Familiarizing Students with Diverse Types of Rhythm in English Poetry
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Your Feet's Too Big: Downsizing English Metrics
Mad River Review Volume 1 Issue 1 Article 9 2016 Your Feet's Too Big: Downsizing English Metrics William Wilborn Follow this and additional works at: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/mrr Part of the Fiction Commons Recommended Citation Wilborn, W. (2016). Your Feet's Too Big: Downsizing English Metrics, Mad River Review, 1 (1). This Criticism is brought to you for free and open access by CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mad River Review by an authorized editor of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact library- [email protected]. Wilborn: Your Feet's Too Big: Downsizing English Metrics WILLIAM WILBORN Your Feet’s Too Big: Downsizing English Metrics Classical English metrics, as in Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, is a method of grouping the local rhythms of language into two ascending levels of organization, the foot and the line or verse. Unfortunately our understanding of this method has long been clouded by theory. That is because verse is more like dancing than computation. A gardener at Rydal Mount remembered watching Wordsworth as he composed. In his innocence he reveals the physical basis of practical metrics. Essentially he tells us that for Wordsworth iambic meter was walking: I think I can see him at it now. He was ter'ble thrang [busy] with visitors and folks, you mun kna, at times, but if he could git awa fra them for a spell, he was out upon his gres [grass] walk; He would set his head a bit forrad, and put his hands behint his back. And then he would start bumming, and it was bum, bum, bum, stop; then bum, bum, bum, reet down til t'other end [of the walk], and then he'd set down and git a bit o' paper out and write a bit; and then he git up, and bum, bum, bum, and goa on bumming for long enough right down and back agean. -
Some Problems in Prosody
1903·] Some Problems in Prosody. 33 ARTICLE III. SOME PROBLEMS IN PROSODY. BY PI10PlCSSOI1 R.aBUT W. KAGOUN, PR.D. IT has been shown repeatedly, in the scientific world, that theory must be supplemented by practice. In some cases, indeed, practice has succeeded in obtaining satisfac tory results after theory has failed. Deposits of Urate of Soda in the joints, caused by an excess of Uric acid in the blood, were long held to be practically insoluble, although Carbonate of Lithia was supposed to have a solvent effect upon them. The use of Tetra·Ethyl-Ammonium Hydrox ide as a medicine, to dissolve these deposits and remove the gout and rheumatism which they cause, is said to be due to some experiments made by Edison because a friend of his had the gout. Mter scientific men had decided that electric lighting could never be made sufficiently cheap to be practicable, he discovered the incandescent lamp, by continuing his experiments in spite of their ridicule.1 Two young men who "would not accept the dictum of the authorities that phosphorus ... cannot be expelled from iron ores at a high temperature, ... set to work ... to see whether the scientific world had not blundered.'" To drive the phosphorus out of low-grade ores and convert them into Bessemer steel, required a "pot-lining" capable of enduring 25000 F. The quest seemed extraordinary, to say the least; nevertheless the task was accomplished. This appears to justify the remark that "Thomas is our modem Moses";8 but, striking as the figure is, the young ICf. -
Gerard Manley Hopkins and Old English Poetry: a Stylistic Analysis
Gerard Manley Hopkins and Old English poetry: a stylistic analysis Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Li, Leshi Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 23/09/2021 14:04:44 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/565498 GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY: A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS by Rebecca Lee A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN ENGLISH LITERATURE . In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 8 1 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Rebecca Lee_________________________________ entitled GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS AND OLD ENGLISH POETRY:___________________ A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. * / ■ ? ■ / Dissertation Director Date / STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library» Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission5 provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. -
Robert Hayden (1913-1980)
ROBERT HAYDEN (1913-1980) “RUNAGATE RUNAGATE” (1962) √A highly moving—rhythmic—poetic evocation of the Underground Railroad: sights, sounds, fears, threats, the heroine Harriet Tubman, language from “WANTED” posters. Different VOICES. √ THE CONCISE OXFORD COMPANION TO AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE: “One of Robert Hayden’s most successful historical poems, ‘Runagate Runagate’ (first published in 1962), employs a montage of voices to portray the tumultuous world of escaped slaves, and ultimately the fundamental human impulse toward freedom. ‘Runagate,’ a term for a runaway slave, refers specifically to Harriet Tubman and by extension to a series of symbols suggesting freedom and emancipation.” [http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100433238] √ Cental Idea: Quest for Freedom, of slaves in the American South √ Poetic Meter: Utilizes a variety of meters: dactyl, iamb, amphibrach, cretic, anapest, spondee—yet is strongly grounded in the TROCHAIC. The poem’s opening line is in Trochaic Heptameter, with other major line-groupings of 6 trochees, 4 trochees, 3 trochees, pairs of trochees “bookending” another single meter; the “hoot-owl calling” quatrain near the poem’s conclusion has all 4 lines in Trochaic Tetrameter. The use of TROCHEE is, further, associated with moments of high drama. Three MOLOSSUS in highly emotionally charged moments. √ Historical, Evocative, Powerful, Personal √ Historical sources of some of the poetic language: spirituals, hymns, abolitionist songs, WANTED posters, voices of slaves, the voice of Harriet Tubman. √ Reiteration and Alliteration: “Catch them if you can….”; “she says”; “movering, movering”; “Mean (mean mean) to be free”; “brethren brethren”; “air”; “leaves”; “No more”; “Some go (some in)”; “for me”; “darkness”; “beckoning beckoning”; “and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing”; “and the night cold and the night long”; “keep on going”; “when you try to catch them”; “Many thousands”; “If you see”; “woman of earth, whipscarred, a summoning, a shining”; “Tell me . -
The Poetry Handbook I Read / That John Donne Must Be Taken at Speed : / Which Is All Very Well / Were It Not for the Smell / of His Feet Catechising His Creed.)
