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quest for "clarity" (for just those qualities "of light and water" he will–
fully attributes to
The Song of Roland),
as well as a determination to
avoid at all costs seeming "gnarled, impacted," or "stunted" (character–
istics he found in some of the
Song's
"assonantal" renderings).
Set in three-line stanzas, Merwin's loosely latticed structure gives only
the vaguest sense of the tightly woven Italian.
It
has no fixed metrical
pattern, no rhyme scheme. Instead, with nothing of the obligatory flight
plan of terza rima, his unfettered song seems carried upon "the plumage
/ of great desire," the loft at end of lines being supplied by occasional
soft rhymes (clean /heaven; am /time; more /air) with an assonantal effect
paradoxically not unlike the original
Song of Roland
or the
romanceros.
Whereas Pinsky's prosody in the
Inferno
primarily relied on consonan–
tal end rhyme, Merwin works through vowel gradations inside his lines.
With Merwin's habit of liberal runover, these interior assonantal rhymes
gain force and significance. A beautiful section from Canto XVI illus–
trates this quality of subtly shifting sounds:
To a greater power and a better nature
you are subject in your freedom, which creates
in you the mind which is not in the heavens' care.
So if the present world strays from its course,
the cause is in you; look for it in yourself
and I will be a true scout for you now in this.
Enjambment across periods ("To course on better waters the little / boat
of my wit," as an early example) increases as the poem proceeds; the
sentences "loosen" as the poet progresses up Mount Purgatory; and
" the way" moves closer and closer to cadenced prose. As Merwin
prosodically acknowledges fewer end stops or pauses, there comes less
interference with natural word order: "As one who goes ahead, escort–
ing / others, comes to a stop at finding /something strange ... ," that is,
Merwin is freed to approach something very close to spoken English.
This prosody's "lightening" of effort has a revelatory effect: '''Truly
from now on my words will be /as simple as they will have to be /if they
are to be clear to your rude vision.'"
Merwin's poetics here suggest that his idea of Paradise is the promise
of an easy read. For while he is extremely intelligent, Merwin's intellect
is not scholarly; he is at times suspicious of, if not openly hostile to, eru–
dition. This is almost exactly contrary to the attitude of Dante, whose
fiercely intellectual temperament is paired with a daunting learning.
