1. LANGUAGE OF POETRY
The first substyle we shall consider is v e r s e. Its first differentiating property is its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactical and semantic peculiarities which also fall into a more or less strict orderly arrangement. Both the syntactical and semantic aspects I of the poetic substyle may be defined as compact, for they are held in “i check by rhythmic patterns. Both syntax and semantics comply with fi the restrictions imposed by the rhythmic pattern, and the result is brevity of expression, epigram-like utterances, and fresh, unexpected imagery. Syntactically this brevity is shown in elliptical and fragmentary sentences, in detached constructions, in inversion, asyndeton and other syntactical peculiarities.
Rhythm and rhyme are immediately distinguishable properties of the poetic substyle provided they are wrought into compositional patterns. They can be called the external differentiating features of the substyle, typical only of this one variety of the belles-lettres style. The various compositional forms of rhyme and rhythm are generally studied under the terms versification or prosody.
Let us examine the external properties or features of the poetic sub-style in detail. *-•••
a) Compositional Patterns of Rhythmical Arrangement Metre and Line
It is customary to begin the exposition of the theory of English versification with the statement that "...there is no established principle of English versification/'Eut this statement may apply to almost any branch of linguistic science. Science in general can live and develop only provided that there are constant disputes on the most crucial issues of the giver; science.
English versification is no exception. We have already discussed some of the most general points of rhythm. This was a necessary introduction to English versification, inasmuch as English verse is mostly based on rhythmical arrangement and rhyme. Both rhythm and rhyme are objective qualities of language and exist outside verse. x But in verse
1 This is the reason that both rhythm and rhyme have been treated in Part III outside the^ chapter on versification.
both have assumed their compositional patterns and, perhaps, due to this, they are commonly associated with verse. The most observable and widely recognized compositional patterns of rhythm making up classical verse are based, on:
1) alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, x
2) equilinearity, that is, an equal number of syllables in the lines,
3) a natural pause at the end of the line, the line being a more or less complete semantic unit,
4) identity of stanza pattern,
5) established patterns of rhyming.
Less observable, although very apparent in modern versification, are all kinds of deviations from these rules, some of them going so far that classical poetry ceases to be strictly classical and becomes what is called free verse, which in extreme cases borders on prose.
English verse, like all verse, emanated from song. Verse assumes an independent existence only when it tears itself away from song. Then only does it acquire the status of a genuine poetic system, and rhythm, being the substitute for music, assumes a new significance. The unit of measure of poetic rhythm in English versification is not so much of a quantitative as of a qualitative character. The unit of measure in musical rhythm is the time allotted to its reproduction, whereas the unit of measure in English verse rhythm is the quality of the alternating element (stressed or, unstressed). Therefore English versification, like Russian, is called qualitative, in contradistinction to the old Greek verse which, being sung, was essentially quantitative. In classic English verse, quanti-,ty is taken into consideration only when it is a matter of the number of feet in a line. Hence classic English verse is called syl I a bo-tonic. Two parameters are taken into account in defining the measure: the number of syllables (syllabo) and the distribution of stresses (tonic). The nature of the English language with its specific phonetic laws, however, is incompatible with the demand for strict regularity in the alternation of similar units, and hence there are a number of accepted deviations from established metrical schemes which we shall discuss in detail after pointing out the most recognizable English metrical pa ft e r n-s.
There are five of them:
1. Iambic metre, in which the unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one. It is graphically represented thus: (w-).
2. Trochaic metre, where the order is reversed, i.e.. a stressed syllable is followed by one unstressed (-^).
3. Dactylic me t r e—one stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed (-w).
4. Amphibrach i с metre—one stressed syllable is framed by two unstressed ^
w.
1 Many linguists hold that verse rhythm is based on alternation between stronger and weaker stresses. They maintain that four degrees of stresses are easily recognizable. But for the sake of abstraction—an indispensable process in scientific investigation — the opposition of stressed—unstressed syllables is the only authentic way of presenting tne problem of verse rhythm.
5. Anapaestic me tr e—iwo unstressed syllables are followed by one stressed (w-).
These arrangements of qualitatively different syllables are the units of the metre, the repetition of which makes verse. One unit is called a foot. The number of feet in a line varies, but it has its limit; it rarely exceeds eight.
If the line consists of only one foot it is called a monometerA a line consisting of two feet is a dimeter; three—t r i т е t e /*; four-tetrameter\ five—p entdmeter\ six—h e x a m e t e r\ seven—i septameter\ eight—о с t a m e t e r. In defining the measure, that! is the kind of ideal metrical scheme of a verse, it is necessary to point out both the type of metre and the length of the line. Thus, a line that consists of four iambic feet is called iambic tetrameter, correspondingly a line consisting of eight trochaic feet will be called trochaic octameter, and so on.
