Sestina: Altaforte (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Ezra Pound
- First Published: 1909
- Type of Work: Dramatic monologue
- Genres: Poetry, Dramatic monologue
- Subjects: France or French people, Violence, War, Storms, Castles, Soldiers, Peace, Lightning, Middle Ages, Battles, Nobility, Fortresses
The Poem
In some respects, this poem is not only old-fashioned but archaic—quite different from the modern free-verse poetry for which Ezra Pound is famous. For one thing, as the poem’s title indicates, the verse structure is that of the sestina, a form invented by the Provençal poets of the early Middle Ages. For another, the speaker is Bertran De Born, a medieval warlord.
The sestina is a complex seven-stanza verse form: The first six stanzas are six lines long, and the seventh stanza, the “envoy,” is three lines long. The first six stanzas all use the same...
[The entire page is 1695 words long]
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