[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

I. The relationship between meter and rhythm.
in elevated language with complex metric arrangements.
A. Meter can be thought of as a form, matrix, or grid that establishes the
B. Mock-heroism is an obvious, delicious version of irony: it is a
predominant "sound" of a poem.
manifestation of the comic discrepancy between a heightened style or
treatment and a lower (if not positively unworthy) subject.
B. Rhythm: a more casual term to define the actual sound of a line, a
1. Mock-heroism inflates the low. Cats are not nymphs, after all.
sentence, or a poem, as it is being uttered by a reader.
2. But it simultaneously deflates the high. By bringing two objects, or
II. Types of metric form.
orders, into conjunction with one another, it creates a kind of
middle plane, occupied by nymphs, deities, and heavenly A. Accentual meter: the basis for Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poetry. Lines
messengers, along with cats and fish. are organized by stresses (usually four to a line, with a break or
caesura in the middle), and a heavy use of alliteration (repeated
consonantal sounds). Two examples are:
Questions to Consider:
1. Caedmon 's Hymn (mid-seventh century AD).
1. Review some of the other poems introduced in earlier lectures and identify
2. William Langland's Piers Plowman (c. 1375). Langland was a
those that demonstrate irony. Show how they achieve the ironic effect:
contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer.
structure, language (use of specific words or figurative language), or tone.
B. Syllabic meter: the basic mode of Japanese and French poetry (e.g., the
2. Do you find Dorothy Parker's poems ironic or merely cynical? How about
Japanese haiku, with three lines of 5-7-5 syllables, respectively; the
the others that we have discussed in this lecture? What is the difference (or
French alexandrine with 12 syllables), a mode that is difficult to "hear"
perhaps we should ask, the distance) between irony and cynicism?
in English but was made especially popular by Marianne Moore. Every
line in a stanza has a (sometimes arbitrarily) prescribed number of
syllables: e.g., Moore's "The Fish," the stanzas of which have five lines
with 1-3-9-6-8 syllables, respectively.
C. Accentual-syllabic meter: the predominant English form after Chaucer
(d. 1400 AD). This involves a combination of syllables (normally ten to
a line for standard iambic pentameter) and "feet," or groups of syllables
(five for a line of standard iambic pentameter), with attention paid to
the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables.
D. Quantitative meter: the standard verse forms of Greek and Latin poetry,
based on the idea that a long syllable counts twice as much a short
syllable (length determined by kind, or placement, of vowels).
1. Examples are the epic poems of Homer and Virgil (Iliad, Odyssey,
Aeneid), which are composed in dactylic hexameter, six feet whose
The Teaching Company Limited Partnership
©1999 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 37
1. We will look at, and listen to, the ways Milton uses iambic
basic heft goes: / x x / x x / x x / x x / x x / x . (In which "/" = a long
pentameter to create this masterful sonnet (a protest poem about the
syllable, and "x" signifies a short one.)
murder of 1,700 Protestants by the Duke of Savoy).
2. This is a very hard meter to imitate in English, which uses basically
2. We will talk not only about the meter and where the normal iambic
four types of meter: iambic (x /), dactylic (/ x x), anapestic (x x /) and
rhythm is changed, but also about other rhythmic effects, such as
trochaic (/ x). These may be in varying lengths of lines: dimeter (two
enjambment (run-on lines) and caesura (internal pause).
feet), trimeter (three feet), tetrameter (four feet), pentameter (five
3. Also, we will discuss the poem's rhyme scheme and the relation of
feet), hexameter (six feet).
its formal units (the octave and sestet of the sonnet) to its
E. "Free" verse: a kind of poetry popularized in this country by Walt
sentences.
Whitman, which ignores conventional forms and expectations, but
4. Another consideration is the sound structure and syntax in this
makes the "line" of the poem into a central unit. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]