The Beauty in Art

The poem that is most effective in representing the nature of art would be Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” mainly because of how its title brings significance to the poem. Just by reading it, it could be immediately concluded that Herrick wrote about a woman, but is he? That’s where the poem gets effective. The title may be questionable, especially in the aspect of how it connects to ‘disorder’ and “delight’, however by scanning its metrical and rhythmical side, its connection can be found. The poem begins with an Iambic Tetrameter, this is cut short when the word “Kindles” is introduced. It is a trochee. At first, while scanning the poem, I started to think more trochees would appear, which another did on line four, “Into”. This may seem like that’s how the metric feet are meant to be, but closely scanning through, I noticed the trochees were set as a distraction. The trochees were inputted on purpose to make the reader scan through the entire poem and not realize the poem’s prosody is an Iambic Tetrameter, which was answered on the first line. The way the trochees stand out reflects how it’s a disorderly poem overall, and the way the poet expresses it is quite interesting since he could have simply expressed it with words, but instead he hid the message with meters.

On the other hand, though Jonson’s poem also has a dominant iambic tetrameter, and his sound pattern is more organized and straightforward, his poem is generally suspicious. The meters and rhythm fit rather too perfectly with the words Like “Give me/a look, give me/ a face”. The tone and the rhythm sound like a heartbeat. This is where I believe he did very well in expressing his main idea. But overall, I was still left with many unanswered questions about his poem. Like what was his motive to make his poem so neat? Why make readers suspicious? Is he trying to purposely have readers overthink his poem’s intent? This is why I chose Herrick’s.  I believe Herrick was more precise on the nature of art than Jonson.

Claudia Dominguez

The Beauty of Nonconformity

Jonson’s and Herrick’s poems at first glance seem to be  in contradiction as a result of the poems titles, they both share a common ground, that true beauty that enthralls the soul is the small chaos that people exude. Both poems utilize similar rhythm schemes, that being an iambic tetrameter, in order to pull the reader into the story which each poem tells. While both talk about how the nature of beauty is not found in precise strokes, ordered lines, or perfection, but rather it is found in the imperfections that seem to escape the deliberate acts. Between the two poem however, “Delight in Disorder” seems to more efficiently represent where the nature of art can be found.

This comes to the forefront when Herrick describes the clothing of a woman in detail, but focuses on how despite using words that would be deemed insulting to a person, the words instead do the opposite and cause the woman to gain more appeal to the reader’s mind. The woman is not held down by conforming to the standards of proper attire but rather frees herself from those shackles and gains the freedom of expression, which is the essence of art. The constant use of iambic tetrameter causes the reader to feel as though they are in a song marching to the beat of one’s heart, most seen in the line of “do More beWitched me thaN when Art is Too Precise In every parT.” The main subject of Herrick’s poem boils down to the idea that no matter how a person attempts to appear, the true nature of the person will find some manner in which to appear, and capture the attention of the audience.

Isaac Ruiz

Looks and Simplicity

After analyzing both poems of Ben Jonson, “Still to be neat, still to be dressed,” and Robert Herrick, “Delight in Disorder,” I’ve come to the conclusion that the prosody of these both poems are iambic tetrameters. There is still a variety of foot types in these poems. Such as for Jonson’s poem, there was also a lot of trochaic. For Herrick’s poem, he was consistent with iambic tetrameter, but Johnson was switching in between iambic and trochaic, which broke the flow in the poem. I think he did this because he is switching between the expectations and realities. 

I’ve noticed the big indent in Jonson’s poem on line 11, which is “than all the adulteries of art.” He is showing how attractive a woman’s body is, but it only strikes the eyes and not the heart. He represented the nature of art by saying how women are expected to be in public, but they are neglecting their own selves: “such sweet neglect.” Jonson states the stereotypes and then states the reality saying how you are neglecting your own self by using your body to catch attention, when you can simply be yourself making “simplicity a grace.”

Gurranvir Kaur

Rhythm and Meter

Beauty is beyond masking our natural features with cosmetics and dressing to impress. With Ben Jonson’s “Still to be Neat” and Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder,” both poems describe the nature of beauty and art, but Jonson’s poem more effectively expresses the beauty of the natural appearance of women. Jonson’s poem is shown to be iambic prosody as the rhythm and meter helps support his idea within this poem. 

