Ben,
I think the form of your contraction rewrite of Williams’ treatise on fear sits more appealingly on the page and reads better than hers, thanks to your more concise sentences and questions. However, it maintains her didactic tone and therefore lacks any imagery (i.e. light and dark in line three) that might make it more exciting. The switch from first person singular to a collective first person plural gets a little jerky. I think it should be all about the speaker.
I wonder how it would sound if the two questions of the first stanza were asked first. The ‘fear’ of the first two lines could use more qualification, such as “innermost,” or “ultimate.” The second stanza speaks in the negative for the most part, so the second line, being a positive one, might fit better at the stanza’s end in order to help ‘turn’ from negative to positive. The word “presence” in the last stanza sounds flat against “shine” and the last line could use more punch. I think this whole draft is a good launching pad for taking each line, see if it stands alone, and try enhancing it with much more imagistic and personal language while still allowing it to respond to the questions.
No comments:
Post a Comment