VERSIFICATION’ AND ‘POETIC SYNTAX’

 ‘VERSIFICATION’ AND ‘POETIC SYNTAX’

(a) VERSIFICATION -JON STALLWORTHY

(Jon Stallworthy Essay, ‘Versification’, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (2005) 

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). 

Two ways to measure the poem are - Rhythm and Form which depends on words-sounds and their arrangements. 

W.H Auden and T.S Eliot define 'versification' as a technique, as well as, an arrangement of meter and pattern. Versification measures the form and rhythm of a verse. Versification studies rhyme, number of words used in a line of a poem, the stressed-unstressed unit of a word, number of stanzas, number of lines, etc. 

Parts of Versification

1) 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. 

"A verse is a design, which has rhythm, rhyme, meter, and syllables" - Edgar Allen Poe ( The Rationale of Verse 1848) 

There are three types of verse

a. Rhyme 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. 

b. Blank verse - A Blank verse has no rhyme, but an identical meter ( metre or meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order)  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.

c. Free verse- A Free Verse, does not have any rhyme or an identical beat pattern. there are no rhyming words, and the stress and unstressed beat/sound is also irregular. 20th century saw the rise of free verse in English poetry. 

2) Poetry - Poem is a verse, or group of verse, which is generally understood as an expression. 

"something which does not even require the instrument of words, but can speak through the other audible symbols called musical sounds” - J.S. Mill (What is Poetry?’ (1833)) 

- According to, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (2005), poetry can be classified into three categories;

a) Epic

Jon Stallworthy defines Epic Poetry as a long poem. The poem is in the mode of narration, or a dialogue. The poem narrates, or tells about an important event. This event is an important learning for mankind. The form, rhythm, rhyme, meter and subject matter of every epic poem is unique†††† . Example - Rape of The Lock - Alexander Pope. Beowulf is the first English epic poem. 

b) Dramatic Poetry 

Dramatic Poetry, is a long or short speech poem. It is written in the voice of a character, as a monologue or dialogue. In English, Alfred Tennyson’s‡‡‡‡ (1809-1892) Ulysses (1842) is considered to be the first dramatic monologue

c) Lyric 

Jon Stallworthy defines Lyric Poetry as short poem with a single speaker. The speaker, ‘I’, oftentimes is a fictional character invented by the poet. Example - Edmund Spenser’s (1552-1599) The Shepherds Calendar (1579).

 ✓Components of Versification

1) Rhythm- the basic unit of pronunciation 

Two types of Rhythm - Spatial and Temporal

Spatial rhythm, is a type of rhythm which is based on visual perception of a word sound, for example, the equidistant windows in a wall, or architectural alternation and balance of monuments. In a verse, for example, rhyme.

Temporal rhythm, is a rhythm which is based on perception of time of a word sound, for example, the sound of drums. In a verse, for example, meter.

•Parts of Rhythm

-Syllable- Syllable is a phonotactic unit, it is a sequence of phoneme in a word. A phoneme is the smallest sound of a word.

-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 

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.

-Rhyme: 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) 

Example - 

Lifting her arms to soap her hair

Her pretty breasts respond—and there

The movement of that buoyant pair

Is like a spell to make me swear

Twenty odd years have turned to air;

Now she's the girl I didn't dare

Approach, ask out, much less declare

My love to, mired in young despair

Rhyme scheme in a poem, is a pattern of rhyme, at regular intervals. For example, the rhymescheme of William Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609) is, ‘abab, cdcd, efef, gg’.

3) FORMS

Jon Stallworthy defines ‘Form’ as a combination of meter, rhyme and stanza, in a poem

Types -

a) Basic- A basic form of poetry is, the fixed number of lines in a stanza and rhyme scheme, of a poem

b) Composite Form

Composite forms, are fixed forms. The number of lines, stanzas, rhyme and meter are identical in most, of the poems. 

c) Irregular Form

Irregular form of a poem has no fixed pattern any. It can have rhyme and meter

d) Experimental Form

In 20th Century, the Confessional, Imagists, and Objectivists Schools, experimented with new forms of poetry

                                                            --:::::::::::--

             

                (b) POETIC SYNTAX

             MARGARET FERGUSON

The Greek words syn (together) and tax (to arrange) are the roots of the English word syntax, which means “orderly or systematic arrangements of components or pieces.” 

-Parts of Syntax

1) Sentences and Words

The first rule of the poetic game of syntax is that most poets utilise the grammatical unit known as the sentence as a significant unit of meaning, together with—but sometimes in contrast to—the unit of the poetic line or the unit of the stanza. 

       Kinds of Sentences

       a) Subject- Verb- Object

       b) Another typical sentence structure is     subject followed by a complementing predicate. All human beings are subject to decay,” is an example of this type of sentence in which there is no direct object; instead, a predicate complement informs us something about the subject. 

       c) A subject followed by a verb that does not accept a direct object or predicate complement constitutes a third category of sentences. Example- Money speaks’, or ‘Jill faints’

2) Clauses - clause is considered to be the smaller or “component” unit and a sentence to be the bigger or “containing” unit. This is so because a sentence might include several clauses. One main clause (or independent clause) and any number of dependent clauses make up the aforementioned “periodic” sentence

 For example, ‘When she remembered the time, which she did when the bell rang, Jill ran home’. 

Kinds of Clauses- 

Adverbial clauses, for example, frequently follow

-subordinating conjunctions such as- ‘after’, ‘although’, ‘as’, ‘as if’, ‘because’, ‘whether’, and ‘while’

- Adjectival clauses are usually begun with relative pronouns (that, which, who, whom, whose) or relative adverbs when they modify a noun or pronoun (when, where, why). 

- Noun clauses are more challenging to identify. Both relative pronouns and alternative pronouns (what, whomever, whomever, and whatever), can be used to introduce them.

3) Moves in the Game

poets put sentences to different uses by making them in various ways, as well as readers' expectations of those uses.

Double Syntax- When a phrase, line, or set of lines can be understood in two distinct ways depending on the syntax that comes before and/or after the unit, this is the case.

4) Word Order Inversions

Inversions of the standard subject-verb-object structure of transitive sentences are the source of numerous lyrical difficulties, including several in double syntax examples.