Introduction his book is for anyone who wants to read poetry with a better understanding of its craft and technique ; it is also a textbook T and crib for school and undergraduate students facing exams in practical criticism. Teaching the practical criticism of poetry at several universities, and talking to students about their previous teaching, has made me sharply aware of how little consensus there is about the subject. Some teachers do not distinguish practical critic- ism from critical theory, or regard it as a critical theory, to be taught alongside psychoanalytical, feminist, Marxist, and structuralist theor- ies ; others seem to do very little except invite discussion of ‘how it feels’ to read poem x. And as practical criticism (though not always called that) remains compulsory in most English Literature course- work and exams, at school and university, this is an unwelcome state of affairs. For students there are many consequences. Teachers at school and university may contradict one another, and too rarely put the problem of differing viewpoints and frameworks for analysis in perspective ; important aspects of the subject are omitted in the confusion, leaving otherwise more than competent students with little or no idea of what they are being asked to do. How can this be remedied without losing the richness and diversity of thought which, at its best, practical criticism can foster ? What are the basics ? How may they best be taught ? My own answer is that the basics are an understanding of and ability to judge the elements of a poet’s craft. Profoundly different as they are, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Dickinson, Eliot, Walcott, and Plath could readily converse about the techniques of which they are common masters ; few undergraduates I have encountered know much about metre beyond the terms ‘blank verse’ and ‘iambic pentameter’, much about form beyond ‘couplet’ and ‘sonnet’, or anything about rhyme more complicated than an assertion that two words do or don’t. -
Audible Punctuation Performative Pause In
PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/140838 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-25 and may be subject to change. AUDIBLE PUNCTUATION Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Audible Punctuation: Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. Th.L.M. Engelen, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 21 mei 2015 om 14.30 uur precies door Ronald Blankenborg geboren op 23 maart 1971 te Eibergen Promotoren: Prof. dr. A.P.M.H. Lardinois Prof. dr. J.B. Lidov (City University New York, Verenigde Staten) Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. M.G.M. van der Poel Prof. dr. E.J. Bakker (Yale University, Verenigde Staten) Prof. dr. M. Janse (Universiteit Gent, België) Copyright©Ronald Blankenborg 2015 ISBN 978-90-823119-1-4 [email protected] [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. Printed by Maarse Printing Cover by Gijs de Reus Audible Punctuation: Performative Pause in Homeric Prosody Doctoral Thesis to obtain the degree of doctor from Radboud University Nijmegen on the authority of the Rector Magnificus prof. -
Phonetics and Phonology
TRNAVA UNIVERSITY IN TRNAVA FACULTY OF EDUCATION PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY Selected Aspects of English Pronunciation Učebné texty Hana Vančová Trnava 2019 Phonetics and Phonology. Selected Aspects of English Pronunciation Učebné texty. © Mgr. Hana Vančová, PhD. Recenzenti: prof. PaedDr. Silvia Pokrivčáková, PhD. Mgr. Eva Lukáčová, PhD. Jazyková korektúra: M. A. Louise Kocianová Vydal: Pedagogická fakulta Trnavskej univerzity v Trnave Vydanie: prvé Náklad: elektronické vydanie Trnava 2019 ISBN 978-80-568-0178-9 2 OBSAH Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5 1 THE ACOUSTIC ASPECT OF LANGUAGE ................................................................................... 6 1.1 The development of human speech ................................................................................. 6 1.2 Interfaces of phonetics and phonology with other linguistic disciplines ......................... 8 1.3 English orthography and pronunciation ......................................................................... 11 2 PHONEMES AND ALLOPHONES ............................................................................................. 16 2. 1 Vowel sounds ................................................................................................................. 16 2.1.1 Vowels (monophthongs) .......................................................................................... 16 2.1.2 Diphthongs .............................................................................................................. -