English verse is predominantly iambic. This is sometimes explained by the iambic tendency of the English language in general. Most of the English words have a trochaic tendency, that is the stress falls on the first syllable of two-syllabic words. But in actual speech these words are preceded by non-stressed articles, prepositions, conjunctions or by unstressed syllables of preceding words thus imparting an iambic character to English speech. As a result iambic metre is more common in English verse than any other metre.
Here are a few examples illustrating various metrical arrangements of English verse. , •
1. Iambic pentameter
Oh let me true in love but truly write
2. Trochaic tetrameter
•*.-, Would you ask-me whence these stories
3. Dactylic dimeter
Cannon to right of them
Cannon to' left of them
4. Amphibrachic tetrameter
O, where are you going to all you Big Steamers
5. Anapaestic tetrameter Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove
If we make a careful study of almost any poem, we will fmd what 1 are called irregularities or modifications of its normal metrical pattern. These modifications generally have some special significance,
usually connected with the sense, though in some cases they may be due to the nature of the language material itself. This is particularly the case with the first modification when the stress is lifted from a syllable on which the language will not allow stress, and we have what is called a pyrrhicfoot instead of an iambic or a trochaic foot, for example:
So, that now to still the beating of my heart I stood repeating (Рое)
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy (Keats)
In both examples the stress is lifted from prepositions on which the stress seldom falls, therefore pyrrhics are very common and quite natural modifications in English verse.
The second modification of the rhythm is the inverted order of stressed and unstressed syllables in one of the feet of the iambic or trochaic pattern. For example, in the sonnet by Roy Campbell "The Serf" which,'like all sonnets, is written in iambic pentameter, there creeps in a foot wjiere the order, unstressed—stressed, is inverted:
His naked skin clothed in the torrid mist
That puffs in smoke around the patient hooves
Here the third foot of the first line violates the rhythmic pattern. Such modifications are called rhythmic inversions and are used to add emphasis.
The third modification is the insertion of a foot of two stressed syllables, called a spondee. It is used instead of an iambus or a trochee. In Shakespeare's iambic pentameter these two modifications are frequently to be found, for example:
The morn in russet mantle clad
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill
Here the first foot of the second line is rhythmic inversion, and the fourth is a spondee.
Rhythmic inversion and the use of the spondee may be considered deliberate devices to reinforce the semantic significance of the word-combinations. Here are other examples:
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll.
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain.
The spondee as,a rhythmic modification, unlike the pyrrhic, is always used to give added emphasis. This may be explained by the fact that two successive syllables both under heavy stress produce a kind of clash as a result of which the juncture between the syllables becomes wider' thus making each of them conspicuous. A pyrrhic smooths and quickens the pace of the rhythm; a spondee slows it down and makes it jerky.
Pyrrhics may appear in almost any foot in a line, though they are rarely found in the last foot. This is natural as the last foot generally has a rhyming word and rhyming words are always stressed. Spondees generally appear in the first or the last foot.
These three modifications of the rhythm are the result of the clash between the requirements of the metrical scheme and the natural tendency of the language material to conform to its own phonetic laws. The more verse seeks to reflect the lively norms of colloquial English, the more frequently are modifications such as those described,to be found.
The fourth modification has to do with the number of syllables in the line. There may be either a syllable missing or there may be an extra syllable. Thus, the last syllable of a trochaic octameter is often missing, as in this line from Poe's "The Raven":
Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before
This is called ahypometric line. Other lines in the poem fiave the full sixteen syllables.
In iambic metre there may be an extra syllable at the end of the line. In the line from the Shakespeare sonnet:
"Then in these thoughts myself almost despising"
there are eleven syllables, whereas there should have been ten, the line being iambic pentameter, as are all the lines of a sonnet. A line with an extra syllable is called h y^p e r m e t r i c.
Such departures from the established measure also break to some extent the rhythmical structure of the verse, and are therefore to be considered modifications of the rhythm.
The fifth departure from the norms of classic verse is e n j a m b -meat, or ihe run-on line. This term is used to denote the transfer of a part of a syntagrtijrom one line to the following one, as in the following lines from Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage":
1. Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast
2. Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days;
6. While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape
7. The fascination of the magic gaze?
It will be observed that here again is a violation of the requirements of the classical verse according to which the line must be a more or less complete unit in itself. Here we have the overflowing of the sense to the next line due to the break of the syntagm in the first and sixth lines-—
close predicate-object groups. The lines seem to be torn into two lalves, the second half flowing structurally into the first half of the next [line. The first impression is that this is some kind of prose, and not verse,
this impression is immediately contradicted by the feeling that there |is a definite metrical scheme and pattern of rhyming.