The poem begins, Jonson details, “Still to be neat, still to be dressed” (Line 1), where he explains the nature of a woman to be represented in a certain pleasing and clean manner. As you read the line, you can feel the distinguishing of each unstressed and stressed syllable for the emphasis of “neat” and “dressed.” He is driving the focus on the words to begin his idea of the nature of art to be natural and real. He continues, “Still to be powdered, still perfumed” (Line 3), as both the powder and perfume are used as masking the natural appearance and smell that further separates the real beauty of women.  Jonson continues to use rhythm to underline “powdered” which is broken into three syllable words that creates an anapest foot that breaks off the iambic tetrameter that begins in the poem. Later addresses a woman as “Lady” as demonstrating they have to present themselves as respectable ladies and it is something to be assumed of them. While explaining the natural standard of a woman, he proclaims, “Give me a look, give me a face, / That makes simplicity a grace” (Line 7-8), as he supports the idea that being natural and true to themselves is beautiful as well no matter how simple it may seem. As it starts a new stanza in the poem, Jonson keeps on the iambic tetrameter, however, uses the word “simplicity” that is broken into 4 syllables which breaks the iambic tetrameter with two unstressed and two stressed feet. His use of simplicity supports the importance of simple beauty and art. 

As well as in Herrick’s poem “Delight in Disorder” being in iambic tetrameter through the poem, Herrick does not further advance the use of the rhythm to give a strong presence and support his idea within the poem. Both poems have similar ideas of the nature of beauty, but Jonson further explores the use of breaks in the iambic tetrameter that emphasizes and supports his idea of beauty.  

Naraint Catalan Rios

Rhythm and Meter: Chaos in Order

by Cifriana Mina Dela Cruz

After reading the two poems, “Still to be neat, still to be dressed” by Ben Jonson and “Delight in Disorder”, I’ve noticed something incredibly interesting: while both poems discuss similar concepts, they go about it in different ways. Both share the idea of the authenticity of art, but one celebrates the rawness in more freeing forms of it, while the other criticizes the orderliness and presentation.

“Delight in Disorder” is a simpler poem. With a mainly straightforward iambic tetrameter, the poem describes “disordered” art by comparing it to a woman’s clothing. While the wording in simple, it celebrates the image in how chaotic it is, and I believe that the iambic tetrameter emphasizes this in a way. Because it is comparable to a heartbeat, one might say that the speaker of the poem has their heart beating to this particular form of art, with the few anomalies in rhythm perhaps representing the heart skipping.

However, “Still to be neat” describes a different type of art. One that can be seen as artificial, manufactured, synthesized by the rules of society. The comparison here is to a woman that is overdressed, caked with makeup as it hides its own truth to itself. And unlike the simple iambic tetrameter as we’ve seen in the previous poem, this one can be read in a dactylic meter along with a hint of trochaic, which unlike iambic meter, goes against the heartbeat. It’s here that I think the speaker conveys is that the structure of the art itself doesn’t move his heart in the way that a more “simplistic” form of art could, and despite its lavish appearance doesn’t have more than a shallow statement. And I think the meter here goes well, because the switching between dactylic and trochaic reveal both its lavishness and its artificiality.

In a way, I can see both points of view, while I personally agree more with “Delight in Disorder” because of its simple message to love the mistakes in art that make it unique, I also liked picking apart “Still to be neat” because of how the rhythm plays in its criticism in how art is usually judged and perceived, leading it to become shallow underneath all of its techniques to appear sophisticated.

Rhythm & Meter: the art of Women

by: Sandra Landa-Sanchez

Doing this assignment was more difficult than I originally anticipated. In both poems “ Delight in Disorder” by the author Robert Herrick and “Still to Be Neat” by the author Ben Jonson there was a visible representation of the nature of art. Both poems give their description of the nature of art through the many details that can formulate to in a way describe a woman. Also both poems seem to be written in the iambic prosody. In “Delight in Disorder”, author Robert Herrick utilizes many oxymorons to convey the audience into believing that he is explaining the way we view things as inconveniences and annoyances instead of delights he does this through giving an example that represents women like, “A sweet disorder in the dress,’ and ‘ A lawn about the shoulders thrown”. When reading this it made me think that the author was trying to describe that women have to deal with so much in everyday life that we are sometimes just seen as sweet disorders in a dress. In a way, trying to say that life in all its complications is delightful like nature and that in a way that is also the meaning of art. In the poem “Still to Be Neat” by the author Ben Jonson we can see that in a way he is also describing the nature of art through the representations that describe the feminine women. We can perceive this through the author’s use of the prosody iambic tetrameter. 

In my opinion I like the second poem a lot better because it is easier to understand and in a way the very first time I read it and was confused. That was what intrigued me more into figuring it out and trying to understand it. 

Rhythm and Meter: Women = ART

‘Delight In Disorder’ and ‘Still to Be Neat’ reflect the feelings of how women feel about societal expectations of the ‘dress codes’. However, both poems fluctuate between the ideal picture of a woman. 