I ' Pyrrhic Stress
" QUANTITATIVE IMPLICATIONS OF THE I ' PYRRHIC STRESS ESPECIALLY IN PLAUTUS AND_TERENCE I “’ BY . LINWOOD LEHMAN A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 1924 ._» '7ufu: U ‘x’; U. Va. Damn! Dissertan J a "I ‘33 43601.4 Contents page PART I 7-22 Introducrion - - - ~ - - - - - The Tripudic Theory - - - - - ~ - 11 Introductory Remarks - - - - - - - ll The Tripudic Accentuctl System - - - - 12 .— Further Remarks on the Tripudic Accentual System - 13 The Beginning of the Penultimate Law - - - 14 m.— The Tripudium - - - - - - - - IS The Pynhic Stress - - - - - - - 20 “.v. Necessary Alternation and Coincidence of Accent and lcrus 20 PART II 23-68 . Explanation of Division of Examples 25 Textual Restoration, etc. - - - - - - 28 Manifestations of the Pyrthic Stress - - - - 3O Amphicruo - ~ - - - - - - - 32 Aulula'ria - - - - - - - - - 33 Bacchides - - ' - - ~ - - - - 35 Captiuir - . - - - - - - - 37 Menaechmi - - - - - - - - - 39 Miles Gloriosus - - - - - - - 4-1 Mostellan'a - - - - - - - - Pseudolus - - - - - - - - Rudens - - - - - - - - - Trinummus - - - - - - - - 50 Adelphoe - - - - - - - - - 53 Andria - - - - - ~ - - Eunuchus - - - - - - - - 56 Heauton ‘I'imorumenos - - - - - 57 Hecyra - - ~ - - - - 59 Phrmio - - - — - - - - 61 Piautina Addenda - - - - ~ - 63 Miscellanea - - - - - . - ~67 PART III 69-75 The Iambic Law -- - . - - - 69 Synizesis - - - - - - - _ -70 Lengthening - - - - - . _ . 71 Shortening - - - - - - - 72 . - - _ Nempe, Ille, Quippe, etc. - . 74 Final 5 - - - - .. - - 75 A Mute plus L or R - - - -
Thinking in Song
THINKING IN SONG Prosody, Text-Setting and Music Theory in Eighteenth-Century Germany A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Martin Kuester January 2012 © 2012 Martin Kuester THINKING IN SONG Prosody, Text-Setting and Music Theory in Eighteenth-Century Germany Martin Kuester, Ph.D. Cornell University 2012 Eighteenth-century music theorists habitually used terms that were apparently im- ported from grammar, rhetoric and poetics. While historians of music theory have commonly described these words as reflecting metaphorical attempts to understand music by analogy with language, this study emphasizes their technical value, especially with respect to vocal music, which includes both domains. In the case of Johann Mat- theson, Johann Adolph Scheibe, Joseph Riepel and Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, the literal meaning of this common vocabulary can be recovered by viewing their general composition rules���������������������� in the previously une�amined������������ conte��������������������������������t of their theories for compos- ing te�t and music of vocal works. Chapter One questions the applicability of a ‘metaphor of music as a language’ to eighteenth-century musical thought and proposes a new framework, centered on what Scheibe and others considered �����������������������������������������������the origin of both music and language, prosody. Chapter Two e�amines Mattheson’s famous minuet analysis and concludes that a prosodic sub-discipline of music theory provided a vocabulary that applied, in ten- dency, to words and notes of vocal music, simultaneously. Chapter Three traces the interaction of prosodic parameters in the longer history of ‘musical feet,’ pointing out eighteenth-century theorists’ successful efforts to adapt or re-adapt their terminol- ogy to the practice of modern vocal composition. -
Magis Rythmus Quam Metron: the Structure of Seneca's Anapaests
Magis rythmus quam metron: the structure of Seneca’s anapaests, and the oral/aural nature of Latin poetry Lieven Danckaert To cite this version: Lieven Danckaert. Magis rythmus quam metron: the structure of Seneca’s anapaests, and the oral/aural nature of Latin poetry. Symbolae Osloenses, Taylor & Francis (Routledge): SSH Titles, 2013, 87 (1), pp.148-217. 10.1080/00397679.2013.842310. halshs-01527668 HAL Id: halshs-01527668 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01527668 Submitted on 24 May 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Magis rythmus quam metron : the structure of Seneca's anapaests, and the oral/aural nature of Latin poetry 1 Lieven Danckaert, Ghent University Abstract The aim of this contribution is twofold. The empirical focus is the metrical structure of Seneca's anapaestic odes. On the basis of a detailed formal analysis, in which special attention is paid to the delimitation and internal structure of metrical periods, I argue against the dimeter colometry traditionally assumed. This conclusion in turn is based on a second, more methodological claim, namely that in establishing the colometry of an ancient piece of poetry, the modern metrician is only allowed to set apart a given string of metrical elements as a separate metron, colon or period, if this postulated metrical entity could 'aurally' be distinguished as such by the hearer. -
