VERSIFICATION’ AND ‘POETIC SYNTAX’ (a) VERSIFICATION JON STALLWORTHY From: The Norton Anthology of Poetry (pp. 2027-2052) Shriya Pandey
In this lesson we shall summarize the major contentions made by Jon Stallworthy in the essay, ‘Versification’, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (2005). Jon Stallworthy begins the essay by explaining ‘Versification’. According to him, poetry is a “performance by the human voice”, a verse is a group of lines with a certain number of word-sounds, and versification is “the principles and practice of writing verse” (Stallworthy, p.2027, 2005). The two ways to measure a poem are, a. Rhythm and, b. Form. Rhythm and Form, of a poem, are based on word-sounds and their arrangement. This lesson is divided into three sections. The first section discusses, versification, verse and poem. The second and third sections explain, rhythm and form. Word sounds have a certain rhythm, for example, the tick-tock of a clock. Have you ever wondered, why the phrase, tick-tock-tick, is not arranged as, tock-tick-tick? The study of the arrangement of word sounds in a poem is known as, form. Jon Stallworthy quotes W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot, to define the principles underlying the writing a verse. They define it as a technique, as well as, an arrangement of meter and pattern. Versification measures the form and rhythm of a verse. The verse used in old English (449-1066) was alliterative, for example, William Langland’s† (1332-1386) Piers Plowman. In the Middle English (1066-1500s), rhyme verse developed under the influence of French and low Latin verses, for example, Geoffrey Chaucer’s‡ (1340s-1400) rhyming couplets, ‘The Friar’s Tale’ in The Canterbury Tales. The period of Modern English (1600s onwards) † William Lagland (1332-1386), was a writer. He was born in West Midlands of England. ‡ Geoffrey Chaucer (1340s-1400), was an English Poet. Check Your Progress 1. What are the two major components of Versification
VERSIFICATION
Jon Stallworthy quotes W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot, to define the principles underlying the writing a verse. They define it as a technique, as well as, an arrangement of meter and pattern. Versification measures the form and rhythm of a verse. The verse used in old English (449-1066) was alliterative, for example, William Langland’s† (1332-1386) Piers Plowman. In the Middle English (1066-1500s), rhyme verse developed under the influence of French and low Latin verses, for example, Geoffrey Chaucer’s‡ (1340s-1400) rhyming couplets, ‘The Friar’s Tale’ in The Canterbury Tales.
1. What is ‘Versification’?
Verse
Verse, is a group of lines, or a group of words arranged to provide rhythm, structure and form, to a poem. Verse is the most important feature of a poem, that gives it it’s uniqueness. According to Edgar Allan Poe§ (1809-1849) in The Rationale of Verse (1848), a verse is a design, which has rhythm, rhyme, meter, and syllables, “Verse originates in the human enjoyment of equality, fitness. To this enjoyment, also, all the moods of verse—rhythm, meter, stanza, rhyme, alliteration, the refrain, and other analogous effects—are to be referred” (p.33). There are three types of verse a. Rhyme verse, b. Blank verse, and c. Free verse. Rhyme Verse, is a type of verse where the words are arranged so as to have similar sounding words, usually final sounds in a line. A Blank verse has no rhyme, but an identical meter is followed in all the lines in a poem. This beat pattern is also known as, stressed and unstressed, part of a word. In a Blank Verse, the pattern of unstressed and stressed beat/sound is identical in all the lines. Virgil’s (70 BC-19 BC) Aeneid** (29 BC-19 BC), was translated from Latin into English, by Henry Howard†† in 1540. Henry Howard (1517-1547), adapted the Latin Heroic verse into English, which is known as Iambic Pentameter‡‡ or Blank verse§§ .
1. Define Verse. 2. What are the three types of verse?
2 Poetry
What a poem says or means is the result of how it is said, a fact that poets are often at pains to emphasize. “All my life’” said W.H. Auden‡‡‡ , “I have been more interested in technique than anything else.” And T.S. Eliot§§§ claimed that “the conscious problems with which one is concerned in the actual writing are more those of a quasi-musical nature, in the arrangement of metric and pattern, than of a conscious exposition of ideas.” (Salter et al, p. 2027) Poem is a verse, or group of verse, which is generally understood as an expression. According to J.S. Mill**** (1806-1873) in the essay, ‘What is Poetry?’ (1833) writes, “something which does not even require the instrument of words, but can speak through the other audible symbols called musical sounds” (1833). According to, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (2005), poetry can be classified into three categories
1. What are the three types of poetry? Explain.
RHYTHM
Jon Stallworthy explains that poetry is the most ‘compressed’ form of language, and Rhythm is the, “the basic unit of pronunciation” (p. 2028, 2005). According to Aspects of Verse Study: Linguistic Prosody, Versification, Rhythm, Verse Experience (1993), Rhythm is a study of pause and patterns in a verse, “Rhythmic experience is thought to be complex, a product of several interacting responses (beating, phrasing, linear motion) as they are articulated at several levels of structure” (Cureton, p. 523). The Principles of English Versification (2007) posits two types of rhythm;
1. Explain ‘Rhythm’, with examples.
Syllable
Syllable is a phonotactic unit, it is a sequence of phoneme in a word. A phoneme is the smallest sound of a word, for example, TAB, has three phonemes, |T| |A| |B|, and 1 syllable. In English, there are 44 phoneme sounds (26 letters, and remaining are letter combinations).