The rhythmic pattern of the verse leads us to anticipate a certain smantic structure; but when the device of enjambment is used, what
anticipate is brought into conflict with what we actually find, that [is, what is actually materialized.
This is still more acutely felt in the case of s t a n z a e n j a m b -\tn e n t. Here the sense of a larger rhythmic unit, the stanza, which is [generally self-contained and complete, is made to flow over to the next [stanza.
Here is an example from Byron's "Childe Harold", Canto 1, stanzas ILI and LII.
LI
8. The holster'd steed beneath the shed of thatch,
9. The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match,
LII
1. Portend the deeds to come:—but he whose nod
2. Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway.
The essence of enjambment is the violation of the concordance between the rhythmical and the syntactical unity in a line of verse. At the end of each rhythmical line in classical verse there must be a pause of an appreciable size-between the lines which ensures the relative independence of each. The juncture between the lines is wide. Enjambment throws a part of the syntagm over to the second line, thus causing the pause to grow smaller and the juncture closer. This leads to a break in the rhyth-mico-syntactical unity of the lines; they lose their relative independence.
Stanza enjambment is the same in nature, but it affects larger rhyth-mico-syntactical units, the stanzas. Here we seldom witness the break of a syntagm, but the final part of the utterance is thrown over to the next stanza, thus uniting the two stanzas, breaking -the self-sufficiency of each and causing the juncture between the stanzas to become closer.
It is important to remind the reader that modifications in English metre, no matter how frequent, remain modifications, for the given metrical scheme is not affected to any appreciable extent. As a matter of fact these irregularities may be said to have become regular. They add much variety and charm to the verse. Indeed, if the metre is perfectly regular without any of the five modifications described above, the verse may sound mechanical and lifeless, artificial and monotonous.
The Stanza
We have defined rhythm as more or less regular alternations of similar units. Of the units of verse rhythm the following have been named: the syllable, the foot, the line and finally the stanza.
The stanza is the largest unit in verse. It is composed of a number of lines having a definite measure and rhyming system which is repeated throughout the poem.
The stanza is generally built up on definite principles with regard to the number of lines, the character of the metre and the rhyming pattern.
There are many widely recognized stanza patterns in English poetry, but we shall name only the following.
1) The heroic couple t — a stanza that consists of two iambic pentameters with the rhyming pattern aa.
Specialists in versification divide the history of the development of this stanza into two periods: the first is the period of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and the second the period of Marlowe, Chapman and other Elizabethan poets, The first period is characterized by the marked flexibility of the verse, the relative freedom of its rhythmic arrangement in which there are all kinds of modifications. The second period is characterized by rigid demands for the purity of its rhythmical structure. The heroic couplet, beginning with the 16th century and particularly in the poetry of Spencer, was enchained by strict rules of versification, and lost its flexibility and freedom of arrangement.
The heroic couplet was later mostly used in elevated forms of poetry, in epics and odes. Alexander Pope used the heroic couplet in his "The Rape of the Lock" with a satirical purpose, that of parodying the epic. Here are two couplets from this poem:
"Then flashed^ the living lightning from her eyes, And screams ol horror rent the affrighted skies. Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands or when lap dogs breathe their
2) The next model of stanza which once enjoyed popularity was the Spenceria-n stanza, named after Edmund Spencer, the 16th century poet who first used this type of stanza in his "Faerie Queene." It consists of nine liftes, the first eight of which are iambic pentameters and the ninth is one foot longer, that is, an iambic hexameter. The rhyming scheme is ababbcbcc. Byron's "Childe Harold" is written in this stanza: ' .
1. "Awake, ye sons of Spain! Awake! Advance! (a)
2. Lo! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries, (b)
3. But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance, (a)
4. Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies: (b)
5. Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies, (b)
6. And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar: (c)
7. In every peal she calls — "Awake! Arise!" (b)
8. Say, is her voice more feeble than of .yore, (c)
9. When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore? (c)
3) The stanza named'ottava rima has also been popular in English poetry. It is composed of eight iambic pentameters, the rhyming scheme being abababcc. This type of stanza was borrowed from Italian poetry and was widely used by Philip Sidney and other poets of the 16th century. Then it fell into disuse but was revived at the end of the 18th century. Byron used it in his poem "Beppo" and in "Don Juan." Here it is:
1. "With all its sinful doings, I must say, (a)
2. That Italy's a pleasant place to me, (b)
3. Who love to see the Sun shine every day, (a)
4. And vines (not nail'd to walls) from tree to tree (b) '
5. Festoon'd much like the back scene of a play (a)
6. Or melodrame, which people flock to see, (b)
, 7. When the first act is ended by a dance (c)
8. In vineyards copied from the South of France." (c)
4) A looser form of stanza is the ballad stanza. This is generally an alternation of iambic tetrameters with iambic dimeters (or trimeters), and the rhyming scheme is abcb\ that is, the tetrameters are not rhymed— the trimeters are. True, there are variants of the ballad stanza, particularly in the length of the stanza.
