In modern poetry, echo verse is quite rare
1
.
Many students, especially those not
focusing on poetry, may have never come across such a style, one that has not been used
heavily since the renaissance period.
With exception, however, Fred Chappell’s
Narcissus and Echo employs incredible echo technique in a fashion relatively unique to
Chappell himself.
The secondary poem hidden within Chappell’s Narcissus and Echo not
only contains a more potent message, forcing the reader to consider the basic nature of
love and relationship, but also transforms the original poem into a dialogue versus its
original genre as a statement or explanation.
Within Narcissus and Echo, Fred Chappell brilliantly combines meter, rhyme,
rhythm, assonance, and allusion.
The meter within this poem consists of varying types of
pentameter.
While each line holds within it exactly five stressed syllables, the number of
unstressed syllables as well as their placement varies greatly.
This technique gives the
poem a feeling of passion as Narcissus – and Echo – speak, rather than sounding stoic
and rehearsed as a poem in simple iambic or trochaic pentameter might.
Punctuation is
used sparingly within this poem of Chappell’s thus the rhythm is controlled almost totally
by the highly varying meter.
This technique lends greater authenticity to the poem when
it is read aloud.
A scheme of echo rhyme is apparent almost immediately within Narcissus and
Echo.
Though confusing at first, this scheme is an integral portion of the poem.
Not only
is this echo scheme used, but Chappell also creates a hidden poem within these rhyming
words.
In this hidden poem the persona taken on by Chappell shifts from Narcissus to
the opposing nymph, Echo.
The second poem effectively changes the poem’s style from
a statement-type in which Narcissus explains his life, to a dialogue-type between the two
personas mentioned.
Echo rhyme, however, is not the only form of repetition found inside Chappell’s
piece on love and relationship.
Within every line of the original poem, at least one
example of assonance exists.
