"Still haunted by Haiku, and tried my hand at it, but I fall pitifully short of the Wordsworthian touch. But failure in this realm turned my mind to an old enthusiasm of mine, the Welsh englyn. This verse form was derived by the Welsh from the inscriptions which their Roman conquerors put on tombs … A good englym must have four lines, of ten, then six, syllables, the last two lines having seven syllables each. In the first line there must be a break after the seventh, eighth, or ninth syllable, and the rhyme with the second line comes at this break; but the tenth syllable of the first line must either rhyme or be in assonance with the middle of the second line. The last two lines must rhyme with the first rhyme in the first line, but the third or fourth line must rhyme on a weak syllable. Got that?"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Literary criticsAcademics from CanadaNovelists from CanadaPlaywrights from CanadaEditors from Canada
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"Haiku and Englyn" in The Toronto Daily Star (4 April 1959), republished in The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies (1979) edited by Judith Skelton Grant, p. 241.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robertson_Davies
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies CC (August 28 1913 – December 2 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist and professor.
260 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Robertson Davies →
Related Quotes
"So, I was to talk about "Opera as Related to Literature", was I not? And because the subject is so vast, I have wande…"
"May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a…"
"The US, for historical reasons, mistrusts the concept of a welfare state, and this mistrust shows itself nakedly unde…"
"What used to be called a Canadian novel was a kind of prairie frontier story, but it was phony. In the plot, people c…"
"Modern disillusion is unlikely to last forever, and nothing rings so hollow as the angst of yesterday."
"The most dismaying call of this kind came one night at nine o'clock from a youth of sixteen who said: "I've got to ha…"
"The world does so well without me, that I am moved to wish that I could do equally well without the world."
"When I was born good fairies clustered round my cradle, showering me with wit, beauty, grace, freedom from dandruff, …"
"If you are an intellectual, your best course is to relax and enjoy it."
"Speakers' nerves affect them in various ways. Some tremble, some become frenzied. I lose all confidence, and suffer f…"