I've always wondered whether the fall from fashion of rhyme and meter in English verse had less to do with Modernist ideals than with the increased availability of popular music via gramophone and wireless. Not that metrical poetry and pop music fill exactly the same niche, but the way people quote song lyrics in their journals, among other things, persuades me that both types of lyric do fill overlapping niches. So perhaps when pop music took away part of poetry's market share (ugh, but I think it's a pretty precise metaphor), poetry had to carve out a different niche for itself, one that appealed less to people's needs for rhyme, the expression of individual emotion, etc. And yes, the answer to "Was it World War I or were people just tired of the same old verse forms or was it the gramophone or...?" is probably "all of the above, in subtly interrelated ways."
no subject
Date: 2005-06-25 06:50 pm (UTC)