Literary Stylistics

1
Literary Stylistics

• Lecture 5 The Sounds of Poetry 2

2
Quotation from Halliday

• In the first edition of his Introduction
• the received tradition of English metrical
  analysis, which is based on the classical metrics
  of Latin and Greek, does not accurately account
  for the rhythmic properties of English verse (p.
  10).
• However, the metrical tradition in Latin and
  Greek is quantitative, and not, as is the
  dominant tradition in English poetry,
  accentual-syllabic (more discussion later).

3
Advantage of the phonometric metre, --

• Cannot be denied for at least some types of
  English verse.
• For example, nursery rhymes or children's verse.
• However, Halliday is less successful in the
  phonometric analysis of more serious poetry.

4
Phonometric example of problematic analysis

• Let us take his analysis of a stanza from Gray's
  Elegy in a Country Churchyard.
• The Curfeu tolls the Knell of parting Day
• The lowing Herd winds slowly o'er the Lea
• The Plow-man homeward plods his weary Way
• And leaves the World to Darkness, and to me.

X / X / X / X / X /


X / X / X / X / X /


X / X / X / X / X
/


X / X / X / X / X /
5
Phonometric where its strong

• In nursery rhymes, limericks and other simple
  verse in English however, the number of stresses
  per line is significant, and not quite the
  repetition of weak and strong stresses in an
  ordered sequence in each foot. Hence the
  phonometric approach seems to be more appropriate
  for these verse genres.

6
Phonometric example
/ x / x / x / x 4

• Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
• Had a wife and couldn't keep her.
• He put her in a pumpkin shell
• And there he kept her, very well.

/ x / x / x / x 4
x / x / x / x / 4
x / x / x / x / 4
7
Phonometric another example
/ / / x / x / 5

• These are Grandma's spectacles,
• This is Grandma's hat.
• This is the way she folds her hands,
• And lays them in her lap.

/ / / x / 4
/ / x / x / x / 5
/ / x / x / 4
8
Other Metrical Schemes

• accentual
• accentual-syllabic
• syllabic
• quantitative

9
Accentual metres

• The phonometric system has some similarities with
  the accentual metrical system.
• Some English poems are written with accentual
  metres (see Leech pp. 118-9).
• Poems written with this metre were prevalent in
  Old and Middle English,
• However, accentual metre in Old and Middle
  English poetry is virtually synonymous with what
  is known as alliterative metre (i.e., the
  combination of both stress and alliteration).

10
Alliterative metres?

• We will be restricting ourselves to poems written
  in modern English for this course
• But accentual metre does survive in modern
  English verse.
• We see it not only in nursery rhymes and other
  simple verse, but there are also some interesting
  examples of more serious poems in modern English
  which use accentual metres.

11
Accentual-syllabic metre

• The dominant mode of versification for many poems
  written in modern English is not accentual, but
  accentual-syllabic.
• Accentual-syllabic
• One is not only interested in the number of
  stresses per line in the accentual-syllabic
  approach to versification,
• But also, in the number of syllables per line
• the stresses must also be regularly arranged in
  relation to the syllables.

12
Inadequacy of stress-based approach

• One reason why stress-based approaches, like the
  phonometric approach, may not always be adequate,
  is that both the number of stresses and syllables
  per line, are significant for the analysis of
  many poems written in modern English.

13
Syllabic metre

• There have also been experiments that attempt to
  write English poems that concentrate on only the
  number of syllables per line.
• The most famous practitioner of the syllabic mode
  of versification was the American poet Marianne
  Moore.
• The number of syllables of a line in a stanza of
  a poem written with syllabic metre, is the same
  for each of the corresponding lines of the other
  stanzas.

14
Quantitative metres

• Yet another minor (but historically important)
  metrical tradition, is the quantitative.
• In the quantitative approach to metre, one takes
  into consideration
• not only the number of syllables per line,
• but also the duration or length of each syllable.
  
• Latin and Greek verse, -- the English language
  does not seem to be entirely comfortable with
  this kind of metre.

15
The Analysis of Sounds

• Other Considerations
• duration,
• vowel length and sound duration in general
• the speed of articulation of poetry.

16
Vowel length and other factors

• Vowel length
• diphthongs,
• triphthongs,
• consonants and
• consonant clusters,

17
Other terms

• Also, the following terms, which you, as
  third-year students, should be familiar with
• sibilant,
• nasal,
• plosive,

• liquid,
• fricative,
• aspirate,
• affricate, and
• voiced/unvoiced.

18
Further terms

• You should also know (or find out about) the
  following literary terms
• assonance,
• consonance,
• rhyme (including feminine, masculine, half (or
  para-), and imperfect rhymes), and
• onomatopoeia.

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Rhyme and onomatopoeia

• Defined in the definition of literary terms.
• You may also want to refer to Abrams' Glossary of
  Literary Terms.
• Chapter 6 of Leech's A Linguistic Guide to
  English Poetry contains a brief discussion of
  most of the linguistic and literary terms
  mentioned above.

20
pause or silence

• See Leech pp. 107-8.
• Created by
• grapho-metric,
• orthographic and
• grammatical divisions.

21
Enjambment

• In literary criticism, if the grapho-metric unit
  of the line does not coincide with the relevant
  grammatical and orthographic unit, an enjambment
  is created.
• An enjambment results in what is known as a
  run-on line.
• The opposite of run-on line is end-stopped line,
  where there is a coincidence of the line with the
  relevant orthographic and grammatical units.

22
Caesurae

• The pauses created by grammatical and
  orthographic divisions that occur somewhere in
  the middle of the lines of a poem are known as
  caesurae in traditional metrics.

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Dead End
X / X / / / X /

• No more for me frail butterflies
• Drifting round about the bushes,
• Sipping sweet-sour tears, the pretty lies,
• Golden wings of schoolboy crushes.

/ X / X / X / X
/ X / / / X / X /
/ X / X / X / X
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X / X / X / X /

• No more the days I would compel
• My heart to make up words,
• Waste all my time at singing well
• Some mimicry of foreign birds.

X / X / X /
/ X X / X / X /
X / X / X / X /
Generally iambic
25
X / X / X / X /

• And yet for all the mining pools,
• The latex flowing all year long,
• What power can drive Malaya's pulse
• Or tap a rhythm for its song?

X / X / X / / /
/ / X / X / X /
X / X / X / X /
26
This Bread I Break
X / X / X / X /

• This bread I break was once the oat,
• This wine upon a foreign tree
• Plunged in its fruit
• Man in the day or wind at night
• Laid the crops low, broke the grape's joy.

X / X / X / X /
/ X X /
Quadruple beat?
/ X X / X / X /
/ X X / / X X /
27
/ X X / X / X /

• Once in this wine the summer blood
• Knocked in the flesh that decked the vine,
• Once in this bread
• The oat was merry in the wind
• Man broke the sun, pulled the wind down.

/ X X / X / X /
/ X X /
X / X / X X X /
/ / X / / X X /
28
X / X / X / X /

• This flesh you break, this blood you let
• Make desolation in the vein,
• Were oat and grape
• Born of the sensual root and sap
• My wine you drink, my bread you snap.

/ / X / X / X /
X / X /
/ X X / X / X /
X / X / X / X /