The ballad, which is a very old, perhaps the oldest form gf English verse, is a short story in rhyme, sometimes with dialogue and direct speech. In the poem of Beowulf there are constant suggestions that the poem was made up from a collection of much earlier ballads. Modern ballads in form are imitations of the old English ballad. Here is a sample of the ballad stanza:
"They took a plough and plough'd him down (a)
Put clods upon his head; (b)
And they had sworn a solemn oath (c)
John Barleycorn was dead." (b) (Robert Burns)
In some of the variants of the ballad stanza the rhyming scheme is abab, that is the stanza becomes a typical quatrain.
5) One of the most popular stanzas, which bears the name of stanza x only conventionally, is the s о n n e t. This is not a part of a larger unit, it is a complete independent work of a definite literary genre. However, by tradition and also due to its strict structural design this literary genre is called a stanza.
The English sonnet is composed of fourteen iambic pentameters with the following rhyming scheme: ababcdcdefefgg, that is, three quatrains with cross rhymes and a couplet at the end. The English sonnet was borrowed from Italian poetry, but on English soil it underwent structural and sometimes certain semantic changes.
The Italian sonnet was composed of two quatrains with a framing rhyme abba. These two quatrains formed the octave. It was followed by asestette, i.e. six lines divided into two tercets, i.e. three
units with cde rhyming in each, or variants, namely, cdcdcd or cdedce and others.
The semantic aspect of the Italian sonnet was also strictly regularized. The first quatrain of the octave was to lay the main idea before the reader; the second quatrain was to expand the idea of the first quatrain by giving details or illustrations or proofs. So the octave had not only a structural but also a semantic pattern: the eight lines were to express one idea, a thesis.
The same applies to the sestette. The first three lines were to give an idea opposite to the one expressed in the octave, a kind of antithesis, and the last three lines to be a synthesis of the ideas expressed in the octave and the first tercet. This synthesis was often expressed in the last two lines of the sonnet and these two lines therefore were called epigrammatic lines.
The English, often called the Shakespearean sonnet has retained many of the features of its Italian parent. The division into octave and sestette is observed in many sonnets, although th.e sestette is not always divided into two tercets. The rhyming scheme is simplified and is now expressed by the formula ababcdcdefefgg given above.
The most clearly observable characteristic feature of the sonnet on the content plane is the epigram-like last line (or last two lines).
Sonnets were very popular in England during the sixteenth century. Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney and many other English poets of this period indulged in writing sonnets, and it is significant that during this period an enormous number were written. Wyatt adhered strictly to the Italian model. Surrey modified it and it was this modification that Shakespeare used.
The Shakespearean sonnets, which are known all over the world, are a masterpiece of sonnet composition. All 154 sonnets express the feelings of the poet towards his beloved, his friend and his patron. Even those sonn^s, the mairTidea of^which is by no means limited to the lyrical laying out of the feelings Of the poet (as Sonnets Nos. 66, 21 and others), still pay tribute to the conventional form of the sonnet by mentioning the object of the poet's feelings.1
The types of English stanzas enumerated in no way exhaust the variety of this macro-unit in the rhythmical arrangement of the utterance. The number of types of stanzas is practically unlimited. We have chosen only those which have wort"wvide recognition and are taken up by many poets as a convenient mould into which new content may be poured. But there are many interesting models which still remain unique and therefore cannot yet be systematized.
An interesting survey of stanza models in the English poetry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been made by Y. Vorobyov in his thesis on "Some Stanza Peculiarities in 18th and 19th Century English Verse."
Free Verse and Accented Verse
Verse remains classical if it retains its metrical scheme.
There are, however, types of verse which are not classical. The one most popular is what is called "vers libre" which is the French term for free verse. Free verse departs considerably from the strict requirements of classical verse, but its departures are legalized. Free verse is recognized by lack of strictness in its rhythmical design. The term 'free verse' is used rather loosely by different writers; so much so that what is known as accented or stressed verse is also sometimes included.
Here we shall use the term 'free verse' to refer only to those varieties of verse which are characterized by: 1) a combination of various metrical feet in the line; 2) absence of equilinearity and 3) stanzas of varying length. Rhyme, however, is generally retained. Hence the term 'free verse' is limited in this work to verse in which there is a more or less regular combination of different metrical feet, different lengths of line and different lengths of stanza.
A good illustration of free verse in our sense of the term is Shelley's poem "The Cloud."
"I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
•In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder."
