DOCSLIB.ORG

The Verse of JRR Tolkien

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Verse of JRR Tolkien Volume 19 Number 2 Article 2 Spring 3-15-1993 Another Opinion of "The Verse of J.R.R. Tolkien" Paul Edwin Zimmer Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Zimmer, Paul Edwin (1993) "Another Opinion of "The Verse of J.R.R. Tolkien"," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 19 : No. 2 , Article 2. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Response to a paper by Melanie Rawls in Mythlore #71. Disagrees with that paper’s negative attitude toward Tolkien’s poetry, giving detailed technical analysis to support his points. Additional Keywords Tolkien, J.R.R. Poetry; Tolkien, J.R.R. Poetry—Technique This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss2/2 p a .e e is i s s u e 72 — S P R I N G 1 9 9 3 CDyTfrLoKe ^TNKDnrltMK. OpiMioiKa op *tU!l]3xs V o s s s op jpELlEl !ToiLIkii(SNjM PAUL GO WIN Z1CPCDGR though Melanie Rawls, in "The Verse of J.R.R. "m odem times [,] exposed for [3] decades to free, un­ Tolkien" [Issue 71] seems at first to assume the rhymed, personal poetry" many younger poets find such L E O J posture of a neutral [critic], making an unbiased, work itself "old-fashioned." As I said in a poem of my own, IffS irYl balanced evaluation of Tolkien's verse, she never first published in 1985: "Aesthetic theories come and go I even attempts to examine the bias of hostile critics; nor ... Now rhyme is out, free verse is in — I Has been since I does she raise the question of how lasting art can possibly was young ....m1 be judged according to standards that are, themselves, less Despite his popularity in the Sixties, Tolkien should not than a hundred years old. be treated as a contemporary of Alan Ginsberg or Michael Her own bias appears fairly quickly, in her opposition of McClure. Old-fashioned? Tolkien was old, bom in the "old-fashioned techniques of rhyme and strict meter coupled same year as Edna St. Vincent Millay and Archibald with alliteration and assonance" to "free verse with modem MacLeish, a year before Wilfred Owen, and three years purpose or technique ... in these modem times exposed for before Robert Graves. He was only five years younger than decades to free, unrhymed, personal poetry." Rupert Brook; only six years younger than Joyce Kilmer; only twelve years younger than Alfred Noyes? Now, I have m yself written a great deal of "free verse," and there are many poets who can and have created fine To judge from her comments on "The Little House of (and possibly lasting) poetry "with modern purpose or Lost Play, (which is the poem actually quoted, although technique." There has also been a great deal of dull, insipid, Rawls gives the title of the earlier version) she must really stupid, rhymed-and-metered verse written, especially in hate the verbal music of N oyes' ’T h e Barrel Organ"!4 The the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. (But only histo­ richness of sound at which Rawls sneers was part of a rians are aware of it; dull, insipid verse, whether rhymed literary trend that had begun with Swinburne. It could be and metered, or "free," does not survive.) argued that Tolkien was, in fact, trying to write "verse with modern purpose or technique" according to the standards The great literary struggle (or is it, perhaps, only an of the time - this poem was written in April 1915, two advertising campaign?) of this century has been the at­ months before ’The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" was tempt (largely successful) of the practitioners of "modem published for the first time.5 poetry" (both the early modernists of the Twenties to the Fifties, whose "free verse" was metrically constructed, and Literary convention in 1915 demanded a bridge be­ frequently rhymed; and the later moderns, of the past three tween this workaday world and any other world. This decades, whose "free verse" is normally unrhymed, un­ poem, and the chapter it accompanies, were attempts to metered, and "personal") to validate their own work by meet this requirement. deriding "traditional" verse with such loaded terms as The poem is cloyingly sentimental, and this is not to my "contrived," "old-fashioned," "metrical straitjacket," "near­ doggerel," "cliches," etc. taste; nor, indeed, to Tolkien's, which is why this approach was abandoned. But sentimentality was inherent in that It is my own suspicion that many attacks on Tolkien's particular approach to the literary problem, and therefore work should be seen in the context of this struggle, and appropriate to its subject. that those critics who have made the most savage com­ Sentimental, cloying, silly, perhaps even, "maudlin"; ments were in fact defending the