Syllable in a word is divided into, a. Onset and, b. Rhyme- Onset+ Rhyme. Rhyme has two parts, a. Nucleus and, b. Margin. For example, in the word TAB— T is Onset, and AB is Rhyme—T+AB. Based on Onset, and Rhyme, a rule of syllable division (syllabification), was given by George N. Clements and Samuel J. Keyser††††† in the ‘Theory of Syllable’ (1983). A syllable, based on the sequence of phoneme sound has been divided into the combination of consonant and vowel, as follows: a. The 26 letters in English language are divided into consonants, and vowels. b. In case, the consonant is the onset, vowel is the nucleus, and consonant is the margin. The syllable division is C+VC. c. In case, the vowel is the onset, consonant is the nucleus, and vowel is the margin. The syllable division is V+CV. d. There are light (unstressed) and heavy (stressed) syllables. e. In case, the vowel is the onset, consonant is the nucleus, and vowel is the margin. The syllable division is V+CV. f. There are light (unstressed) and heavy (stressed) syllables. A syllable, based on the sequence of phoneme sound has been divided into the combination of consonant and vowel, as follows: ††††† George N. Celemets and, Samuel J. Keyser (b. 1935), are linguists. Onset T + AB Rhyme
Monosyllabic Tab 1 Disyllabic Solid 2 Trisyllabic Umbrella 3 Polysyllabic Pharmaceutical More than 3
Type Characteristic Closed Syllable The vowel has short sound or short sound, for example, Truck. The word ends with a consonant and there is only one vowel. Open Syllable The vowel has long sound or short sound, for example. Grape. The word ends with a vowel.
The light (unstressed) and heavy (stressed) syllable in a word determine the meter in a poem. A light syllable, is also called unstressed syllable or fall, is represented by the symbol ‘^’, for example, T A B, |T| |Â |B|. The vowel in the light syllable is short. The strong syllable, is also called stressed syllable or rise, is represented by the symbol ‘/’, for example, T R E E, |T| |R| |E| |E|. According to the stress rule, a. In a disyllabic word, the stress is on the first vowel, for example, ISLAND; b. In a polysyllable word, the stress is on the first and second last vowel, for example, CONDENSATION; c. In a word with long syllable, for example, BOOK, the stress falls on last long vowel and; d. In an open syllable there is one stressed unit, only the first vowel
1. What’s a stressed-unstressed syllable? 2. What are the types of syllables?
Meter
Meter is a measurement, of stressed-unstressed syllable in a line, of a poem. In The Norton Anthology of Poetry (2005), “If a poem's rhythm is structured into a recurrence of regular— that is, approximately equal—units, we call it meter (from the Greek word for "mea- sure"). For many centuries after its origins were lost in the mists of antiquity, meter was the principal feature distinguishing poetry from prose. There are four metrical systems in English poetry: the accentual, the accentual- syllabic, the syllabic, and the quantitative” (Stallworthy, p. 2029). In Modern English language, the poems mostly employ accentual syllabic meter. Accentual-syllabic meter, measures the number of unstressed-stressed syllables in a line. A set of stressed-unstressed in a line is called foot. A set of foot in a line makes a feet. There are six types of foot in a poem; a. Iambic: Unstressed-Stressed For example: Charles Dickinson’s (1780-1806) A Tale of Two Cities (1859) It was the best of time, it was the worst of times. Î t w Á s | th Ê b É st | Ô f t Í mes, || Î t w Ás | th Ê w Ó rst |Ô f t Í mes b. Trochaic: Stressed-Unstressed For example: The traditional nursery rhyme, London Bridge London Bridge is falling down L Ó nd Ô n | br Í dge Î s | f Á ll Î ng | d Ó wn c. Anapestic: Unstressed-Unstressed-Stressed For example: G.G. Byron’s (1788-1824) The Destruction of Sennacherib (1815) The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold Th Ê Â ss Ÿ r | I  n c  me d Ó wn | l Î ke th Ê W Ó lf | Ô n th ê f Ó ld d. Dactylic: Stressed-Unstressed-Unstressed For example, Thomas Hardy’s (1840-1928) The Voice (1914) Woman much missed. How you call to me, call to me W Ó man m Ú ch | m Í ssed, h Ô w y Ô u | c Á ll t Ô m Ê, | c Á ll t Ô m Ê
e. Spondaic: Stressed-Stressed For example, Toothache— T |ó| oth |á| che f. Pyrrhic: Unstressed-Unstressed, or lightly stressed For examples, Audible—Both, A and U are lightly stressed, or unstressed.
1. How do you identify the meter of a poetry? Explain with an example.
Rhyme, in a poem is an element associated with occurrence of similar sounds, such as, a letter of a word, or similar sounding words, for example, Gerard Manley Hopkins’s‡‡‡‡‡ (1844-1889) sonnet God’s Grandeur (1877), It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Rhyme, since the Middle English period, have been constituted as a significant modulation in a poem. There are three types of Rhyme, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (p.2037);
1. What is a ‘Rhyme’? 2. What are the types of ‘Rhyme’?
1. Explain the four different types of form.
