Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Ancient Music" by Ezra Pound is a satirical and somewhat irreverent poem that mimics the form of a medieval winter carol, specifically evoking the Old English poem "Sumer is icumen in," a celebratory song of summer's arrival. While the medieval original is a joyful welcoming of summer, Pound's version is a sardonic lament for the discomforts and inconveniences of winter, repeatedly invoking the term "Goddamm" as a refrain, which diverges sharply from the religious or nature-oriented tones of traditional carols.

The poem is an interesting study in contrast, setting up its medieval form against the very modern, very colloquial complaints about winter weather. Words like "raineth" and "skiddeth" echo Old English poetic forms, but they describe very contemporary scenarios of slop, buses skidding, and so on. This contrast serves to amplify the comic dissonance between the form and the content.

The phrase "Lhude sing Goddamm" resonates as a parody of the laudatory or pious tones of medieval hymns. "Lhude" mirrors the archaic form, but what follows is a profanity, creating a jarring juxtaposition. The poem mentions the cold freezing rivers and affecting the liver, evoking images of physical ailment ("An ague hath my ham"). These are not the joyful, nature-celebrating images of the original carol but the aches, pains, and inconveniences that come with cold weather. The refrain "Goddamm" thus serves as a collective outcry against winter's discomforts.

While Pound's poem initially appears irreverent or even nonsensical, it provides an interesting look into the tensions between form and content, between reverence and reality, and between past and present. It's a sort of linguistic time travel, employing an archaic style to discuss a very modern sentiment of dissatisfaction and discomfort. Pound uses humor and contrast to engage the reader in a sort of dialogue with the past, questioning our romanticized notions of history and tradition.

In the note added to the poem, Pound indicates that "This is not folk music," which emphasizes his deliberate departure from the original context. Even though the tune might be ancient, as "Dr. Ker writes," the words are distinctly modern, culminating in an anachronistic lament that challenges romantic notions of a 'simpler time' and echoes a contemporary sense of existential discomfort, all summed up in the repeated cry of "Goddamm." This poem, then, can be viewed as an experiment in contrast, a sort of collision between past and present, where the ancient and the modern are forced into a dialogue that neither can win, each made absurd by the presence of the other.

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