) which, despite my respects for clearly demonstrated erudition, left me feeling wanting for the actual mechanisms of rhythm control in theory and practice, I believe the following doctrines are known by the various poets but are not often verbalized because of their seeming apparentness. (There are exceptions, for example the aesthetical letters of Hopkins concerning Milton which I will quote from later.)
The topics covered in this essay will be as follows:
1= musicality in opposition to smoothness: the Smooth-line and groove
2= counter-point, precise-ambiguity, and breath
3=rhythm with conception vs rhythm abstracted
4= as an extension of 1, an explanation on the temporal phenomenology in terms of the limitation of retention and protention of feet, and the benefits this yields
to define our first point I want to illustrate via a simple analysis of terms, poetry, song, verse as a whole is full of the conceit of “flow” the water motif, and when we speak of “smoothness” we think immediately of the flow of some water, for what does Spenser mean by “ Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.” But that, his poetic vigor is drawn from the flow of the Thames, but let us consider, the smooth flowing river is not the euphonious babbling one which is praised for its variety of sounds, rather, the smooth river like the smooth verse is defined chiefly via a precise monotony, whereas the true prosaic is defined by an imprecise cacophony, where then is the musical and sonorous found? Just as the idealized “liquid language” it is in a language at once regulated to smoothness but absorbing enough variation as to avoid the dissipation of energies, this is akin to the rapid rivers, the white waters, to the poly-rhythms of the musicians, for lack of a better term we may define this nebulous sonic quality of regulated-variation “groove” or “contour” for, like the contour of a wood-working, the bends and angles are always harmonious with the wood, but are chiefly giving defineable characteristic to the wood via their disruption of the monotony, likewise, “groove” is not in music the playing in perfect synch nor even the evolution of a canon, it is a vital but repetitive (that is to say, simultaneously narrative and evolving ) development of a company of sounds which continuously develops along the continuously moving “center” pocket, in our diagram I have titled the center of the pocket “the smoothline” which is, not the most musical but rather the maker of musicality, in contrast to the broader boundary of the groove, the bouncing of which along is the actual generator of energetic musicality. The diagram is presuming an “iambic logic” by which I mean to say, the center of the groove is a return to the iamb’s natural balance, non-balanced feet also generate a regular-groove center via the fact of the limits of human pretention and protention effectively meaning that only the preceding foot and current foot have an actual influence and memory, with a very slight mental coloration by the anticipated as-of-yet following few syllables (2 in the case of normative feet, 3 in the case of triple.) therefore these unbalanced feet maintain groove without becoming prosaic, instead because of the laws of their boundaries and mental grasp, they simply have a sensation of “swing” (thus the heightened musicality of all imbalanced meters)
(So for example in 2 anapestic feet, we move from smooth rhythmic to briefly groove to rhythmic, then in the second foot, groove, briefly prosaic, then groove again, thus by the third foot we simply reset the aforementioned count, never spiraling into an abysm of the prosaic)
(Example written for the diagram
This LINE’S/RHYT-um/ is the
pre-CISE/ONE we/have from
the MAP/GIV-en/
Notice, despite every line being varied, the flow is there, this is due to it obeying the groove boundaries perfectly and ends at the touch of the prosaic,)
The smooth line and return to it dictates that the sounds coming out of your mouth sound smooth, As long as there’s a return to the smooth line there’s a return to smooth texture, bobbing up and down the groove boundary in exotic ways is how you make groovy musical sounds. However the danger is, if you go too far out of the boundary of the groove, you lapse into the prose zone, which can still be used for musicality and certain smooth groove tricks but, in general, is harder to work with if you want pure musicality, The chart and its ideas can be used in your normal prose, because you can still go into the prose zone as much as you want, Just keep aware the smooth line exists and try to abide by it sometimes, boom now you have “rhythmic prose “
The prose zone is not an enemy since when doing something basic like a double iamb (a pyrrhic followed by a spondee.), you go from the groove boundary into the prose zone, and rapidly back into the groove and smooth line, resulting in a more intense iambic pattern.