supremacy of "free verse with modem purpose" against a perceived threat. but, "mawkish"? "Mawkish" (derived from the same root as "maggot," its original meaning, "nauseating" and with Unfortunately for this thesis, one of Tolkien's staunch­ an aural echo of "awkward," with which it is frequently est defenders, W.H. Auden, was a major figure in m odem linked as a cliche) is a term of propaganda, not of criticism. poetry; while the only one quoted here whom I know personally, or whose verse I have seen, L. Sprague de There is no awkwardness here, and no "failure of craft." Camp, writes sonnets and other traditional forms. Thus The poem is skillfully put together, and fulfills its purpose far, I must admit, the evidence is against me, yet I suspect admirably. Although it did not fit the new standard of taste that a survey of the poetry (or expressed poetic opinions) which Pound was then attempting (vainly) to impose, it is of Bold, Stimson, and W ilson could be revealing. well within the standard of the time, and compares favor­ ably with work from the same general period by (for Rawls seems unaware that "today, in these" [post-] example) Alfred Noyes and William Rose Benet.6 CDvtI?LOK€ i s s u e 72 — SPRING 1993 PA.Q G 17 The simple fact that this work is so typical of the period Now, what was so difficult about that? should dispose of Alan Bold's absurd comment that Tolkien The lines chosen to represent "The Lay of the Children was "incapable of understanding ... post medieval poetry." of Hurin" are indeed flawed. Tolkien would no doubt have This would seem to be justified by Tolkien's public disdain amended them if he had continued his revision. But why, for any writer after Chaucer; yet a study of Tolkien's letters after saying, ’Tolkien worked and reworked" this poem, soon reveals familiarity with Keats, with Francis Thompson, choose the example from the unrevised section? with Chesterton, de la Mare, and other "post-medievals." There is no doubt that Tolkien preferred the older writers, but I myself would have removed the unnecessary "then” "incapable of understanding" is surely carrying it a bit far. from the first line, so it would read: "In eager anger up Again, "Kortirion Among the Trees," also from 1915, sprang Beleg." Whether this revision is one Tolkien would suffers more from the attempt to meet contemporary (1915) have made cannot, of course, be said, but in the small standards of taste than from any lack of skill. The "decora­ portion that he did revise, many lines are tightened thus. tive words” objected to were still considered a virtue in Consider the shift from: British (and American) verse of the time. Aesthetic fashions "For Turgon towering in terrible anger have changed. They will change again. Many common a pathway clove him with his pale sword-blade" practices in "verse with modem purpose or technique" will to: seem quite ludicrous seventy-eight years from now. "that Turgon the terrible towering in anger What can possibly be said about ’Tinfang Warble?" A pathway clove with pale falchion" Well, to begin with, it lacks the metrical "ticking clock" regularity which Rawls found so annoying in "The Little But yes, even these flawed lines, "read aloud with the proper House of Lost Play" — so she should like it better. There are dramatic" skills, will indeed hold an audience spellbound. two anapests in the first line; trochee-spondee-anapest in At first Ms. Rawls' comments on "Turin" seem to be the second; third paeon-spondee-trochee in the third. But fairly complimentary. But suddenly, in her following com­ is the fourth line (1) a first paeon followed by a monosyl­ ment ("perhaps not. Particularly at such epic length") a labic foot, (2) a dactyl followed by an iamb, or (3) a trochee suspicion begins to rise that perhaps she has been speaking followed by an anapest? ironically the whole time, a suspicion rudely confirmed The metrical complexity of this poem is truly wonder­ when she denounces "The Lay of Leithian" as "an even ful, a joy and a puzzlement; alternating iambs and tro­ greater verse disaster." chees; wild shifts from dactyl to anapest.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Introduction to Meter
