Monday 18 May 2015

A Sonnet to Thor

My student is writing a sonnet about Thor. Mine was about Batman, but it was only meant as an example. However, he took to the idea. Specifically he took to the idea and defected to the dread banner of Marvel like a LITTLE JUDAS.

But I forgive him that.

There is a bit of an error with the scanning in the second quatrain but it is eminently fixable.

I lost my example sonnet "On Batman" because I was shutting down the computer too quickly. I don't care because it wasn't very good and now scholars can debate over it like Coleridge's never completed first draft of "Kubla Khan". I do not mourn it!

No really, though, the Thor sonnet is pretty great.

It makes me think as well that the idea of "trendy" versus "traditional" teaching is a crock of shit. I mean, here is a kid from inner London who has written a Shakespearian sonnet about a thousands-of-years old Norse God because he watched a film written by the bloke who did "Buffy".

I cannot, as they say, even.

Bleat as some will about cultural capital and heritage, Thor is an authentic honest to pagan-god mega story and Marvel's myth game is tight. And a sonnet is something real. What I like about poetic forms is they have the imperious certainty of Mathematics. You don't get something that's a "bit sonnety", it either is or it isn't. Petrarchan? Naw I did a Spenserian.

But as for the topic? Choose on old chap, plenty more creepily Wagnerian power players to pick from. Do Parsifal next! Or Hawkeye, sure, Hawkeye is good too. It makes no difference to me.


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