![]() ![]() Perhaps the rector’s mother will not call–I fancy that I heard from Mr. Levity is required, because certain moral forces lead men to look upon terrible things as though they were some mistake, some misunderstanding, something preposterous.Īs one that knots his necktie for a ball īut just as all the neighbours–on the wall–Īre drawing a long breath to shout “Hurray!” He means to put to you, matter-of-factly, something terrible. Chesterton uses only two rhymes, which adds a sense of levity, of contrived repetition, and he uses the iambic pentameter, an usually serious choice, for the same effect: What would be Shakespeare somewhere else is deadpan here. Invention is not now supposed to delight the more knowing among us the form is supposed to make us laugh at the spectacle of someone taking himself so seriously, whoever this person addressing us may be. ![]() Do not expect Chesterton’s ballade to be any kind of love poem-he wants to something else instead, to raise your eyebrow, not to say hairs on end. The stanzas all end with the same line, at once developed and undeveloped. This allows the poet to turn the stanza around the middle-to effect a kind of change in his meaning. ![]() This is a ballade, an old French form comprising three octets and a concluding quatrain, in direct address. Chesterton published “A Ballade of Suicide” in his journal, The Eye-Witness, September 21, 1911. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Titus Techera as he reflects on the meaning of G.K. ![]()
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