    Introduction to Meter A stress or accent is the greater amount of force given to one syllable than another. English is a language in which all syllables are stressed or unstressed, and traditional poetry in English has used stress patterns as a fundamental structuring device. Meter is simply the rhythmic pattern of stresses in verse. To scan a poem means to read it for meter, an operation whose noun form is scansion. This can be tricky, for although we register and reproduce stresses in our everyday language, we are usually not aware of what we’re going. Learning to scan means making a more or less unconscious operation conscious. There are four types of meter in English: iambic, trochaic, anapestic, and dactylic. Each is named for a basic foot (usually two or three syllables with one strong stress). Iambs are feet with an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable. Only in nursery rhymes to do we tend to find totally regular meter, which has a singsong effect, Chidiock Tichborne’s poem being a notable exception. Here is a single line from Emily Dickinson that is totally regular iambic: _ / │ _ / │ _ / │ _ / My life had stood – a loaded Gun – This line serves to notify readers that the basic form of the poem will be iambic tetrameter, or four feet of iambs. The lines that follow are not so regular. Trochees are feet with a stressed syllable, followed by an unstressed syllable. Trochaic meter is associated with chants and magic spells in English: / _ │ / _ │ / _ │ / _ Double, double, toil and trouble, / _ │ / _ │ / _ │ / _ Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Metrical Feet Iamb (Iambic) Betray Anapest
    Meter & Form Metrical Feet Iamb (iambic) betray Anapest (anapestic) intercede Trochee (trochaic) stupor Dactyl (dactylic) secondly Spondee (spondaic) stop light Pyrrhic a night / for the / ghosts Some Other Metrical Concerns caesuras end-stopped vs. enjambed lines rhyme ************************************ “It is not meters, but a meter-making argument that makes a poem.” Emerson “[Meter] can’t be merely a careless dash off, with no grip and no real hold to the words and sense.” Pound ************************************ According to Paul Fussell in Poetic Meter & Poetic Form, there are three principles of expression that metric variations convey: 1 A succession of stressed syllables without the expected intervening unstressed syllables can reinforce effects of slowness, weight, or difficulty; 2 A succession of unstressed syllables without the expected intervening stressed syllables can reinforce effects of rapidity, lightness, or ease; 3 An unanticipated reversal in rhythm implies a sudden movement, often of discovery or illumination; or a new direction of thought, a new tone of voice, or a change or intensification of poetic address. 1 Meter & Form Some Examples Listen! / you hear / the gra / ting roar / Of peb / bles which / the waves / draw back, / and fling, / At their / return, / up the / high strand, / Begin, / and cease, / and then / again / begin / . (Arnold, “Dover Beach”) . through many a dark and dreary Vale They pass’d, and many a Region dolorous, O’er many a Frozen, many a Fiery Alp, Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death. (PL) Drove them before him Thunder-struck, pursu’d With terrors and with furies to the bounds And Crystal wall of Heav’n, which op’ning wide, Roll’d inward, and a spacious Gap disclos’d Into the wasteful Deep; the monstrous sight Strook them with hoor backward, but far worse Urg’d them behind; headlong themselves they threw Down from the verge of Heav’n, Eternal wrath Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rhythm of the Gods' Voice. the Suggestion of Divine Presence
    T he Rhythm of the Gods’ Voice. The Suggestion of Divine Presence through Prosody* E l ritmo de la voz de los dioses. La sugerencia de la presencia divina a través de la prosodia Ronald Blankenborg Radboud University Nijmegen [email protected] Abstract Resumen I n this article, I draw attention to the E ste estudio se centra en la meticulosidad gods’ pickiness in the audible flow of de los dioses en el flujo audible de sus expre- their utterances, a prosodic characteris- siones, una característica prosódica del habla tic of speech that evokes the presence of que evoca la presencia divina. La poesía hexa- the divine. Hexametric poetry itself is the métrica es en sí misma el lenguaje de la per- * I want to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of ARYS for their suggestions and com- ments. https://doi.org/10.20318/arys.2020.5310 - Arys, 18, 2020 [123-154] issn 1575-166x 124 Ronald Blankenborg language of permanency, as evidenced by manencia, como pone de manifiesto la litera- wisdom literature, funereal and dedicatory tura sapiencial y las inscripciones funerarias inscriptions: epic poetry is the embedded y dedicatorias: la poesía épica es el lenguaje direct speech of a goddess. Outside hex- directo integrado de una diosa. Más allá de ametric poetry, the gods’ special speech la poesía hexamétrica, el habla especial de los is primarily expressed through prosodic dioses es principalmente expresado mediante means, notably through a shift in rhythmic recursos prosódicos, especialmente a través profile. Such a shift deliberately captures, de un cambio en el perfil rítmico.
