Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
from The Tempest
Ariel’s Song
And what, pray tell, (using another “Shakespearism”) is my inspiration for this poem? It’s the fantastic book: Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. (The stanza above is an example of alliteration; de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM).After doing a magazine writing course and being told to purchace “elements of Style” by Strunk and White, I duly read it but I felt a little sad. Or “Utceare” you could say (a word rediscovered by Mark Forsyth meaning “Sadness before dawn”). Where is the flamboyance of language, the rhythym, the dance that is hard to understand but easy to enjoy?
At the end of Elements of Style Forsyth says “I hope I have dispelled the bleak and imbecilic idea that the aim of writing is to express yourself clearly in plain, simple English using as few words as possible. This is a fiction, a fib, a fallacy, a fantasy and a falsehood. To write for mere utility is as foolish as to dress for mere utility.”
