Working with Meter

Trying to translate in meter this week gave me new insight into two age old topics - memorability and allusion.

We've all been taught that verse set to meter or music is more memorable, but I've read precious few lines in English verse. After composing my translation, my lines (and failed fragments) are actually stuck in my head. There's a lovely memorable quality to hexameter that I seldom give myself the chance to hear in Latin. At least two factors contribute to this. First, I often so belabored the meter in order to figure it out that it sounded terribly sing-song. I'd love to go back in time and not allow my high-school self to learn to go DA DA DA da da DA da da DA da da DA DA. Second, I sometimes translate Latin words so quickly into English so that I hear English instead of the Latin. There's much to be said for reading quickly, but sometimes it's nice to slow down and hear the Latin. And yes, this means I'm doing at least some Latinglish tomorrow.

As for allusion, I often give allusive material the benefit of the doubt in terms of meaningfulness and intentionality. But during this little exercise I was reminded of how much meter directs language choice. I'll be the last to say that Late Antique authors copied Vergil because they were struggling with meter. There are innumerable options for masters of language and poetry. But I can imagine growing up with Ovid, writing my own poetry, and falling into patterns of language that are not meant to recall a specific part of Ovid's corpus, but simply sound natural. The memorability of meter plays into this as well. Certain sound combinations fall naturally into lines which may not be allusive in the technical sense as much as they are products of a guiding template.