Here the odd lines are tetrameters in which there are combinations of iambic and anapaestic metres. The even lines are either dimeters or trimeters of iambic and anapaestic metre. So the metre is not homogeneous within the lines; the lines are of different lengths and the stanzas have different numbers of lines: the first one has twelve lines, the second eighteen, the third fourteen. The remaining stanzas also vary in length. The number of syllables in each line also varies. The first line has nine syllables, the second—six, the third—nine, the fourth—five, the fifth— eleven, the sixth—six, the seventh—nine, the eightK—seven, the ninth— nine, the tenth—eight, the eleventh—ten, the twelfth—eight.
Yet in this irregularity there is a certain regularity. First of all there is a regular alternation of long and short lines; there is a definite combination of only two feet: iambic and anapaestic; there is a definite rhym-4 ing scheme: the long lines have internal rhyme, the short ones rhyme with each other. These regularities are maintained throughout the poem. And that is why we say that in spite of an appreciable departure from classical principles it remains to a large extent syllabo-tonic verse. The
regularities we have pointed out prevent us from naming the instances of departure from the classic model 'modifications' since they have a definite structural pattern. Classic modifications of the rhythm are accidental, not regular.
Free verse is not, of course, confined to the pattern just described. There may not be any two poems written in free verse which will have the same structural pattern. This underlying freedom makes verse less rigid and more colloquial-like.
The departure from metrical rules is sometimes considered a sign of progressiveness in verse, which is doubtful.
Classical English verse, free verse and the accented verse which we are about to discuss, all enjoy equal rights from the aesthetic point of view and none of these types of verse has any ascendancy over the others. Accented v e r se is a type of verse in which only the number of stresses in the line is taken into consideration. The number of "syllables is not a constituent; it is irrelevant and therefore disregarded. Accented verse is not syllabo-tonic but only tonic. In its extreme form the lines have no pattern of regular metrical feet nor fixed length, there is no notion of stanza, and there are no rhymes. Like free verse, accented verse has very many variants, some approaching free verse and some departing so far from any recognized rhythmical pattern that we can hardly observe the essential features of this mode of communication. For the sake of illustration we shall quote two poems representing the two extremes of accented verse.
1. "With fingers weary and worn;
With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread,— Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!
In poverty, hunger and dirt; “* And stilbwith a^-voice of dolorous pitch *She sang the "Song of the Shirt."
Work! Work! Work!
While the cock is crowing aloof! And work—work—work—
Till the stars-shine through the roof! It's O! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!
Work—work—work—!
Till the brain begins to swim! Work—work—work—
Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,— Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream." (Thomas Hood)
Even a superfluous analysis of the rhythmical structure of this poem clearly shows that the rhythm is mostly founded on stress. In the first line there are seven syllables and three stresses; the second has the same; but the third has ten syllables and four stresses; the fourth—seven and three; the fifth—three and three; and so on. But still we can find a regularity in the poem; for most of the lines have three stresses. At more or less regular intervals there appear longer lines with four stresses. Since the unstressed syllables are not taken into consideration, and therefore there are no secondary or tertiary stresses (as in classic verse), the stresses in accented verse are very heavy. The stanzas in this poem are all built on the same pattern: eight lines, each containing two four-stressed lines.
The lines are rhymed alternately. All this makes this verse half accented, half free. In other words, this is borderline verse, the bias being in the direction of accented verse. This is not the case with the following poem by Walt Whitman: "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."
2. "Now I am curious what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than my mast-hemm'd Manhattan, My river and sunset, and my scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide, The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the
twilight, and the belated lighter;
Curious what Gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my highest name as I approach;"
This type of poetry can hardly be called verse from a purely structural point of view; it is that kind of tonic verse which, by neglecting almost all the laws of verse building, has gradually run into prose. But somehow there is still something left of the structural aspect of verse, and this is the sirigling-out of each meaningful word making it conspicuous and self-determinative by the pauses and by the character of the junctures which precede and follow each of these words. Besides this, what makes ,this text poetry is also the selection of words, the peculiar syntactical patterns, and the imagery.
Verse cannot do away with its formal aspects and remain verse. Therefore the extreme type of accented verse just given ceases to be verse as such. If has become what is sometimes called poetic prose.
Accented verse is nothing but an orderly singling-out of certain words and syntagms in the utterance by means of intonation. This singling-out becomes a constituent of this type of verse, provided that the distance between.each of the component parts presents a more or less constant unit. Violation of this principle would lead to the complete destruction of the verse as such.