“Disorder” is the main concept in ‘Delight in Disorder’, a disorder is stated as an illness that disrupts normal physical or mental function. Knowing this, the author uses ‘disorder’ as an underlying meaning to show that the clothes on women are not the problem to ‘disruption’, it’s the brains of antagonists who mentally disrupt themselves.  The main theme of this poem is to show how women’s clothes are “distracting”, based off of key words in the poem “shoulders thrown, Into a fine distraction” , “tempestuous petticoat”, and “bewitch me”. Shoulders are used to indicate the stressed dress codes within schools. Using “tempestuous petticoat”, which is a piece of clothing that are predominantly used by kids, to show that girls at a young age dealt with strict dress codes. Ending off the poem “Do more bewitch me. . . “ , is more of a screw the patriarchy , to “demoralize” them. The energy in this poem comes off soft and mellow in the beginning which then trails off to be more stressed and the phrases come off more of an attack to the reader. Herrick uses iambic tetrameter through the ups and downs of the stressed and unstressed.

The speakers reservations about the lady in the first stanza  is to show how women are supposed to dress lady like. This poem has a rhythm of a iamic tetrameter based off of the stressed and unstressed lines. The poet creates this vision in the readers head of a typical ladylike of a women, but ends off the poem of how women are humans too  with personalities. Jonson writes about how women are more perceived as ‘eye-candy’ as seen in line 7, “Give me a look, give me a face”. The iambic rhythm of this poem fluctuates between womens’ physical features to not having a genuine connection with women who are ‘lady like’.  Where this is seen in the last line, it says “ They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.” 

Both poems have the same flow of iambic tetrameter. Jonson and Herrick uses the same social issue, however are different concepts of what women have faced for centuries. ‘Delight in Disorder’ depicts a clearer and bigger social issue than ‘Still to Be Neat’.

Roma Ventura

Defining Poems Through Rhythm/Meter

Ben Jonson’s “Still to Be Neat” and Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” are two unique poems that, in some sense, contradict one another when it comes down to interpretations. In a normal world, we as people have a common understanding that everyone views the world through their own lens filled with distinguishing meaning and purpose. Both these poems are perfect examples of two opposite sides of the spectrum involving the idea of simplicity, or the lack there of it, and perhaps the openness and acceptance of it. One can argue that neatness is the prime example of higher order or superiority, while others believe that uniqueness is what sets one apart from the rest: the true definition of superiority and higher order.

Jonson’s poem presented with an iambic tetrameter pattern as he a went on about the idea that women constantly maintain themselves to appear simple and put together in order to hide whats within. He creates a lot of emphasis around wanting women to be true to themselves rather than sulking because it’s not what matters on the outside as much as it does in the inside. This is a very powerful message for readers and the audience in general because society and social norms have the tendency to set unattainable beauty standards, forcing women or anyone to try and one up the next person. Such insecurities cause a constant battle not only for women all around, but with oneself too. Jonson used an interesting rhyme and rhythm combination at the ends of each line, creating a balanced flow throughout the poem. This highlights his message nicely because just like the rhythm, the poet reflects two thoughts back and forth between women and his own from the outside looking in.

Herrick’s poem also presented with an iambic tetrameter pattern while explaining the concept of imperfection and how disorderliness is quite beautiful in its own way. There’s something powerful about women who own their identity and openly embrace their style. Often times, people feel the need to pull up a facade to the world in order to prove that everything is ideal, when true beauty lies in admitting the opposite. Another thing that makes this poem unique from the other is the diction usage. Terms like “wantonness” and “bewitch” can create a more exciting scene showcasing power. The title “Delight in Disorder” is a perfect way to sum up the poet’s thoughts on confidence and artistic endeavors. The usage of rhythm creates sass and sexiness, which is very fitting for the poem as it constantly brings light to the intention that not being put together is essentially favored.

It’s almost difficult to choose which poem was more effective in representing the nature of art because both, in their own way, showcased brilliant skills and techniques alongside deeper meanings for the audience. While Jonson had the right idea of keeping an orderly and concise poem with his rhythm, Herrick played with the concept of contradiction to the next level. He used rhythm in order to describe messy and quirky scenarios. I see this as art because it gives the poem a different and deeper meaning, almost like telling the audience that perhaps not being perfect is perfection in itself.

