Sherry Chandler

The Ode Less Travelled

If you’re a snob such as I and were a fan of Hugh Laurie’s before he was Gregory House, then you will probably also recognize Stephen Fry as the man who was the imperturbable Jeeves to Laurie’s infinitely pertubable Bertie Wooster. Given Fry’s history as a generalist as competent as Jeeves himself, I should not have been surprised to discover, as I just did on my Kentucky Literary Newsletter, that this same Stephen Fry has written a poetry manual, entitled The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (Gotham Books, 2006).

Charlie Hughes was good enough to supply a link to this NYTimes Review, which I rather suspect has ambitions to be a New Yorker article. It is fun to read but not a lot more — accessible, shall we say? — than some poetry:

“The Ode Less Travelled” is at once idiosyncratic and thoroughly traditional — it’s filled with quips, quirks and various Fry-isms (sestinas are “a bitch to explain but a joy to make”), yet still manages to be a smart, comprehensive guide to prosody. It’s organized in three main sections — meter, rhyme and form, with exercises suggested for each — and a smaller concluding section in which Fry gives some general thoughts about contemporary British poetry. It also has a practical, good-natured glossary (a choliamb is a “kind of metrical substitution, usually with ternary feet replacing binary. Forget about it.”) The key to the book’s success is its tone, which is joking, occasionally fussy, sometimes distractingly cute, but always approachable. If Fry thinks the meter of a Keats couplet doesn’t work, he’ll tell you so, and he’s more than happy to admit his own effort at a ghazal is “rather a bastardly abortion.” As is to be expected in any book taking on such a complicated subject, there are a few minor errors. For instance, in a discussion of hendecasyllabic (11-syllable) lines, Fry includes Frost’s “And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver.” (Unlike Fry, Frost is American, and would have pronounced “flower” with two syllables.) But such mistakes are negligible. On the whole, the book is ideal for anyone who’s interested in learning more about poetic forms but doesn’t have an obsessive assistant professor living next door.

If you are a fan of “Dead Poets Society,” you probably aren’t going to like this review. Otherwise, it’s a fun read and it makes the book sound more attractive than something like Camille Paglia’s Break, Blow, Burn, if only because Fry doesn’t view himself as a provocateur so much as a connoisseur.

Possibly related posts:

Stephen Fry

Tristram Shandy

Mad Robert, Just Plain Bill

On the nature of meter

On Meter and Patience

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