Accented verse (tonic verse) has a long folklore tradition. Old English verse was tonic but not syllabo-tonic. The latter appeared in English poetry as a borrowing from Greek and Latin poetry, where the alternation was not between stressed and unstressed but between long and short syllables. In the process of being adapted to the peculiarities of the phonetic and morphological system of the English language, syllabo-tonic verse has undergone considerable changes, and accented verse may there-
fore conventionally be regarded as a stage in the transformational process of adapting the syllabo-tonic system to the organic norms of modern colloquial English. This is justified by the fact that present-day accented verse is not a mere revival of the Old English poetical system but a newly arranged form and type of English verse. Naturally, however, folklore traditions have influenced modern accented verse in a number of ways.
b) Lexical and Syntactical Features of Verse
The phonetic features of the language of poetry constitute what we have called its external aspect. These features immediately strike the ear and the eye and therefore are easily discernible; but the characteristics of this substyle are by no means confined to these external features. Lexical and syntactical peculiarities, together with those just analysed, will present the substyle as a stylistic entity.
Among the lexical peculiarities of verse the first to be mentioned is imagery, which being the generic feature of the belles-lettres style assumes in poetry a compressed form: it is rich in associative power, frequent in occurrence and varied in methods and devices of materialization.
"An image," writes A. E. Derbyshire, "is a,use of language which relates or substitutes a given word or expression to or for an analogue in some grammatical way, and which in so doing endows that word or expression with different lexical information from that which it has in its set. An image, in this sense, is merely a linguistic device for providing contextual information."1
In spite of its being rather complicated, there is a grain of truth in this definition of an image, for an image does give additional (contextual) information. This information is based on associations aroused by a peculiar use of a word or expression. An interesting insight into the essence of imagery is given by Z:;Paperny: "Poetical image," he writes, "is not a frozen picture, but movement;,not a static reproduction but the developing idea of an artist."2 He calls the image a "double unit'," thus pointing to the twofold application of the word, word-combination or even whole sentence.
We here define imagery as a use of language media which will create a sensory perception of an abstract notion by arousing certain associations (sometimes very remote) between the general and the particular, the abstract and the concrete, the conventional and the factual.
It is hardly possible to under-estimate the significance of imagery in the belles-lettres style of language. Imagery may be regarded as the antipode to precision, although'some stylicists hold the view that imagery has its own kind of precision. "The essence of an image," writes L. V. Shcherba, "...is in the multifariousness of the associations it provokes." s
The image, as a purely linguistic notion, is something that must be decoded by the reader. So are the subtle inner relations between the parts of the utterance and between the utterances themselves. These relations are not so easily discernible as they are in logically arranged utterances. Instances of detached construction, asyndeton, etc. must also be interpreted.
An image can be decoded through a fine analysis of the meanings of the given word or word-combination. In decoding a given image, the dictionary meanings, the contextual meanings, the emotional colouring and, last but not least, the associations which are awakened by the image should all be called into play. The easier the images are decoded, the more intelligible the poetic utterance becomes to the reader. If the image is difficult to decode, then it follows that either the idea is not quite clear to the poet himself or the acquired experience of the reader is not sufficient to grasp the vague or remote associations hidden in the given image.
Images from a linguistic point of view are mostly built on metaphor, metonymy and simile. These are direct semantic ways of coining images. Images maybe divided into three categories: two concrete (visual, aural), and one abstract (relational).
Visual images are the easiest of perception, inasmuch as they are readily caught by what is called the mental eye. In other words, visual images-are shaped through concrete pictures of objects, the impression of which is present in our mind. Thus in:
"... and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth..." (Shakespeare)
the simile has called up a visual image, that of a lark rising.
Onomatopoeia will build an а и r a I i т a g e in our mind, that is, it will make us hear the actual sounds of nature or things (see, for example: "How the Water Comes Down at Ladore").
Arelational imaged one that shows the relation between objects through another kind of relation, and the two kinds of relation will secure a more exact realization of the inner connections between things or phenomena.
Thus in:
"Men of England, Heirs of Glory, Heroes of unwritten story. Nurslings of one mighty mother, Hopes of her, and one another." (3helley)
such notions as 4heirs of glory', 'heroes of unwritten story', 'nurslings of ... mother', 'hopes of her...' all create relational images, inasmuch as they aim at showing the relations bet ween the constituents of the metaphors but not the actual (visual) images of, in this case, 'heir', 'hero', 'nursling', 'hope'.
A striking instance of building up an image by means other than metaphor, metonymy and simile is to be seen in the following passage of emotive prose from "The Man of Property." Galsworthy has created
in this particular case an atmosphere of extreme tension at a dinner table. This is only part of the passage:
"Dinner began in silence; the women facing one another, and the men.
In silence the soup was finished—excellent, if a little thick; and fish was brought. In silence it was handed.
Bosinney ventured: "It's the first spring day."
Irene echoed softly: "Yes—the first spring day."