    [Show full text]
  • Miscellanea the Long Um and Biceps of the Greek
    MISCELLANEA THE LONG UM AND BICEPS OF THE GREEK HEXAMETER Recent articles by Irigoin 1) and Devine & Stephens 2) have demonstrated that the statement of Dionysius of Halicarnassus that the monosyllabic biceps of the Greek hexameter is 'longer' 3) than the longum is basically true 4). Irigoin concluded that the phonetic structure of the longunz was different from that of the biceps. Devine & Stephens deny this, and attribute the greater length of the biceps to the effect of the metrical structure of the hexameter on the Greek language. There is, of course, a basic difference between the longum and the biceps : the former cannot be resolved, the latter can. Devine & Stephens are right, however, to suggest that the structure of the hexameter is usually responsible for a shorter longum. This becomes very clear when we consider such factors as lengthening in arsis, hiatus in arsis, short final vowel lengthened in arsis before mute and liquid, and so on. These features are mentioned by West 5) as evi- dence that the thesis (biceps) is longer than the arsis (longum). If the arsis were as long as the thesis, according to West, there would be no reason why such factors should not occur as readily in thesis; they are tolerated in arsis because the arsis is shorter. This state- ment, however, overlooks a fundamental factor in the structure of the Greek hexameter: the restrictions on word-end in thesis. The factors mentioned by West generally involve word-end, the length- ened syllable usually being final. The possibility of 'lengthening in thesis' obviously presupposes a monosyllabic thesis; but word-end after a monosyllabic biceps is greatly restricted in the hexameter 6).
    [Show full text]
  • 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 .
    [Show full text]
  • Poetic Diction, Poetic Discourse and the Poetic Register
    proceedings of the British Academy, 93.21-93 Poetic Diction, Poetic Discourse and the Poetic Register R. G. G. COLEMAN Summary. A number of distinctive characteristics can be iden- tified in the language used by Latin poets. To start with the lexicon, most of the words commonly cited as instances of poetic diction - ensis; fessus, meare, de, -que. -que etc. - are demonstrably archaic, having been displaced in the prose register. Archaic too are certain grammatical forms found in poetry - e.g. auldi, gen. pl. superum, agier, conticuere - and syntactic constructions like the use of simple cases for pre- I.positional phrases and of infinitives instead of the clausal structures of classical prose. Poets in all languages exploit the linguistic resources of past as well as present, but this facility is especially prominent where, as in Latin, the genre traditions positively encouraged imitatio. Some of the syntactic character- istics are influenced wholly or partly by Greek, as are other ingredients of the poetic register. The classical quantitative metres, derived from Greek, dictated the rhythmic pattern of the Latin words. Greek loan words and especially proper names - Chaoniae, Corydon, Pyrrha, Tempe, Theseus, Zephym etc. -brought exotic tones to the aural texture, often enhanced by Greek case forms. They also brought an allusive richness to their contexts. However, the most impressive charac- teristics after the metre were not dependent on foreign intrusion: the creation of imagery, often as an essential feature of a poetic argument, and the tropes of semantic transfer - metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche - were frequently deployed through common words. In fact no words were too prosaic to appear in even the highest poetic contexts, always assuming their metricality.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • 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 ..............................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Definitions & Identify 1. Which of the Following Is A
    Check for Understanding: Definitions & Identify 1. Which of the following is a definition of an iamb? (Short = unstressed, long = stressed) a. 1 short syllable followed by another short syllable b. 1 short syllable followed by a long syllable c. 1 long syllable followed by another long syllable d. 1 long syllable followed by a short syllable 2. Which of these words is an iamb? a. Employ b. Coffee c. Drinking d. Eat 3. Which of these words is not an iamb? a. Unfit b. Unwell c. Behold d. Freedom 4. What is the definition of a metrical foot? a. A syllable b. A group of 5 or more syllables c. A rhyme scheme in a poem d. A group of 2-3 syllables that form a rhythmic unit 5. All of these are types of metrical feet except – a. Iamb b. Trochee c. Spondee d. Taradactyl e. Dactyl 6. True or False: A metrical foot can only be one word. a. True b. False 7. True or False: An iamb must be more than one word. a. True b. False 8. True or False: Poems that rhyme have meter. a. True b. False 9. True or False: Poems that do not rhyme have meter. a. True b. False 10. True or False: A poem’s meter cannot change throughout a poem. a. True b. False Answer KEY 1. Which of the following is a definition of an iamb? (Short = unstressed, long = stressed) a. 1 short syllable followed by another short syllable b. 1 short syllable followed by a long syllable c.
    [Show full text]