“its a HARD FLIGHT to the SMOOTH LINE that’s WHY it can SOUND HARSH but IN a GOOD WAY that is DIFerent.”
Iamb = unstressed followed by stress
Trochee= opposite of the above
Spondee = Two stresses in a single foot/unit
Pyrrhic = two unstressed syllables in a single unit
Example of a smooth line
this LINE is WRIT ten SMOOTH lee BUT it LACKS a CER tin SOME thing
But when speaking like normal you’ll find lines like this with rhythm
but WHEN/ SPEAK ing/ like NOR/mal you’ll/ FIND LINES/ like THIS/ with RHYT/um
But such perfection in smooth-return is not essential, for a variety of purposes one may very temporarily replace an iamb with an anapest (two unstressed followed by stress) or a baccius (an unstressed followed by two stresses) and because of the return to the rhythmic-norm, that is, the temporal center of the groove through the regulation of the preceding and current foot, they do not actually break rhythm or musicality via the insertion of any sort of alternative foot (presuming such is done obeying the logic of the intended category of groove)
Something should be said to the additional layer of relational-stress vs a more simplistic easy rhythm, for one may create illusions of force or swiftness without breaking any smoothness via the stacking of words which, on their own, are unstressed or stressed, but when coupled, must be read as normal.
Here is an excerpt from another verse I’ve written which uses the relational stress over and over to produce a pseudo force, but because the simplistic smoothness is never broken, a sort of sensation of ethereality is gained.
“roselight flutters,
As brooklets glide,
The rosewoods shutters,
At rising tides,
The greenwood’s washed,
The sleek wold’s wet,
a soft streak’s on,
The silk-shod bents”
“the ROSE-wood SHUTT
the GREEN-wood’s WASHED
the SLEEK wold’s WET
a SOFT streak’s ON
The SILK shod BENTS”
It is not proper to measure this as an alternative rhythm or meter or the like, for these are more beneficially defined as secondary characteristics (that is, definitions) to the feet in question, so that, “shod BENT’s” ought be considered a normal iamb, simply making a play of the voice, these are however not extreme examples of ambiguity, for, one may intentionally write a line with the ability to be scanned in variable ways, and the benefit of this is that, you simultaneously gain two divergent rhythms which are self-euphonious mingling in a single pronounciation, such vagueness defines the work of latter Milton, Hopkins, bridges, clough, Tennyson, Swinburne and many others, here are two quotes demonstrating how the conscious play of multiple-scansions-at-once with diversity in the rhythm itself was considered essential by two major poet’s interpretation of Milton.
First, Hopkins.
“I should add that Milton is the great standard in the use of counterpoint. In Paradise Lost and Regained, in the last more freely, it being an advance in his art, he employs counterpoint more or less everywhere, markedly now and then; but the choruses of Samson Agonistes are in my judgment counterpointed throughout; that is, each line (or nearly so) has two different coexisting scansions” - letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Arthur clough demonstrating the same knowledge
“His "Bothie" was just about to be published, and he gave me some account of it, particularly of the metre. He repeated, in his melodious way, several lines, intended to show me how a verse might be read so that one syllable should take up the time of two, or, conversely, two of one. The line which he instanced (altered, I think, from "Evangeline") was this:
White | naked | feet on the | gleaming | floor of her | chamber.
