Fantastic Cognitive Emotion & the Law Symposium Held at Wake Law 2/22/19

Many thanks to the thoughtful speakers and Wake Law Review students who made possible this engaging February 22, 2019 symposium on the inseparability of emotion and reason in legal and other reasoning. The symposium volume will be forthcoming.  Read more about cognitive emotion and the law here.

Ekphrasis & Prose: Sonnet Translations of Poe & Hawthorne

I sometimes wonder whether a prose piece should have been verse from the outset.  Could the deep meaning have been more effectively captured and conveyed by poetic form than by prose?  I've wondered that, for example, in the case of Poe's "The Mask of the Red Death."  With no illusions that Poe's sonnet wouldn't have been much better, here's a concrete example of what I mean: 

Shadow After Poe 

We noticed there was pestilence about.

We played instead of passive victim an
Aggressive agent capable of plan
And execution.  In, we locked it out,

A simple action, really, which we sealed
With weighty velvet curtains drawn across
An iron door bolted tight.  “Our gain, Hell’s loss!”
We toasted with good bourbon and were steeled.

“God helps who helps himself,” we boasted till
We saw a shadow by a comrade still
And cold throughout the reverie.  It hid

As quick within the heavy draperies.  Did
Drink fool?  No.  Oh, no fancy has composed
Such vast lost voices in a single ghost.

I've also wondered the same about individual passages in longer works.  Here, for example, is a bit of Hawthorne's The House of The Seven Gables set to sonnet form:

Three British Ghosts: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry II, & Thomas Becket (Additions to "The Apology Box")

          Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Tale

We think with stories--nouns don’t wag themselves

Until some verb has given them a tale.

Once storied, terms turn temporal. They are

Man’s plot across the moral, cognitive,

Creative, and artistic realms.  God said:

“Fool, know thyself!”  Obedient, I read

And wrote much history to understand

Myself and therefore follow God's command.

As I was British, Britain and my race

Of course were my prime focuses.  To my

Dismay, I found few tomes about the two

And those I found were partial works at best.

I was compelled to remedy the void

And thus began inquiring back to Troy

Past Virgil who omitted British limbs

Of that vast, ancient Trojan tree.  Despite

The paucity of written volumes, I

Discovered much of what I needed in

Myself--I was a sumptuous gallery

Of Trojan portraits.  In my face I saw

Our brave Aeneas as he first set sail

As well as all the awful anguish he

Displayed at sea regarding Dido’s pyre.

I saw our diverse portraits of him as

He sought and then subdued all Italy.

I saw then subsequent great Romans all

Reflected in their English cousin.  I

Turned Northerly, saw Brutus, great-grandson

Of our Aeneas, drive the giants from

That Northern Isle and seed the Trojan race

In latitudes more rarefied.  I saw

Troy’s engineers grid out New Troy whose name

Would later be Trinovantum till changed

To London.  I saw portraits of the roads

And baths and amphitheaters they built,

Perused the faces of lawgivers such

As Queen Marcia and Molmutius,

Examined portraits of Belinus and

Brennius as they took both Gaul and Rome

Long years before their Roman cousins came

To Albion.  I saw Cordelia then

I glimpsed that brilliant jewel within the crown,

Our Arthur, then saw Merlin, too.  I looked

At Mordred’s features, feared that evil glance

Of treachery.  I saw the future, too,

When Trojans sailed abroad again to new

Uncharted regions, saw how, too, the sea

Itself acknowledged our hegemony.

I saw the continents and isles elect

To speak the British Trojan dialect

Beginning on a Carolina shore

That both Virginia Dare and mystery bore.

I saw the Trojans smiling in their graves

As Britain ruled both continents and waves.

And though I did not put it down in ink

I saw with certainty enough to think

Our cousins far across that western sea

Would some day walk upon the moon and we

Would tongue the heavens, too, with our own speech.

Now, Lord, I shelve myself here safe with you.
Just like the tomes we write, each man is, too,

A tale of both himself and of his race

Unique in aspect nothing can replace.

Like rarest books, same principles as well

Ban burning us in heaven or in hell.

            Henry II’s Short Ballade^[1]

Now judgment day has come at last for me,

I hope the Heavens will recall the way

I used the jury, dropped the blasphemy

Of the ordeal.  It seemed too proud to say

Man speaks God’s language equally and may

Decipher him in contests fortune ran.

A human jury seemed the humbler way

Since no man knows the mind of God or can.

I also hope when Heaven’s judging me,

It will recall proud Becket and the way

I handled him.  It was vain blasphemy

For priests (no less than other men) to say

They are the only ones who know God.  May

We all be humbler!  Until others ran

Him down, I tried to coach a milder way

Since no man knows the Mind of God or can.

Lord, though I hope in judging me you may

Find the vast Christian polities I ran

Well ruled, I won’t presume.  I’ll just obey

Since no man knows the Mind of God or can.

               Becket’s Sonnet Acrostic

                   (A strict role player)

For me, my duty was the polar star

I navigated by.  As Chancellors are

Devoted to their kings, I was therefore

Unwavering as Joseph was before--

Country and Pharaoh first.  Then “serve the Lord

Instead,” Pharaoh commanded.  In accord,

Archbishop I became.  As God’s trustee,

Roles changed and Pharaoh lost command of me.

Your servant now, he called me enemy

From that first moment when he knew I swore

In following you I'd follow him no more.

Refusing any compromise of roles,

Struck down in church for focusing on souls,

This priest reciprocated Calvary.

---

[1] According to various sources, the poet’s 25^th great-grandfather through Thomas Yale and 27^th great-grandfather through Anne Lloyd Yale.