The Humbling Power of a Sonnet
In the sonnet, The Useful by W.H. Auden, we see the full potential of metrics being used to stress the poem’s diction. Each line has roughly the same number of syllables, also each line ending is used as a rhyme pattern throughout the poem. Each end will end on a particular word, and be rhymed later in the poem, and each rhyme ending only has one other corresponding line. “…for the witch, …him to stone, … the over-rich,…went mad alone(Auden 306).” In this poem, that metric emphasizes the series of ironies that play out. In the second stanza, the irony covers the entire poem, but in the other two stanzas, each line presents us with a new irony. “The over logical fell for the witch,… And even madmen manage to convey, Unwelcome truths in lonely gibberish(Auden 306).”
These ironies humble whoever is involved in them. Logicians being humbled by women of magic and spirits, madmen uttering truths to passerby's, Popular individuals losing their minds by themselves. It presents us with the idea that the real world is ironic, and often unfair, when viewed through our lens of egality. These situations present an idealistic society with chaos, which serves as a reflection of our universe, where chaos reigns.
Auden, W.H. “The Useful.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U. of Michigan P, 2002, pp. 306.
Hacker, Marilyn. “The Sonnet.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Anne Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U. of Michigan P, 2002, pp. 297–307.
