18 pages • 36 minutes read
Epilogue
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Literary Devices
Form & Meter
Lowell’s “Epilogue” is written in true free verse. The poem is not restricted by meter, foot, or end rhyme, nor is it organized by any formal structure. However, the opening line of the poem is loudly composed in traditional meter. Lowell calls special attention to this metered line by using the archaic double-syllable “blessèd” to fit the iambic structure (“those BLESS/èd STRUCT/ures, PLOT/ and RHYME”) (Line 1). This humorous line follows traditional poetic craft even as it describes it, but it is quickly interrupted by the irregular “WHY are /THEY no/ HELP TO /ME now” (Line 2). The first two feet of this line are in trochaic, though the rhythm serves only to disrupt the rhythm established in the first line, inverting the stress and unstressed syllables of the iambs as they do.
Lowell continues this practice of modulating between irregular, open verse and traditional meter throughout the poem. When the speaker recalls his own statement on art, the activity of the painter’s vision is written in regular iambic: “it TREM/bles TO/ caRESS/ the LIGHT” (Line 7). This use of iambic tetrameter (mirroring the first line’s meter) infuses the speaker’s remembered statement with gravitas and dignity, with “the grace of accuracy” (Line 16). Lowell uses the same technique to emphasize the bankrupt nature of un-artful representational poetry, listing its features as “LURid,/ RAPid,/ GARish, / GROUPED” (Line 11). With the exception of an elided final syllable, this line is in perfect trochaic tetrameter. Trochees, as the opposite of iambs, stand out in a poem that largely uses iambic when it drifts into metrical regularity. Here, they both elevate and emphasize the line with musicality, and make it stand out as opposite from the iambic sections. Instead of following the gentle, graceful lilt of traditional iambic (mirroring the poem’s Vermeerian “grace of accuracy”) (Line 16), this line uses the rarer and more aggressive drumbeat trochaic as a performance of the very thing it describes.
Tone & Voice
While Lowell modulates between formal and irregular meter in “Epilogue,” this is emblematic of a broader modulation between formal and informal tones. Of course, the metrical shifts strongly contribute to creating tone but not comprehensively so. While the metrical differences between the first two lines have already been discussed, Lowell uses a variety of techniques to create a strong juxtaposition of tones. Line 1 uses a traditional meter, but it also makes use of archaic and formal words, and even uses an implied address that recalls formal poetics. On the other hand, the following line asks a simple and vernacular question: “why are they no help” (Line 2)? Shifting between the tone of a distinguished poet and a desperate everyman sets up the conflict in the poem and creates literary dynamism that helps the poem stand out.
Later in the text, Lowell’s tone becomes elevated while discussing his artistic doubts. Lines 8 through 13 accelerate his reflections on his poetic failings, increasing in heightened tone along the way in order to simulate the experience of accelerating thought. The multi-line sentence begins with “But sometimes everything I write” (Line 8), which is expressed in a strikingly informal and relaxed tone. However, the tone becomes more formal with the addition of a poetic image (the “threadbare art…/seem[ing] a snapshot”) (Line 10). The following list—which already increases the motion of the sentence by nature of being a list—uses metrical regularity to further heighten the poetic tone. Finally, these lines culminate in the short sentence “All’s misalliance” (Line 14). Despite being short, metrically irregular, and devoice of images, the syntax and diction recall a high literary formality, evoking Shakespeare. Of course, Lowell spotlights his tonal modulation by once again snapping back to informality in the following line: “Yet why not say what happened” (Line 15)?
Lowell’s dance between formal and informal voice in “Epilogue” mirrors the struggle the poem describes, the artist’s vacillation between doubt and creation. The tonal shift also creates a poetic dynamism that keeps the reader on their toes, moving them from one line to the next.
Assonance & Alliteration
Because “Epilogue” shifts between meters and tones so wildly, it requires other literary devices to make it cohesive as a poetic text. Lowell makes use of the sounds of words to maintain poetic cohesion in “Epilogue.” For instance, after the opening questions, the poem glues itself together by repeating “s” sounds (a type of assonance known as sibilance). Even in short lines, there is an abundance of “s” sounds: “something” (Line 4), “noise…voice” (Line 5), “painter’s vision is…lens” (Line 6), “trembles…caress” (Line 7). The musicality of repeated sounds in “lurid, rapid, garish, and grouped” is so obvious as to scarcely be worth taking apart.
Lowell cinches his concluding quatrain with the phrase “poor passing facts,” which repeats both “p” and “s” sounds to such a degree as to become a kind of slogan. These are exemplary of countless examples of repeated sounds that Lowell uses both obviously and subtly to maintain textual cohesion in his poem.
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By Robert Lowell
