I have never made it all the way through Paradise Lost even though I have tried a dozen or so more times. For me, a poem should be digested in one reading because I need to mentally connect the words/allusions/metaphors throughout. Recently when we were discussing The Darkling Thrush and Ode to a Nightingale, I went back and re-read both and I had to restart the Nightingale poem a couple times to refresh some of the early language in my mind. The Darkling Thrush felt almost the perfect length when reading it. Long enough to be satisfying but short enough to be digested as a complete thought.
Short poetry has also never really resonated with me. I try to comment when I can but it has never really been my thing. I read some short poetry but rarely re-read it.
Eliot separated The Waste Land in to multiple sections which makes it easier to digest each section and then consider it against the whole.
I want to see the whole poem at once, so two pages tops, but my preference is probably about 40 lines tops, if less really can’t do the trick. Just a lazy reader?
This is a fascinating discussion. I’m going to change my plans for the morning to write.
In a bit.
For me, there’s a min / max
I have a min / max
I have no time for haiku. It’s different in Japanese, with its pictographic style of writing and long tradition, but it doesn’t work in English any more than a ghazal.
What’s a min! Ten lines is clearly enough. Take one of my favorite poems, Charlotte Mew:
I so liked Spring last year
Because you were here; –
The thrushes too –
Because it was these you so liked to hear –
I so liked you.
This year’s a different thing, –
I’ll not think of you.
But I’ll like the Spring because it is simply Spring
As the thrushes do.
It’s a complete thought, in 10 lines. 10 lines is clearly enough.
But it’s got a lot of words.
How about more lines and fewer words?
Here’s another one of my favourites, Blake’s Infant Joy. I hate Blake and I love Blake. His silly little jingles are infantile and masterful at the same time. Perhaps it takes a genius to write like he did - seemingly easy but acutally hard:
"I have no name:
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet Joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!
Im writing in several posts as typing on phone
So the above has 12 short lines and it works
So 10-12 lines is quite enough
But then you have the imagists, as in this famous poem:
THE fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
This is 6 lines. Not a haiku, but perhaps something like an English equivalent.
It’s observational, beautiful, and not smart alecky
I think the above is the right word / line minimum. You could have fewer lines but longer ones, so about the same number of words.
Anything shorter and it becomes just a piece of observation, which by itself is not enough. Like little pieces of croissant, not a proper meal
The max length is a bit harder to define
I find stories told as poems, like in the epics, or in Spenser’s madrigals or his English epic, hard to follow. The passages in themselves are beautiful. As a whole, not so much.
But poems making an argument? Different.
Eliot’s Four quarters feature four fairly long poems. And my favourite, East Coker, is quite long. Yet, I have no problem reading it. The absence of rhyme and a free verse style makes it easier I suppose.
I find Nightingale to be…not long at all. I think the great Keatsian odes - Nightingale and Psyche being at the top, then Grecian Urn and Melancholy - to be shorter than I want. I wish he’d gone on for longer.
I’ll take a pause now.
I see that - Charlotte Mew was actually 9 lines. That’s good. My point holds.
(01-11-2026, 08:18 AM)busker Wrote: This is a fascinating discussion. I’m going to change my plans for the morning to write.
In a bit.
For me, there’s a min / max
I have a min / max
I have no time for haiku. It’s different in Japanese, with its pictographic style of writing and long tradition, but it doesn’t work in English any more than a ghazal.
What’s a min! Ten lines is clearly enough. Take one of my favorite poems, Charlotte Mew:
I so liked Spring last year
Because you were here; –
The thrushes too –
Because it was these you so liked to hear –
I so liked you.
This year’s a different thing, –
I’ll not think of you.
But I’ll like the Spring because it is simply Spring
As the thrushes do.
It’s a complete thought, in 10 lines. 10 lines is clearly enough.
But it’s got a lot of words.
How about more lines and fewer words?
Here’s another one of my favourites, Blake’s Infant Joy. I hate Blake and I love Blake. His silly little jingles are infantile and masterful at the same time. Perhaps it takes a genius to write like he did - seemingly easy but acutally hard:
"I have no name:
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet Joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!
Im writing in several posts as typing on phone
So the above has 12 short lines and it works
So 10-12 lines is quite enough
But then you have the imagists, as in this famous poem:
THE fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
This is 6 lines. Not a haiku, but perhaps something like an English equivalent.
It’s observational, beautiful, and not smart alecky
I think the above is the right word / line minimum. You could have fewer lines but longer ones, so about the same number of words.
Anything shorter and it becomes just a piece of observation, which by itself is not enough. Like little pieces of croissant, not a proper meal
The max length is a bit harder to define
I find stories told as poems, like in the epics, or in Spenser’s madrigals or his English epic, hard to follow. The passages in themselves are beautiful. As a whole, not so much.
But poems making an argument? Different.
Eliot’s Four quarters feature four fairly long poems. And my favourite, East Coker, is quite long. Yet, I have no problem reading it. The absence of rhyme and a free verse style makes it easier I suppose.
I find Nightingale to be…not long at all. I think the great Keatsian odes - Nightingale and Psyche being at the top, then Grecian Urn and Melancholy - to be shorter than I want. I wish he’d gone on for longer.
I’ll take a pause now.
I see that - Charlotte Mew was actually 9 lines. That’s good. My point holds.
