The Poetic Takedown

On Slate, Robert Pinsky discusses Sir Walter Raleigh's poem, "The Lie."

From the piece...

Denunciation abounds, in its many forms: snark (was that word invented or fostered in a poem, Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark"?), ranking-out, calling-out, bringing-down, blowing-up, flaming, scorching, trashing, negative campaigning, skepticism, exposure, nailing, shafting, finishing, diminishing, down-blogging. Aggressive moral denunciation—performed with varying degrees of justice and skill in life, in print, on the Web, in politics, on television and radio, in book-reviewing, in sports, in courtrooms and committee meetings—generates dismay and glee in its audience. Sometimes, for many of us, dismay and glee simultaneously, in an uneasy combination.

A basic form of denunciation is indicated by the slightly archaic but useful expression giving the lie.

No one has ever given the lie more memorably, explicitly, and universally than Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) in "The Lie." The poem, among other things, demonstrates the power of repetition and refrain.