This was new to me, as I had not risen beyond the common notion of spondees, dactyls, and the rest. So I asked for more explanation. He bade me scan the first line of the "Paradise Lost." I began, "'Of man's:' iambus." "Yes." "'First dis-'"——There I was puzzled. It did not seem an iambus or a spondee: it was nearly a trochee, but not quite one. He then explained to me his conception of the rhythm. The two feet "first disobe-" took up the time of four syllables, two iambic feet: the voice rested awhile on the word "first," then passed swiftly over "diso-," then rested again on "be-," so as to recover the previous hurry. I think he went on to explain that in the next foot, "dience and," both syllables were short, but that the loss of time was made up for by the pause required by the sense after the former of the two, and that finally the voice rested on the full-sounding word "fruit." Possibly this last impression may really be the result of my own subsequent use of the clue which he then gave me. But a clue it was in the fullest sense of the term: it gave me an insight into rhythm which I had not before, and which has constantly been my guide since both in reading and writing” - Arthur clough’s memoirs.
Here are a few examples I’ve written for my own usage, these are written to be simultaneously scannable as dactyl-spondees (properly dactylic tetrameter with spondee subs on the second and fourth) but also normative iambic logics.
feel you this harsh pain, forcing itself hard,
Grinding your skull down, making you laid-flat,
Make to remembrance jolting and hot-heat,
Starvation ne’er paused save for a slime oozed
Drawn from a slain hound, it was thy kinsman,
Prison and dark crate, blood at a fast pump,
These are yours days-length, suffering fear-strained.
These lines all can either be scanned as
FEEL you this/ HARSH PAIN/ FORC-ing it/SELF HARD
GRIND-ing your/ SKULL DOWN/ MAK-ing you/ LAID FLAT
etc
OR
FEEL-you/this HARSH/pain FORC-ing/ it SELF HARD
GRIND-ing/ your SKULL/ down MAK/ing you/LAID FLAT
This ambiguity in this example allows a militaristic savagery to be demonstrated, and the normative smoothness not just left undamaged, it instead gains musicality due to the inherent harmony of a line with itself, thus the two rhythms inherently synthesizing.
But this leads into a question, pure musicality or pure sonorous element is not the ultimate ideal in all cases, in the prior verse I perform the counterpoint for the characters harshness, rhythm per foot may be modified in unity with the actual sense of the line, this poem by Alexander pope (which he plagiarized as its an almost 1=1 translation of girlamo vida) is a gold standard of sense-rhythm unity.
“Sound and Sense
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!”
Notice how he’s also used relational stresses to imply heaviness, and magnified this via a comma to slow the flow of breath, the regulation of pure syllabic length, comma and line break are primal sound regulations and, more primitive than proper rhythm controls, has a matching ferocious influence upon the sound of the verse when used properly, for which Blake says
“When this Verse was first dictated to me I consider'd a Monotonous Cadence like that used by Milton & Shakespeare & all writers of English Blank Verse, derived from the modern bondage of Rhyming; to be a necessary and indispensible part of Verse. But I soon found that in the mouth of a true Orator such monotony was not only awkward, but as much a bondage as rhyme itself. I therefore have produced a variety in every line, both of cadences & number of syllables. Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit place: the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific parts—the mild & gentle, for the mild & gentle parts, and the prosaic, for inferior parts: all are necessary to each other.”
From the psalms to the hymns of the Egyptians, to Palestinian folk song, to the fragments and remnants of Sumerian and Akkadian verse, we see clearly the primacy of breath regulation/syllabic length, the general rule being:
The shorter line is the more musical (in extreme cases even the singular foot of 2 syllables, for example the song lyric
“ I wish
I did-
N’t miss
You an
Y more” )
The longer line is more stately, and that, the coupling of short lines after long produces a greater sense of musical satisfaction, or, even, catharsis (this is universal, the common lament in Semitic literature is the kinnot style, which is 3 stresses followed by 2, the traditional western elegiac meter is 6 stresses followed by 5, in more musical context the difference in syllable and/or stress count will be more severe.)