You actually make a lot of great points and, I would like to clarify, I also don't think nightingale is too long - I think it is a great length but I do find that as a poetry reader trying to encapsulate this all within a single thought I need to go back to earlier sections multiple times in a reading. I think this is good in poetry and especially for a poet like Keats who wrote in the most beautiful English phrasing of perhaps any English poet.
But that act does suggest a limit. If I am already having to circle back (and I have to do this with a lot of Frost as well, to reassure myself that what I am reading is a callback to an earlier line) at what point does the circling back lead to a reference that makes me have to circle back again. For me, the Keats odes are probably at the upper limit. I have started Endymion multiple times and even with Keats beautiful language I have never made it through more than maybe 400-500 lines. If I treat it like prose, I can read the story but so much in poetry is lost reading it like that. Now, it is currently divided into 4 parts which makes it slightly better, but would it work even better still if he divided each part into named passages of perhaps 100 lines apiece?
I don't know.
Thanks for commenting.
Also, and for demonstration purposes, I searched Endymion thinking to take another crack at it and Poetryfoundation.org (fantastic resource btw) I find the excerpt locked in the spoiler. This feels like a solid length to read at a sitting, it is a good portion of Keats to get your morning breakfast off. Maybe another 40 lines at a sitting. If he wrote the whole poem in nice little named chunks (please not iv, v, vi, etc) I think I would enjoy it so much more:
from Endymion
By John Keats A Poetic Romance
(excerpt) BOOK I
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast;
They always must be with us, or we die.
Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now, at once adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.
I think Endymion may be a tough choice because Keats wrote it at 19 and it’s quite dull reading
The mature Spenser was far better than the early Keats, but even he couldn’t make the faerie queene readable, except in parts here and there. Because it rhymes.
In his later Hyperion Keats achieved a mastery exceedingly Milton, IMO. And it’s much more readable than Endymion, being blank verse, though only a fragment of the whole was actually written
(01-25-2026, 05:44 AM)busker Wrote: I think Endymion may be a tough choice because Keats wrote it at 19 and it’s quite dull reading
The mature Spenser was far better than the early Keats, but even he couldn’t make the faerie queene readable, except in parts here and there. Because it rhymes.
In his later Hyperion Keats achieved a mastery exceedingly Milton, IMO. And it’s much more readable than Endymion, being blank verse, though only a fragment of the whole was actually written
I disagree but it's irrelevant to the discussion of length
(01-25-2026, 05:44 AM)busker Wrote: I think Endymion may be a tough choice because Keats wrote it at 19 and it’s quite dull reading
The mature Spenser was far better than the early Keats, but even he couldn’t make the faerie queene readable, except in parts here and there. Because it rhymes.
In his later Hyperion Keats achieved a mastery exceedingly Milton, IMO. And it’s much more readable than Endymion, being blank verse, though only a fragment of the whole was actually written
I disagree but it's irrelevant to the discussion of length
My point was that Hyperion, though long, is still readable because it doesn’t rhyme
(01-25-2026, 05:45 AM)milo Wrote:
(01-25-2026, 05:44 AM)busker Wrote: I think Endymion may be a tough choice because Keats wrote it at 19 and it’s quite dull reading
The mature Spenser was far better than the early Keats, but even he couldn’t make the faerie queene readable, except in parts here and there. Because it rhymes.
In his later Hyperion Keats achieved a mastery exceedingly Milton, IMO. And it’s much more readable than Endymion, being blank verse, though only a fragment of the whole was actually written
I disagree but it's irrelevant to the discussion of length
My point was that Hyperion, though long, is still readable because it doesn’t rhyme
The max length is hard to define. Each of the poems in the four quartets, being free verse - not a problem
Each book of paradise lost - blank verse, but readable.
So the max length would probably be around the lengths of those individual poems. Or as an organic whole, the wasteland
(01-25-2026, 05:44 AM)busker Wrote: I think Endymion may be a tough choice because Keats wrote it at 19 and it’s quite dull reading
The mature Spenser was far better than the early Keats, but even he couldn’t make the faerie queene readable, except in parts here and there. Because it rhymes.
In his later Hyperion Keats achieved a mastery exceedingly Milton, IMO. And it’s much more readable than Endymion, being blank verse, though only a fragment of the whole was actually written
I disagree but it's irrelevant to the discussion of length
My point was that Hyperion, though long, is still readable because it doesn’t rhyme
(01-25-2026, 05:45 AM)milo Wrote:
(01-25-2026, 05:44 AM)busker Wrote: I think Endymion may be a tough choice because Keats wrote it at 19 and it’s quite dull reading
The mature Spenser was far better than the early Keats, but even he couldn’t make the faerie queene readable, except in parts here and there. Because it rhymes.
In his later Hyperion Keats achieved a mastery exceedingly Milton, IMO. And it’s much more readable than Endymion, being blank verse, though only a fragment of the whole was actually written
I disagree but it's irrelevant to the discussion of length
My point was that Hyperion, though long, is still readable because it doesn’t rhyme
The max length is hard to define. Each of the poems in the four quartets, being free verse - not a problem
Each book of paradise lost - blank verse, but readable.
So the max length would probably be around the lengths of those individual poems. Or as an organic whole, the wasteland
lol - no, I meant I disagreed with many of your points but none of my disagreement had to do with the length argument.
