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[quote='Leanne' pid='92223' dateline='1332019464']
I know you hate similes... you know I don't share that irrational prejudice of yours and will ignore it!
Your alteration to L4 changes the grammatical sense, because at the moment it refers back to the previous lines and I don't want shadows to have an independent clause of their own. "As" isn't lazy, it's an adverb -- exactly the same part of speech as "eternally", incidentally, but in this context it's providing a different link as it doesn't require the addition of another verb to make it work.
The same goes for L13. Aside from the fact that your example totally screws up the meter and squishes a whole stack of illogical words together in a way that I'd whack a student for, it doesn't say what I want it to say.
What? 'As' is an adverb? It may be either a preposition, or a conjunction, joining two words, or phrases or main clauses; When used in this sense, properly, only 'as' should be used, but 'like' has crept in. So, eg one may say 'No-one loves you as I do' but not 'like I do'. 'No-one loves you' stands on its own as a sentence, and 'I do' the same, thus, it is a conjunction. One of your 'as'es is a preposition, for which you could substitute 'like', the other is a conjunction. AS you know really, an adverb modifies a verb, and 'as' never does that.
And Leanne hasn't read Kafka! Leanne hasn't read Kafka! 
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03-18-2012, 07:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-18-2012, 07:14 AM by Leanne.)
An adverb can also modify an adverb  But I had already beaten you to the preposition thing. In prose, I would have added yet another "as" to make it correct -- as eternal as...
I couldn't give a flying Kafka...
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(03-18-2012, 07:10 AM)Leanne Wrote: An adverb can also modify an adverb But I had already beaten you to the preposition thing. In prose, I would have added yet another "as" to make it correct -- as eternal as...
I couldn't give a flying Kafka...
Yes, eg 'very speedily did Leanne retort'.
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Grammar is much like meter -- even the experts have blues about what goes where and with what when, as the rest of the world is so rude as to continue evolving the language and its uses. For example, my kids will often say "that's awesome as!" -- and that's the entire sentence! What part of speech would one call "as" in that instance?
My original point was, however, that "as" does not a simile make -- and even if it did, a simile is not intrinsically evil. It's only when similes are the ONLY figurative device in sight that they make me cringe, and in that case I'm sure I'd run to Joan for comfort
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'Awesome as', I think, is merely a superlative = very awesome, so you would say that 'as' is an adverb.
The changing nature of Grammar does not worry me. I know linguists whose job it is to go to some unknown place, live with the people, work out how the language goes, and describe it- after which, the natives, if they wished, could use his work as a prescriptive Grammar. Then people could start breaking the rules, until a new up-to-date, modern Grammar was produced by a native with a beard and sandals.
It is my good fortune that I do not need to turn to these books: if I say something, it may be wrong, but how I say it, determines what is right. 
On the much more interesting point about figures of speech, and when to choose a metaphor, and when a simile, I suggest that there is an important difference. If one says that something is like something else, it must, in some way or other, actually be so. It is possible to get a comparison from Burns 'love is like a red red rose' : it may be fresh and new, and beautiful, as a rose rose just coming out in June is. En revanche, 'unleashing the dogs of war', just means, there's going to be some heavy shit going down. I don't know what it canine about war. Dogs can hurt you, so can spears and arrows. It is a fine metaphor, but a little further away than was the love and the rose. I have never understood where the idea that there ought to be a blanket ban on simile came from. I assume that underlying it is the concept that no word should be there, without being needed, and that 'like' is prolix. That would be a cheek, as I have an exclusive franchise on prolixity.
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Quote: "that's awesome as!"
when thet say
"that's awesome as but! "
makes clear sense to me medear but then “but” stands for the common sense aspect that the unspoken is inside three letters that never have a need to be uttered in longhand ( woh! remember that?)
Unlike similes that needs to be constructed from something that looks , smells, sounds or is akin to something else that is so commonplace everybody knows and understands it completely in an instance.
This is fun!
Perfection changes with the light and light goes on for infinity ~~~Bronte
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That's why similes have their place... to use expectations to lull people into a false sense of security, and then belt the crap out of them with a good strong metaphor
You can't just whack someone out of the blue, you don't get the satisfaction of building their fear first...
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(03-18-2012, 08:38 AM)abu nuwas Wrote: 'Awesome as', I think, is merely a superlative = very awesome, so you would say that 'as' is an adverb.
The changing nature of Grammar does not worry me. I know linguists whose job it is to go to some unknown place, live with the people, work out how the language goes, and describe it- after which, the natives, if they wished, could use his work as a prescriptive Grammar. Then people could start breaking the rules, until a new up-to-date, modern Grammar was produced by a native with a beard and sandals.
It is my good fortune that I do not need to turn to these books: if I say something, it may be wrong, but how I say it, determines what is right.
On the much more interesting point about figures of speech, and when to choose a metaphor, and when a simile, I suggest that there is an important difference. If one says that something is like something else, it must, in some way or other, actually be so. It is possible to get a comparison from Burns 'love is like a red red rose' : it may be fresh and new, and beautiful, as a rose rose just coming out in June is. En revanche, 'unleashing the dogs of war', just means, there's going to be some heavy shit going down. I don't know what it canine about war. Dogs can hurt you, so can spears and arrows. It is a fine metaphor, but a little further away than was the love and the rose. I have never understood where the idea that there ought to be a blanket ban on simile came from. I assume that underlying it is the concept that no word should be there, without being needed, and that 'like' is prolix. That would be a cheek, as I have an exclusive franchise on prolixity.