Why? To return to the question of temporal phenomenology, we humans practically when listening can divide roughly between a longerish verse or a shorterish, only the highly trained poet will be able to hear a stranger speak to him and without conscious effort be able to tell if he spoke 9 or 11 syllables, 2-4 syllables are easily blended into one another, and 1-2 stresses easily blended unless the total of stresses is quite short, in practice test it yourself, write four lines of 10, 11, 12 and 13 syllables, the reader will find the difference between 10 and 11 is nearly nothing, 10 and 12 if given the division of two whole lines likewise hardly is memorable, only by the 13th will the reader begin to notice a certain length increase subtly, and even then, not much, likewise, a verse of 8 syllables and 7 is nearly identical, we see this in practice with the “common meter” which is supposed to be written 8 then 6, 8 then 6, but in practice has shown variations in the multitudes of songs, with 7 taking every position, + the various settings designed still operating even when every line is turnt into 6 or 8 in length. Likewise when we read a line, we only have so much mental grasp of it, we do not remember the 15 syllabics sound of its 5th syllable in an immediate way that influences the 12th syllable’s pronunciation, we only recall how the last two-three syllables sounded, and how that informs how the current syllable we are now saying is to be said, which may or may not tumble over into the next, such is played with by various poets who will perform “pseudo anapestics” via performing a comma’d double iamb.
“Which LOOKS/ as this,/ TURNT NOR/mal IN/ the NEXT/ SYL-a/ble”
By the time we reach “the next “ in the above, the quick galloping like speed of the double iamb prior and its pseudo anapest is utterly depleted, even if it’s a true anapest:
“This SOUND/has a GAL/op ADD/ed SUB/sit-TUT/ing”
By the time we reach “ed sub,”there is no memory of the gallop, only an abstract knowledge of it, the same applies for all other feet, we may only ever grasp what was immediately prior, and what currently is.
Among the ancients, we find combinations of all of the above techniques already present, for within the elder of Roman comedy, Plautus, we already see “mixed “ songs using a predominant “logic” as previously described, but having as its parts everything ranging from cretics to iambs to dactyls, all within variable line lengths, likewise among the Greeks we see multitudes of these two features in the works of pindar and bacchylides and with them, we may presume the multitude of lost lyrics in their shared style were alike in this, we can also see the likes of Catullus employing excessive substitution, here is an example of the galliambic logic at his employ while writing of a eunuch.
u u u u u u u u - - || u u - u u u uu
ĕgŏ mŭlĭĕr, ĕg(o) ădŏlēscēns,|| ĕg(o) ĕphēbŭs, ĕgŏ pŭĕr
- Catullus 63, Line 63
"I am a woman, I am an adolescent, I am a youth, I am a boy"
For the loss of his manhood, the scarcity of stresses is a perfectly sensible unity with the sense, but of course is also a virtuosic display in sound.
Contrast this with another line, but 10 lines after, where he repents of his loss, notice the masculinity of it.
– – u – u – – || – – u – u –
iam iam dolet quod ēgī || iam iamque paenitet.
- Catullus 63, Line 73
"Now I am sorry for what I have done, now, now I repent"
We of course find identical demonstrates among Sanskrit and Hindi verse in the usual suspects, one need only look into the Anuṣṭubh or sloka meter to find the numerous allowable substitutions, we also find numerous examples in English scattered but a great concentration of them begin inspired by cowley’s putting into vogue the Pindaric which allowed the poets to perform all of the above, which mind you, they always did in the plays, it is only within the strict verse that you had complications, which slowly grew their various allowances anyways (for example pre-Roscommon the trochaic sub in any spot other than the first foot was very rare, but his influence in Dryden quickly spread the trochaic sub across the line, Likewise Dryden’s chief competition were d’urfey and elkanah settle, who standardized the replacing of an iamb with an anapest, such is on clear display in their adaption of the fairy queen written for Purcell.) by the time of Congreve’s Pindarics onward, you effectively have the full range available, without such a soil the technical achievements of browning, Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, and many others simply couldn’t be written.
We sensibly cannot make a hard division between sprung verse, free verse and formal verse, because historically in the most skilled poets these forms all, more or less, were equivalent. Whitman and Jeffers will demonstrate the groove and multi rhythm techniques just as much William rosetti or Calverley.
