Versification

1. Versification

2. versification covers all aspects of formal organizations of sounds that characterize verse range from localized alliteration patterns of rhythm, metre and rhyme larger matters, genre, sonnet, ballad, free verse focus on poetry, but grows out of language metrics analysis of measures or feet within a line of verse (from Gk measure) poetics embraces formal pattering in language of all kinds, including drama and narrative (Gk poiesis, fashioning, making)

3. measure English a Germanic Language, organized around presence or absence of stress like Dutch, German, Danish, Norwegian... not like classical and Romance languages, organized around syllable length Anglo-Saxon poetry, like Beowulf, organized around number of stresses in a line (four) number unstressed syllables not important also, two or three had to begin with same sound, alliteration poem "Wulf and Edawacer"

4. “Wulf & Eadwacer” / x / v / x x / x Wulf, min Wulf wena me thine / x x / x v / x / x x seoce gedygan thine seldcymas Wulf, my Wulf, it was wanting you That made me sick, your seldom coming, (Michael Alexander translation)

5. this is stressed or alliterative verse usually performed, based on half-line units variations on above appear in other Anglo-Saxon poems oral-formulaic poetry

6. The Couplet 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A Knight ther was and that a worthy man 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 That fro the time that he first bigan

7. another force in play syllabic or quantitative metre (often with end-rhyme) brought into play by Chaucer adopted French and Italian metrical models regular number of syllables per line (usually 8 or 10 syllables, octo-decasyllabic) rhyme schemes includerhyme royal, ...

8. Look at two lines from Pope's The Rape of the Lock(1712): And now unveiled the toilet stands displayed Each silver vase in mystic order laid

9. Look at two lines from Pope's The Rape of the Lock(1712): x / x / x / x / x / 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 And now unveiled the toilet stands displayed x / x / x / x / x / 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Each silver vase in mystic order laid unstressed + stressed. This is one foot, or measure. Name for this type = iambic usually a blend of the two = accentual-syllabic metre

10. x / x / x / x / x x / To be or not to be, that is the question.

11. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, -Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard“ (1751)

12. x / x / x / x / x / The curfew tolls the knell of parting day x / x / x / x / x / The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, -Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard“ (1751)

13. You know that it would be untrue, You know that I would be a liar, If I was to say to you Girl, we couldn’t get much higher. Come on, baby, light my fire. Try to set the night on fire. -Jim Morrison, “Light My Fire” (1966)

14. x / x / x / x / You know that it would be untrue, x / x / x / x /You know that I would be a liar, x/ x / x / xIf I was to say to you / x / x / x Girl, we couldn’t get much higher. x / x / x / xCome on, baby, light my fire. x / x / x / xTry to set the night on fire. -Jim Morrison, “Light My Fire” (1966)

15. "Villanelle“, W. E. Henley A dainty thing's the Villanelle. Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme, It serves its purpose passing well. A double-clappered silver bell That must be made to clink in chime, A dainty thing's the Villanelle; And if you wish to flute a spell, Or ask a meeting "neath the lime", It serves its purpose passing well. You must not ask of it the swell Of organs grandiose and sublime - A dainty thing's the Villanelle; And, filled with sweetness, as a shell Is filled with sound, and launched in time, It serves its purpose passing well Still fair to see and good to smell As in the quaintness of its prime, A dainty thing's the Villanelle, It serves its purpose passing well.

16. Villanelle from Latin villanus (rustic) A1 a b b A2 A1 a a b b A1 A2 a a b b A2 A1 A2

17. Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”

18. five basic measures: iambus x / again, unveil, reverse trochee / x happy, never, heartless anapest x x / entertain, repossess, hurry up spondee / / heart break, Big Mac, wine glass dactyl / x x happiness, orchestra, discotheque

19. Dimeter – two feet Trimeter – three feet Tetrameter – four feet Pentameter – five feet Hexameter – six feet ...

20. O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,  - Milton, "Samson Agonistes“ (1671)

21. x / / / x / x / x / O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,  - Milton, "Samson Agonistes“ (1671)

22. Thus I Pass by And die As one Un known And gone - Herrick, "Upon His Departure Hence“ (17th c.)

23. x / Thus I x / Pass by x / And die x / As one x / Un known x / And gone - Herrick, "Upon His Departure Hence“ (17th c.)

24. Samuel Johnson, The Rambler However minute the employment may appear, of analysing lines into syllables, and whatever ridicule may be incurred by a solemn deliberation upon accents and pauses, it is certain that without this petty knowledge no man can be a poet; and that from the proper disposition of single sounds results that harmony that adds force to reason, and gives grace to sublimity.

25. Metre is a blueprint; rhythm is the inhabited building. Metre is a skeleton; rhythm is the functioning body. Metre is a map; rhythm is a land. – Philip Hobsbaum, Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form

26. Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress” Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day;

27. Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress” But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserst of vast eternity.

28. H.G. Widdowson, Practical Stylistics The dissociation of language from its normal connections wtih context, further confirmed by the way it is fashioned into prosodic shape, directs the attention of the reader to the langauge itself enclosed within the confines of the poem. Interpretation is the function of a heightened awareness of how language can mean, how its resources can be exploited to express different perspectives on familar reality. In this respect, the reading of a poem is itself the representation of a renewal of our experience of the language, freed from the usual dulling effect of context.

29. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), “To Divide is Not to Take Away” The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, The life that wears, the spirit that creates One object, and one form, and builds thereby A sepulchre for its eternity

30. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), “To Divide is Not to Take Away” x / x / x / x / x x The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, x / x / x / x / x / The life that wears, the spirit that creates x / x / x / x / x / One object, and one form, and builds thereby x / x x x / x/ x / A sepulchre for its eternity

31. On the composition of “While Resting on the Bridge at the Foot of Brother’s Water” When I returned, I found William writing a poem descriptive of the sights and sounds we saw and heard. There was the gentle flowing of the stream, the glittering lively lake, green fields, without a living creature to be seen on them; behind us, a flat pasture with forty-two cattle feeding; to our left, the road leading to the hamlet. No smoke there, the sun shone on the bare roofs. The people were at work, ploughing, harrowing, and sowing; lasses working; a dog barking now and then; cocks crowing, birds twittering; the snow in patches at the top of the highest hills; yellow palms, purple and green twigs on the birches, ashes with their glittering stems quite bare. The hawthorn a bright green, with black stems under the oak. The moss of the oaks glossy.... As we went up the vale of Brothers Water, more and more cattle feeding, a hundred of them. William finished his poem before we got to the foot of Kirkstone.  - Dorothy Wordsworth, Journal of April 16, 1802

32. Wordsworth, “While Resting on the Bridge at the Foot of Brother’s Water” The Cock is crowing, The stream is flowing, The small birds twitter, The lake doth glitter, The green field sleeps in the sun; The oldest and youngest Are at work with the strongest; The cattle are graing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one!

33. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) – “The Windhover”  I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-   dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding  ...