doesn't need to say the is. 00:02:17.460 --> 00:02:19.560 align:middle line:84% Why doesn't he need to say the is? 00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:22.440 align:middle line:84% Because he set up parallel lines. 00:02:22.440 --> 00:02:24.210 align:middle line:90% Cut grass lies frail. 00:02:24.210 --> 00:02:25.830 align:middle line:90% Mown stalks exhale. 00:02:25.830 --> 00:02:27.930 align:middle line:84% They belong together, one in three. 00:02:27.930 --> 00:02:31.140 align:middle line:84% So we expect two and four the kind of belong together. 00:02:31.140 --> 00:02:33.330 align:middle line:90% And in fact, they do. 00:02:33.330 --> 00:02:36.180 align:middle line:90% Brief is the breath. 00:02:36.180 --> 00:02:39.690 align:middle line:90% Long is the death. 00:02:39.690 --> 00:02:40.740 align:middle line:90% We put it in there. 00:02:40.740 --> 00:02:42.780 align:middle line:90% That's parallelism. 00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:44.220 align:middle line:90% That's what that is. 00:02:44.220 --> 00:02:47.430 align:middle line:84% Your brain figures that out, but you don't know yet 00:02:47.430 --> 00:02:48.180 align:middle line:90% that that's what-- 00:02:48.180 --> 00:02:49.530 align:middle line:84% I mean, because it could be something else 00:02:49.530 --> 00:02:50.670 align:middle line:90% and you're looking for it. 00:02:50.670 --> 00:02:51.315 align:middle line:90% You're waiting for it. 00:02:51.315 --> 00:02:52.380 align:middle line:90% You're looking for it. 00:02:52.380 --> 00:02:53.790 align:middle line:90% And he counts on that. 00:02:53.790 --> 00:02:56.340 align:middle line:84% That's what pulls you, just like Mr Beethoven. 00:02:56.340 --> 00:02:57.870 align:middle line:90% Just like Mr Beethoven. 00:02:57.870 --> 00:03:00.510 align:middle line:84% He's going to pull you across there. 00:03:00.510 --> 00:03:02.280 align:middle line:90% So that's-- he's doing that. 00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:06.900 align:middle line:84% He's trying to set pattern against asymmetry. 00:03:06.900 --> 00:03:10.800 align:middle line:84% And I dare say, I really think all the great poems 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:13.830 align:middle line:84% in the English language have a play 00:03:13.830 --> 00:03:16.740 align:middle line:90% between pattern and asymmetry. 00:03:16.740 --> 00:03:18.660 align:middle line:84% If they were nothing but pattern, 00:03:18.660 --> 00:03:20.760 align:middle line:90% they would be mechanical. 00:03:20.760 --> 00:03:22.380 align:middle line:90% They would be mechanical. 00:03:22.380 --> 00:03:24.210 align:middle line:84% So even when we think of something 00:03:24.210 --> 00:03:28.080 align:middle line:84% like strict iambic pentameter, if every line of the poem 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:31.650 align:middle line:84% were-- if there were nothing in that poem but iambs, 00:03:31.650 --> 00:03:34.160 align:middle line:90% we would fall asleep. 00:03:34.160 --> 00:03:36.600 align:middle line:84% There's nothing for Dionysus in it. 00:03:36.600 --> 00:03:39.090 align:middle line:84% So every poem, to some extent, is 00:03:39.090 --> 00:03:43.770 align:middle line:84% going to have this threatening element, this disordering 00:03:43.770 --> 00:03:45.390 align:middle line:90% principle in it. 00:03:45.390 --> 00:03:48.630 align:middle line:84% And in these particular instances that I chose, 00:03:48.630 --> 00:03:51.510 align:middle line:84% that disordering principle is asymmetry. 00:03:51.510 --> 00:03:54.548 align:middle line:84% Its asymmetry-- is the thing that's off. 00:03:54.548 --> 00:03:56.340 align:middle line:84% Now, you've seen in the Lawrence because he 00:03:56.340 --> 00:03:57.590 align:middle line:90% puts it right up there, right? 