"cross-language homophonic poetry" -- or something

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Wed Jan 18 20:14:35 UTC 2006


On another list, someone asked:
>There's been a conversation on our family list about _Mots
>D'Heures: Gousses, Rames: The D'Antin Manuscript_, by Luis
>D'Antin Van Rooten ... who produces poems that look like French
>but sound like English (that is, when read aloud they make sense
>as English sounds).
>
>What is that form, joke, or whatever it is called?  I know of it
>because Jonathan Swift did it with Latin and English, but at the
>moment I can't even find any of those jeux in my library or on
>line (much less in my memory), and my hope (nay, expectation) is
>that someone on this learned list has the noun at the tip of her
>tongue, or fingers.

I will post the answer back to the inquirer, crediting my source.

Joel

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