I went to war against similes when I got fed up reading poems that contain three or four in a ten line poem! For goodness sake! They are meant to be writers. I ask them to write what they mean to write like they are poets and be poetic doing it.
yes I do accept similes if well done and slip past me so easily I’m unaware of them. It has been known but i pick them up on further readings of the work.
how I read a poem- if I get past the first three lines
on first read though , i get the sense of the voice the feel of the poet that should leave the essence of how he was feeling at time of writing. – I put it aside and read others work .
Then I go back "if it spoke to me" and I read the main words each one in turn gaining the visuals each one gives, it is amazing what lies in the construct that a poet might never know is being revealed.
Then I look and count the bricks that is used to hold this house of images together. I then read it at least three more times and this is where the bricks come undone for me most often.
Rarely is any poem perfect. Only fools think their work is beyond a redraft.
Well I know all of mine are but that’s to be expected eh 
Perfection changes with the light and light goes on for infinity ~~~Bronte
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Which is why I feel compelled to point out that despite three "as"s, there's only one bloody simile!
I'll only redraft if the suggestion offered is an improvement, never simply for the sake of tinkering, and certainly never to shut up a whinger :p
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But it is the AHH! Sound that grates , did I say lazy? Yes I did .
I was merely slapping you for feeing so “Ahh! It hurts” in the those of writing. I bet you can knock at least two woh-begotten ahhhhhs! out .
if nothing else I bet you looked closer grins
(03-18-2012, 11:38 AM)Leanne Wrote: Which is why I feel compelled to point out that despite three "as"s, there's only one bloody simile!
I'll only redraft if the suggestion offered is an improvement, never simply for the sake of tinkering, and certainly never to shut up a whinger :p
I hope you are training the little brats so extra marks will be given if they can construct a poem of 10 lines and only use each word once. Hell that will challenge their active minds.
I’m almost tempted to try it myself! Lol
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Not sure I follow you on the sound thing, Joan -- in a sonnet, I'd say repetition of sound (if not entire words, even if the words are only two letters!) is a fairly desirable thing, so long as it's not overdone.
Sonnets have 14 lines anyway, so I'm allowed a bit of leeway :p
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Revised 19/03/12
When you and I were summer, and the sky
was greyer than the green that grew between
my linden and your oaken strength, serene,
eternal as the shadows passing by,
you whispered me a question; my reply
was lost upon the winds of might-have-been,
for change must come to every tranquil scene
and gifts from gods are not what they imply.
Forever is a dream lost to the dawn
and temples fall to dust beneath the years,
while roses split the stones and oceans dry;
yet boughs will bend and brave the tearing thorn
to claim the scars as treasured souvenirs,
and laugh until the summer, you and I.
***********
I sometimes think a sonnet is the redeemed
form of poetry, possessing the lawful power
and authority of kings.
The considered pace is ballet; a sonnet has
not the ornaments of other forms--courteous
to a fault, it yet effects an outer-wall of
a castle amd protects the maritime whose
extrcoastal purview is immense. A sonnet
rebuffs disguised prose, prose pretending
poetry in lines that do not run all the way
across the page.
A pathetic of our times.
A sonnet drains Mrs. Thrale's tea cup, leaves
no stain or Dr. Johnson's fingerprints.
A sonnet is sublime-- in the Longinian sense,
and in the Dennisian sense of Alpine reverence.
Such is the company fallen into by this entry.
Amputation by edit or suggestion is forbidden,
for reason of my dull saw.
Delighted,
rh
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High praise indeed, sir, and I shall accept it as gracefully as possible, though I might suggest that your saw is as dull as a diamond knife and at least as valuable.
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Leanne, this is pretty much impeccable.
Ready for my critique?? I can only quibble with one word. L10 - "and" I'm done. That syllable could be used to describe the temple. Temple is a strong enough trochee that you can put a pretty forceful word in front of it and still avoid sounding too much like a spondee. I see how the and fits into the larger sentence structure, but it's worth reviewing.
Oh, and I almost forgot... semicolon on line 11. Semi-colon then a "yet" seems suspect to me; yet I am not sure if it is wrong.
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aaargh... I see what you mean about "and" versus an adjective, but I can't think of anything that's not going to over-spondee things! I want to change it now though. I will spend time in contemplation
As to the semi-colon: in poetry, and in most prose, I follow the rule of pause, new clause, semi-colon (or em-dash if it better suits the aesthetics).
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I'm with Alden on the "and"  (that's tongue in cheek, tell me it is, I read some 'unusual' interpretations in the sewer ) loved seeing a sonnet from you...brings back some memories, yourself and eeemmmm oh bugger it, can't recall, a whole sonnet thing going back and forth and they were AMAZING. Love this, yes it's a love poem but damn it has integrity
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Tongue in cheek, yeah, sure, that'll do...
Don't tell anyone, but this was actually a bit of a quickie to write -- I've edited a bit over time and think it's probably close to done, but initially it came out fairly easily in response to some facebook comment of all things. I can't remember whose... maybe Stephan's, or even Alden's... I do know that Alden inspired several rude rhymes about mythological figures at one point
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