"Spring!" said June: "There isn't a breath of air!" No one replied.
The fish was taken away, a fine fresh sole from Dover. And Bilson brought champagne, a bottle swathed around the neck with white.
Soames said: "You'll find it dry."
Cutlets were handed, each pink-frilled about the legs. They were refused by June, and silence fell"
The first thing that strikes the close observer is the insistent repetition of words, constructions, phrases. The word 'silence' is repeated four times in a short stretch of text. The idea of silence is conveyed by means of synonymous. expressions: 'There was a lengthy pause', 'no one replied' ('answered'), 'Long silence followed!' Then the passive constructions ('fish was brought', 'it was handed', 'the fish was taken away', 'cutlets were handed', 'They were refused', 'they were borne away', 'chicken was removed', -'sugar was handed her', 'the charlotte was removed', 'olives... caviare were placed', 'the olives were removed', 'a silver tray was brought', and so on) together with parallel construction and asyndeton depict the slow progress of the dinner, thus revealing the strained atmosphere of which all those present were aware.
This example illustrates the means by which an image can be created by syntactical media and repetition. Actually we do not find any transferred meanings in the words used here, i.e. all the words are used in their literal meanings. And yet-so .strong is the power of syntactical arrangement and repetition that the reader cannot fail to experience himself the tension surrounding the dinner table.
In this connection it is worth mentioning one of the ways of building up images which Archibald A. Hill, an American scholar of linguistics, has called an i с о п. The icon 4s a direct representation, not necessarily a picture, of a thing or an event.
"Icons," he writes, "have not generally been included among the enumerations of figures of speech, and in discussions of imagery, have usually been called simply descriptions." x
The excerpt from "The Man of Property" may serve as a good example of an icon. This device might justly be included in the system of stylistic devices and be given its due as one of the most frequent ways of image-building. However, an icon must always rest on some specific, concretizing use of words, and their forms (e.g. tenses of verbs), and/or the arrange-ment of sentences, which secure the desired image. These language unit
be likened to the colours in a painting which only in an adequate arrangement will reproduce the image. "An image," writes A. E. Derbyshire, evidently having in mind the process of iconizing, "is merely a way of using words in certain syntagmatic relationships."1
It was necessary to dwell so lengthily on the problem of icons because, to hazard a guess, icons seem to be a powerful means of creating images in the belles-lettres style. The simplicity and ease in decoding the icon outweighs the effect of other image-building media, the latter being more complicated because of their multi-dimensional nature. These properties of icons make it advisable to single the device out as one among other means of image-building. Icons may justly be promoted to canons in the belles-lettres style. '
Another feature of the poetical substyle is its volume of emotional colouring. Here again the problem of quantity comes up. The emotional element is characteristic of the belles-lettres style in general. But poetry has it in full measure. This is, to some extent, due to the rhythmic foundation of verse, but more particularly to the great number of emotionally coloured words. True, the degree of emotiveness in works of belles-lettres depends also on the idiosyncrasy of the writer, on the content, and on the purport. But emotiveness remains an essential property of the style in general and it becomes more compressed and substantial in the poetic substyle. This feature of the poetic substyle has won formal expression in poetic words which have beenjegarded as conventional symbols of poetic language.
In the history of poetic language' there are several important stages of development. At every stage the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement, which is the most characteristic feature of the substyle, remains its essence. As regards the vocabulary, it can be described as noticeably literary. The colloquial elements, though they have elbowed their way into poetry at some stages in its development, still remain essentially unimportant and, at certain periods, were quite alien to the style. But even common literary words become conspicuous because of the new significance they acquire in a line of poetry.
"Words completely colourless in a purely intellectual setting," writes S. Ullmann, "may suddenly disclose unexpected resources of expressiveness in emotive or poetic discourse. Poets may rejuvenate and revitilize faded images by tracing them back to their etymological roots. When *T. S. Eliot says 'a thousand visions and revisions', 'revision' is suddenly illuminated and becomes transparent." 2
Poetry has long been regarded as "the domain of the few" and the choice of vocabulary has always been in accord with this principle. The words, their forms, and also certain syntactical patterns were usually chosen to meet the refined tastes of admirers of poetry.
In the chapter on poetic words, we have pointed out the character of these words and the role they have played in preserving the so-called "purity" of poetic language. The struggle against the conventionalities
of the poetic language found its expression in the famous "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" written by Wordsworth and Coleridge which undoubtedly bore some fruitful results in liberalizing poetic language. They tried to institute a reform in poetic diction which would employ "a selection of language really used by men" as they put it in their Preface. However, their protest against poetical words and phrases was doomed to failure. The transition from refined poetical language, select and polished, to a language of colloquial plainness with even ludicrous images and associations was too violent to be successful. Shelley and Byron saw the reactionary retrograde aspect of the "reform" and criticized the poetic language of the^ Lake poets, regarding many of the words they used as new "poeti-cisms."