00:03:57.590 --> 00:04:02.040 align:middle line:84% All the stanzas are [INAUDIBLE] stanzas are uneven in length, 00:04:02.040 --> 00:04:04.620 align:middle line:84% and even the little pieces of them--they're uneven in length. 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:07.470 align:middle line:84% So it seems to be, oh, wow, this is just-- err. 00:04:07.470 --> 00:04:09.180 align:middle line:84% There's plenty of pattern in there. 00:04:09.180 --> 00:04:11.040 align:middle line:84% Its that the pattern is submerged, 00:04:11.040 --> 00:04:13.350 align:middle line:84% the asymmetry is put on the surface. 00:04:13.350 --> 00:04:15.750 align:middle line:84% OK, what Larkin does is just the reverse. 00:04:15.750 --> 00:04:20.250 align:middle line:84% He gives you all this nice pattern up there, in the meter, 00:04:20.250 --> 00:04:22.290 align:middle line:84% in the way that sentences are made. 00:04:22.290 --> 00:04:24.960 align:middle line:84% And you know, where the stresses fall, in where he puts 00:04:24.960 --> 00:04:27.510 align:middle line:90% the adjective, all that stuff. 00:04:27.510 --> 00:04:32.830 align:middle line:84% And I think that he does it only so he can undermine it. 00:04:32.830 --> 00:04:35.400 align:middle line:84% And this is going to pull you across. 00:04:35.400 --> 00:04:38.940 align:middle line:84% If you find that intolerable, then this 00:04:38.940 --> 00:04:42.420 align:middle line:84% will not be a poem that you will love. 00:04:42.420 --> 00:04:43.360 align:middle line:90% I love it. 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:47.710 align:middle line:84% I find it exhilarating, I find it amazing. 00:04:47.710 --> 00:04:49.680 align:middle line:90% I find it undermining. 00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:51.510 align:middle line:90% I find it true to the universe. 00:04:51.510 --> 00:04:55.890 align:middle line:84% I find it just like Beethoven, because I love pattern too. 00:04:55.890 --> 00:04:56.610 align:middle line:90% And I want it. 00:04:56.610 --> 00:04:59.670 align:middle line:84% And I want it regular, I want it regular, every time a pattern-- 00:04:59.670 --> 00:05:00.840 align:middle line:90% I want to predict it. 00:05:00.840 --> 00:05:02.130 align:middle line:90% I hate the unknown. 00:05:02.130 --> 00:05:03.300 align:middle line:90% I hate change. 00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:05.820 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:05:05.820 --> 00:05:09.060 align:middle line:84% It seems to be giving it to me, and then, he 00:05:09.060 --> 00:05:10.690 align:middle line:90% pulls you somewhere else. 00:05:10.690 --> 00:05:13.440 align:middle line:84% So to be pulled across that stanza like that 00:05:13.440 --> 00:05:14.950 align:middle line:90% after he set it up-- 00:05:14.950 --> 00:05:17.250 align:middle line:84% he don't just do this casually, he doesn't just say, 00:05:17.250 --> 00:05:19.080 align:middle line:84% oh, well, I don't care about quatrains. 00:05:19.080 --> 00:05:20.730 align:middle line:84% He cares very much about quatrains. 00:05:20.730 --> 00:05:22.140 align:middle line:84% He can write goes close quatrains 00:05:22.140 --> 00:05:23.370 align:middle line:90% till the cows come home. 00:05:23.370 --> 00:05:25.647 align:middle line:84% So it's not that this is a mistake, 00:05:25.647 --> 00:05:26.730 align:middle line:90% it's not that he's failed. 00:05:26.730 --> 00:05:28.895 align:middle line:84% No, it seems to me just the opposite. 00:05:28.895 --> 00:05:30.270 align:middle line:84% What I was trying to point out is 00:05:30.270 --> 00:05:34.680 align:middle line:84% how much line one and line three exactly mirror one another. 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:39.810 align:middle line:84% And line two and line four exactly mirror one another. 00:05:39.810 --> 00:05:43.440 align:middle line:84% So we get brief breath, long death. 00:05:43.440 --> 00:05:47.090 align:middle line:84% We can put the is in there, seems to me.