English is a much better language for poetry than almost all other languages because of the large number of different vowel qualities in English. In a language like Spanish or Italian, there are only a few vowel sounds, which means that rhymes are not varied; there are far fewer possible distinct rhymes than in English.
Stupid frogposter.
Not an argument.
No, Russian only has five vowels, though they have multiple allophones.
Monolinguals really go out of their way to tell people that their language is the best and that they want nothing else.
Intellectual laziness + sour grapes. Grow up
Doesn't Russian have loads of vowels and semi-vowels?
>muh rhymes
filtered
>shakespeare rhymed
>goethe rhymed
>dante rhymed
>you sucked dick
Sorry my guy, but it has been scientifically proven that (my language) produces the best poetry
>knows english is shit for poetry
>must try to logic his way into some convoluted reason for why its actually not
English is nice for its many progenitors, allowing us many source languages to pull words for variety and for subtle cultural reference.
>because of the large number of different vowel qualities in English
Isn't the lack of them your excuse for not being able to pronounce French and German authors?
Anglos can't into nasalized vowels. That's why the standard caricature of French (to a lower extent German) is HON HON HON HAN HAN HAN HEN HEIN HEIN.
English is the best language ever t. Native English speaking monolingual surrounded by an English speaking culture
I was right once again
Portuguese is the best language for poetry. None of you can prove me wrong.
Only reason I ever defend Portuguese is that your hairy blockheaded women make my peepee diamond hard.
And yet it hasn't produced a single poem as good as l'infinito or une saison en enfer. Sad!
the making of a poet is the use of his language, not the language
WHY ENGLISH IS GOOD FOR POETRY
— Big vocabulary. ALL YOUR WORDS ARE BELONG TO US.
— Big variety of sounds. Italian can't help but sound mellifluous. German can't help but sound like a Tiger II going over cobblestones. English can sound like a cat being stroked or a T-Rex fighting another T-Rex, or anything else.
— Freedom in messing about with parts of speech. "My salad days, when I was green in judgement"; "But me no buts, John!" etc
— Macaronic potential. Because English adopts (steals) words and ideas from everywhere, it has a mixed-bag feel, so you can incorporate other languages into it very naturally. "A man in black with a Mein Kampf look" etc.
— Many alternative ways to phrase things, with different shades of tone. This can be a drawback, as Conrad complained. Unwanted undertones, particularly irony, can easily creep in. But it can also be a strength when a writer knows what he's doing:
Parting, after about five
Rehearsals, was an agreement
That I was too selfish, withdrawn,
And easily bored to love.
Well, useful to get that learnt.
['Wild Oats', Philip Larkin]
WHY ENGLISH IS BAD FOR POETRY
— Large number of word endings means full-rhyming is much harder. (Half-rhyming is ok.) It was quite natural for Petrarch to rhyme a sonnet abba abba cdcdcd. In English this is a real straitjacket. Also some very common English words (e.g. "myself") are a b***h to rhyme.
— Some annoying omissions. e.g. A familiar/formal "you" like most languages would be useful.
— English uses word order to change meaning. Writing in Latin you have a lot more freedom, so it's easier to manipulate rhythm and organize the climax you want. (Milton clearly preferred Latin. He expressed this by writing English as if it were Latin.)
I loathe Larkin, he's not interesting at all and he's a fakecel.
He banged cunn left and right, claimed to be well-read, it was all his fathers work to make him interesting and he didn't pay tribute, speaks like a working class bloke without any GCSEs.
It's always americans who love Larkin because he writes without any regional vernacular
Is there any good poetry in Sinhala or Enggano?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_phonemes
English language poetry is too dependent on rhymes. Languages where more words rhyme tend to produce more interesting poetry because they force poets to utilize other aspects of it than rhyme.
The emphasis on rhyme in English language poetry has is responsible for the worst qualities we see today in songwriting.