Rhyme, rhythm, sound patterning

Significance of sound patterning• cohesive function: binds words together

(enhances memorability), foregrounds some aspects of the text (specific words)

• creates or reinforces parallelism (e.g., cash & carry)

• may contribute to a level of sound symbolism - onomatopoeia, onomatopoeic words

• helps identify genre or form (if worth establishing)

• supports a case for some local interpretation

The phonetic structure of the word

Based on what you hear & say, not what you read.

phonetic transcription, stress pattern structure of a syllable: C - V - C C = CONSONANT CLUSTER = 0,1,2,... consV = 1 vowel sound or 1 diphthong sound patterns are formed when syllables in words

close by 'echo':repetition, parallelism

Alliteration

Other forms of sound patterning

Rhyme

Further types of rhymes

• single, double, triple rhymes: depending on the number of syllables involved

• 'masculine rhyme': single stressed syllable: wrist-missed; start-heart'feminine rhyme': 2 syllables are involved: yellow-fellow

Rhyme schemepatterns of rhyme within larger units of poetry

marked by letters : a: first line and every following line rhyming with itb: next new rhyme and every flwng line rhyming w

itenclosed rhyme: envelopes a couplet with rhyming

lines: abba interlocking rhyme: word unrhymed in 1st stanza is

linked with words rhymed in 2nd stanza, e.g., terza rima: aba bcb cdc etc.

Leonine rhyme: a type of internal rhyme: "The splendour falls on castle walls“ (Tennyson)

Stanza forms

Stanza: loosely: any grouping of lines in a separate unit in a poem: a verse

paragraphmore strictly: a grouping of a prescribed number

of lines in a given metre, usually with a particular rhyme scheme, repeated as a unit of structure

Poems in stanzas provide an instance of the aesthetic pleasure in repetition with a difference (parallelism) that also underlies the metrical and rhyming elements of poetry

Scansion

system for analysing and marking poetical meters and feetways of marking syllables:

long — short ᴗ stressed / unstressed x

| a vertical bar to mark feetaccentual-syllabic verse: standard verse of poetry in

English foot basic metrical unit: in English, an accented syllable

with one or more unaccented syllable(s)

• rising meter goes from unaccented to accented syllable within foot: a'lone

iambic meter = predominant foot is iamb (= iambus) pattern: x / example: about (also: alone) anapestic meter = predominant foot is anapest

pattern: x x / example: is the sun • falling meter goes from accented to unaccented syll.

within foot: 'water trochaic meter (trochee): pattern: / x example: lovers

dactylic meter (dactyl): pattern: / x x example: leisurely

Iambic meter has dominated English Poetry

Combination of different rhythmswhen rhythmic systems exist at the same time, e.g. in a song:musical rhythm + poetic rhythm + speech rhythm but these are potentially discordant with each other: speech rhythm: x x / / x / x

As I walked out one evening, poetic rhythm in the context of the rest of the poem:

x / | x / | x / x As I walked out one evening,Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavementWere fields of harvest wheat. (W.H. Auden)

metrical form: an underlying pattern of expectations allowing variations

Common names for stanzas, by line length

• couplet (2) and tercet (3) - considered by some too short to qualify as stanzas

• quatrain (4 lines) e.g., ballad stanza: The fox went out one winter night, And prayed the moon to give him light,For he'd many a mile to go that night,

Before he reached his den, O! ("The Fox and the Goose" folk song)

description: alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter in a 4/3/4/3 pattern, rhyming abcb

• Octave (8) 1st unit in an Italian sonnet, rhyming abbaabba

Verse forms

The characteristic shapes or structures of different kinds of poems. The form of a poem is determined by such structural elements as the number of lines, the metre, the rhyme scheme, and the characteristic stanza. These elements may be rigidly prescribed, as for fixed forms like the sonnet and the villanelle, or more loosely defined, as for the ballad and the ode.

Other terms to remember

blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter used by Marlowe and Shakespeare

in dramaheroic couplet: the closed and balanced iambic

pentameter couplet typical of the heroic plays of Dryden

free verse: poetry free of traditional metrical and stanzaic patterns

does not lend itself readily to scansionMark, however, the various forms (including rhythmical) of repetition and parallelism

The winter evening settles downWith smell of steaks in passageways.Six o'clock.The burnt-out ends of smoky days.And now a gusty shower wrapsThe grimy scrapsOf withered leaves about your feetAnd newspapers from vacant lots;The showers beatOn broken blinds and chimney-potsAnd at the corner of the streetA lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.And then the lighting of the lamps.

Cease then, nor Order imperfection name:Our proper bliss depends on what we blameKnow thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit. - In this, or any other sphere,Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.All nature is but art, unknown to thee;All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;All discord, harmony not understood;All partial evil, universal good:And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.