However, the protest raised by Wordsworth and Coleridge reflected the growing dissatisfaction with the conventionalities of poetic diction. Some of the morphological categories of the English language, as, for instance, the Present Continuous tense, the use of nouns as adjectives and other kinds of conversion had long been banned from poetical language. The Quarterly Review, a literary journal of the 19th century, blamed Keats for using new words coined by means of conversion. After the manifesto of Wordsworth and Coleridge the "democratization" of poetic language was accelerated, however. In Byron's "Beppo" and "Don Juan" we already find a great number of colloquial expressions and even slang and cant. But whenever Byron uses non-poetic words or expressions, he shows that he is well aware of their stylistic value. He does this either by foot-notes or by making a comment in the text itself, as, for example, such phrases as:
"He was 'free to confess'—(whence comes this phrase? Is't English? No—'tis only parliamentary)"
or:
" . . . „,, ...... .to use a phrase
By which such-things tire settled nowadays."
But poetical language remains and will always remain a specific mode of communication differing from prose. This specific mode of communication uses specific means. The poetic words and phrases, peculiar syntactical arrangement, orderly phonetic and rhythmical patterns have long been the signals, of poetic language. But the most important of all is the power of the wofds^used in poetry to express more than they usually signify in ordinary language.
A. A. Potebnya expresses this, idea in the following words:
"What is called 'common' language can at best be only a technical language, because it presupposes a ready-made thought, but does not serve as a^means of shaping the thought. It (the common) is essentially a prose language." г
The sequence of words in an utterance is hardly, if at all, predictable In poetry.
Semantic entropy is, therefore, an inherent property of poetic language. But sometimes this entropy grows so large that it stuns and stupefies the reader, preventing him from decoding the message, or it makes him exert his mental powers to the utmost in order to discover the significance given by the poet to ordinary words. This is the case with some of the modern English and American poetry. Significant in this respect is the confession of Kenneth Allot, compiler of "The Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse," who in his introductory note on William Empson's poetry writes: "I have chosen poems I understand, or think I understand, and therefore can admire... There are some poems I cannot understand at all." l
Poetry of this kind will always remain "the domain of the few." Instead of poetic precision we find a deliberate plunge into semantic entropy which renders the message incomprehensible. The increase of entropy in poetic language is mainly achieved by queer word combinations, fragmentary ^syntax—almost without logical connections.
We have already pointed out that in the history of the development of the literary language, a prominent role was played by men-of-letters. There was a constant struggle between those who were dissatisfied with the established laws which regulated the functioning of literary English and those who tried to restrain its progressive march.
The same struggle is evident in the development of poetic language. In ascertaining the norms of 19th century poetic language, a most significant part was played by Byron and^Shelley. Byron mocked at the efforts of Wordsworth and the other Lake poets to reform poetical language. In his critical remarks in the polemic poem "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" and in his other works, he showed that the true progress of poetic language lies not in the denial of the previous stylistic norms, but in the creative reshaping and recasting of the values of the past, their adaptation to the requirements of the present and a healthy continuity of long-established tradition. Language by its very nature will not tolerate sudden unexpected and quick changes. It is evolutionary in essence. Poetry, likewise, willrevolt against forcible impositions of strange forms and will either reject them or mould them in the furnace of regognized traditional patterns. Shelley in his preface to "The'Chenchi" writes:
"I have written more carelessly; that is, without an over-fastidious and learned choice of words. In this respect I entirely agree with those modern critics who assert that in order to move men to true sympathy we must use the familiar language of men, and that our great ancestors the ancient English poets are the writers, a study of whom might incite us to do that foF our own- age which they have done for theirs. But it must be the real language of men in general and not that of any particular class to whose society the writer happens to belong."
In Shelley's works we find the materialization of these principles. Revolutionary content and the progress of science laid new demands on poetic diction and, as a result, scientific and political terms and im-
agery based on new scientific data, together with lively colloquial words poured into poetic language. Syntax also underwent noticeable changes' but hardly ever to the extent of making the utterance unintelligible* The liberalization of poetic language reflects the general struggle for a freer development of the literary language, in contrast to the rigorous restrictions imposed on it by the language lawgivers of the 18th century In poetry words become more conspicuous, as if they were attired in some mysterious manner, and mean more than they mean in ordinary neutral communications. Words-in poetic language live a longer life than ordinary words. They are intended to last. This is, of course achieved mainly by the connections the words have with one another and^ to some extent, by the rhythmical design which makes the words stand out in a more isolated manner so that they seem to possess a greater degree of independence and significance.
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