Bounded Freedom

The question of the value of form in poetry comes up frequently. Are poets constrained by writing within a strict poetic form, or do they gain freedom by not having to worry about devising their own rhyme and metrical scheme? Do rhyme and meter add value to a poem? William Wordsworth (1770-1850) takes on this issue in the sonnet "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Walls":

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison, into which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

The poem is fascinating in the way that Wordsworth expresses what seems at first a philosophical truth (rules that one chooses are not really constraining) and then twists it to apply to the question of poetic form. The choice of language he uses for his examples of those unconstrained by rules is also telling: it begins soberly, with nuns, hermits, and students, but then he suggests that maids and weavers tied to their work are "blithe and happy" and that bees that soar are also happy imprisoned in flowers. It's easy to say, applying this idea to poetry, that only "sober" or "old-fashioned" or "classic" poetry has need of form, and that while such poetry gains value from its strict form, more modern, freer poetry is unwillingly restrained by rules of rhyme and meter. Wordsworth, however, suggests that blitheness and happiness can come from the restriction of creativity to even a form as strict as a sonnet. By working within a form, the poet is freed from the pressure of devising a melodious rhythmic and rhyme scheme. The form also allows him to play with it. A sonnet, like this one, which discusses the "Sonnet's scanty plot of ground" has more credibility and self-referential irony than a free-verse poem discussing the same subject.

Free verse poetry, of course, offers more freedom in a lot of ways, and gives the author a great deal of flexibility. But writing in a form doesn't have to inherently lessen the poet's creativity. Not all great poetry has to rhyme, or scan, or follow any sort of rules, but as Wordsworth suggests, sometimes working within rules can make the vast flexibility of language more manageable. Like the bees that soar to "the highest Peak of Furness-fells," poets too can both soar to the heights of formless creativity and abide in metrical and phonetic foxglove bells.