Downloaded from Brill.Com09/30/2021 10:48:23AM Via Free Access 340 Psaroudakēs and Moschos
Greek and Roman Musical Studies 6 (2018) 339-358 brill.com/grms An Experimental Investigation of Rhythmic Irrationality Stelios Psaroudakēs Department of Music Studies, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens [email protected] Fotis Moschos Laboratory of Musical Acoustics, Department of Music Studies, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens [email protected] Abstract The present paper investigates ‘rhythmic irrationality’ in the medium of recited ‘word’, as this is defined by Aristoxenos and Dionysios Halikarnasseus in three rhythmic con- texts: that of the anapaest, of the dactyl, and of the trochee (choreios). For this purpose, computer experiments have been devised, one for each of the aforementioned irratio- nalities: against the background of a monitored metronome, a line in each rhythm is initially recited in the rational mode. The line is subsequently recited another seven times, with the podic duration which is to suffer diminution or augmentation, in steps of eighths of the time unit. The eight vocal renderings of each line are then assessed psychoacoustically, in order to locate: (a) the point at which our hearing detects the onset of irrationality, and (b) the point at which a shift from the original rhythm to another is sensed. Keywords rhythmic theory – rhythmic irrationality – cyclic anapaest – irrational dactyl – alogos choreios © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/22129758-12341326Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 10:48:23AM via free access 340 Psaroudakēs and Moschos 1 Rhythmic Rationality1 It has been established in the scholarship of ancient Hellenic music that a ‘simple rational foot’ (ῥητὸς ἀσύνθετος/ἁπλοῦς πούς) is defined as the temporal structure2 π = (Χl: Ẋ f) or (Ẋl: Xf), where3 π stands for simple rational foot; Xl stands for the ‘leading part of the foot’ (καθηγούμενος ποδικὸς χρόνος),4 hereafter the ‘leader’, which is a multiple of the ‘unit of time’ (πρῶτος χρόνος).5 Thus, Χl = kυ with k ϵ {1, 2, 3}, i.e. -
Trochees and Iambs2
CHAPTER III. Some Remarks on the Nature of Trochees and Iambs and their Relationship to Other Metres ‘The iambic is the characteristic rhythm of people as they talk […]. The trochaic rhythm, again, is too much akin to the comic dance, as may be seen in tetrameter verse, for the rhythm of tetrameters is light and tripping. (Aristotle, 1932: 3.8, 1408b). The present study assumes that poetic rhythm in the tonic-syllabic system current in English poetry can be best accounted for by three sets of patterns: First, an abstract matrix of expectations consisting of regularly alternating strong and weak positions. Secondly, the stress-pattern of spoken language. Some aspects of this stress pattern confirm the abstract schema (one could even say that it is from these that the reader abstracts the metric pattern); some aspects deviate from it, and produce tension. These deviations, far from being signs of imperfection, of “unmetricality”, are major prosodic and expressive assets. When the reader encounters some deviation from the abstract metric pattern, he makes adjustments in its performance, so as to preserve both his metrical set, that is, his feeling of regularly alternating strong and weak positions and, at the same time, the stress pattern of his spoken language. The adjustment frequently consists in overarticu- lation, overstressing, and additional grouping of stresses. This constitutes the third pattern, the pattern of performance. The greater the deviation, the greater the adjustment required and the tighter the additional grouping, One of the basic assumptions of the present study is, then, that the rhythm of a poem is accessible only through some kind of performance; an adequate account of a poem’s rhythm can be given only by considering the interplay of three patterns: those of metre, stresses and performance.