Simranpreet Kaur

Your mind is a canvas

Sofia Garcia

During the scan of their poems, “Delight in Disorder” by Robert Herrick and “Still to be Neat” by Ben Jonson, I picked up that both poets were speaking about women. Robert Herrick describes how a woman makes feel in the last two lines of his poem, “Do more bewitch me than when art/Is too precise in every part” (Herrick). He describes the woman with simplicity as if someone was explaining the way looking at a hamburger makes them feel (that is of course if they enjoy hamburgers). Even his style is simple which shows by his use of iambic tetrameter throughout the entire poem. Seemingly he doesn’t change patterns to keep that effect of simplicity. Similarly, Ben Jonson also uses iambic tetrameter as his rhythmic pattern.

When Jonson describes the woman, he is writing about he directly addresses, “Lady, it is to be presumed, /” (Jonson). Both poets seem to see the actions the women are preforming as art forms. Their word choices are the ones that bring these simple actions from written words to a vivid image in your head. The way they look such as when Ben Jonson describes the way the woman’s “Robes [are] loosely flowing, hair as free (Jonson). In Herrick’s eyes, “Ribbons to flow confusedly/…In the tempestuous petticoat;/” (Herrick). Herrick saw beauty in this. It is not neat like Jonson’s view, but they both had different views on how the ordinary views they had and turned them into something so artistic. For poets like these our mind is their canvas because their written words come to life in our minds.

Life sustains itself in the ‘Wrong’ by: Mitaya B. La Pierre

Ben Jonson’s “Still to be Neat”, and Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” both induce a feeling of pleasure in the ‘unkempt’ within both of their poems. Though they are similarly attracted to the imperfection of art, they write their poems in two different meters. In Jonson’s poem, he uses Dactylic Dimeter as his primary prosody throughout the poem. “Still to be neat, Still to be dressed” (line 1), ‘Still’ , ‘neat’, and ‘dressed’ are all stressed while ‘to be’ is not; this sequence of word playing makes it seem like a well measured order. Having a similar fall as well as rise within the line, creating an orderly, proper stanza.  In the second line it does the exact same thing, “As you are going to a feast;”; it rises and falls at a timely pace throughout the line; stressing at ‘As’, ‘go-’ , and ‘feast’. However, you head to the 9nth line, and the rhythm takes a turn– “Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;” suddenly it becomes trochaic, with ‘stressed’ followed by ‘unstressed’ syllable, repeatedly. This I believe, is suppose to represent unperturbed randomness that imperfection gives us. When going from stressed to unstressed, you create an unsure ‘wave’, as you will, of stark and rambunctious repeating. While earlier in the lines, it was well calculated to create a ‘soft wave’ of the rhythmic pattern; stressed-unstressed-unstressed-stressed; it is at a higher frequency of stressed and unstressed syllables now that it is describing an imperfection of art, rather than a proper placement of it.

Robert Herrick also manages something of the like in his poem “Delight in Disorder”. In lines 1 and 2 he states this- 

“A sweet disorder in the dress  

Kindles in clothes a wantonness”. 

From the first few lyrics I could tell that the main prosody of this poem was Iambic Tetrameter; ‘A’ , ‘-order’, and ‘the’ being unstressed, while ‘dress’, ‘sweet’, and ‘dis-’ were stressed and it remains that way for the next couple of lines. Now unlike Jonson’s poem; it remains in the constant rise and fall of syllables, erratic throughout the poem. Almost like he is curating that imperfect rhythm to have the audience experience it as well. Here is a description of that imperfection from the poem- 

“A cuff neglectful, and thereby 

 Ribands to flow confusedly;

 a winning wave, deserving note,

 in the tempestuous petticoat;-” (line 7-9)

In something as simple as clothing, there are dysfunctions; a cuff ‘neglectful’ even though it is impossible for a shirt cuff to be ‘neglectful’, resonates with the audience the grandiose of slight imperfections, as well as the beauty of that disaster. Herrick understands that, and that is why he keeps the upbeat rhythm of the iambic in his poem, to show the some what catastrophic-to-calm beauty that is imperfection in art.

In the end of both of their poems, they come to an agreement about imperfect art being enjoyed at the heart. That precision may be perceived better at sight, but the true sensations and feelings you get from any work come from the distinctions and ‘wrongs’ of it. All simply because deviations from the perfect, make originality out of the average. 

Because of this, I too believe their choice of Iambic when it came to describing the imperfect in their poems, was also a reflection of their excitement on the naturalism of art. That keeping clean and proper doesn’t give you the excitement or originality that being unkempt and rambunctious does. It makes sense they’d have this opinion because most people don’t like being in the perfect ‘stressed, and unstressed’ patterns of life. We enjoy diversity and creativity where there seems to be a lack of. Being imperfect in art isn’t an inaccurate way of being artistic, its the only way to be; because art itself demands creativity–and that too at its core, is imperfect.