THE USE OF RHYTHM AND RHYME IN VERSIFICATION
Rhythm in poetic speech is produced by regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Why do you cry, Willie ? f'uu|'uu)
Why do you cry? ('uu|')
Why, Willie, why, Willie, ('uu|'uu)
Why, Willie, Why? ('uu|')
For a purely syllabic system of versification (e.g. in French poetry), the important feature is the same number of syllables in different lines, whether stressed or unstressed. For a purely-tonic system (as in Anglo-Saxon poetry of old times) the important feature is the number of stressed syllables (tonic= 'stressed'). For the syllabic -tonic system of versification, which is typical of modern English (and Russian) poetry, the important feature is the same number of stressed and unstressed syllables. A division of the poetic line from stress to stress, which contains one stressed syllable and one or two unstressed syllables, is called a Foot. The foot is the main unit of rhythm in poetic speech. According to the correlation of stressed and unstressed syllables within the foot, we distinguish the following 5 types of feet:
1) trochee, or a trochaic foot, with two syllables, of which the first is stressed and the
second unstressed:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater,Had a wife and couldn 't keep her See also the Russian trochaic foot.
2) iambus, or an iambic foot, with two syllables, of
which the first is unstressed, the second stressed:
And then my love and I shall pace, (u ' I u ' lu' lu') My jet black hair in pearly braids. (Coleridge)
3) dactyl, or a dactylic foot: three syllables, the
first stressed, the other two unstressed:
Why do you cry, Willie? ('uul'uu)
4) amphibrach, or an amphibrachic foot:
three syllables with the stress on the second:
A diller, a dollar, a ten о 'clock scholar... (и' и I u' u | u' и I и ' u)
5) anapaest: three syllables, stress on the third:
Said the flee, 'Let us fly', (uu'luu'j
Said the fly, 'Let us flee',
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
The type of foot and the number of feet in the line determine the Metre of the verse. Here we distinguish:
iambic trimetre: three iambic feet in a line:
Who sets an apple tree (u ' I u ' lu ')
May live to see its end,
Who sets a pear tree
May set it for a friend. iambic tetrametre: four iambic feet in a line:
And then my love and 1 shall pace, (u ' lu' I u ' lu') My jet black hair in pearly braids. (Coleridge) iambic pentametre
Her lovely looks a sprightly mind disclose (u ' I и ' 1 и ' lu' lu')
Quick as her eyes and as unfixed as those. (A. Pope) trochaic trimeter
Ring -a — ring of roses, ( ' u I ' u I ' u~)
Pocket full of posies trochaic tetrametre
Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater ( ' u I ' u I ' u I ' u) amphibrachic tetrameter
A diller, a dollar, a ten о 'clock scholar
A verse with four or more feet in a line usually has a caesura, i.e. a pause in the middle of the line:
Praised be the Art \\ whose subtle power could stay Yon cloud, and fix it \\ in that glorious shape; Nor would permit || the thin smoke to escape, Nor those bright sunbeams \\ to forsake the day. (W. Wordsworth)
English versification is often characterized by certain Irregularities in the metre, e.g. a combination of one-syllable and two syllable feet
Pease porridge hot ( ' I ' u 1 ' 1)
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porrjdge in the pot
Nine days old. (I'll)or a combination of one-syllable, two-syllable and three-syllable feet
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. ('ul'ul'uul') Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, ('ul'ul'uul'l) All the King s horses and all the King's men ( ' u u I " u u I ' uul ')
Couldn 'tput Humpty Dumpty together again. (' ~ I' — I' ~~\'~~\')
Another kind of irregularity is represented by the so called Pyrric foot, in which the rhythm is broken due to the use of unstressed words in the place of the expected stressed syllables, or vice versa, as in
Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream. (John Keats) (u'|u'|u'|uuu')
or as in the second line of the extract from A. Pope below: Her lovely looks a sprightly mind disclose (u ' I u ' I u ' lu' lu')
Quick as her eyes and as unfixed as those. (A. Pope) ( ' | u u ' |u u u " |u ')
Rhyme is created by the repetition of the same sounds in the last stressed syllable of two (or more) lines in a stanza.
By the type of the stressed syllable we distinguish the male
rhyme, when the stress falls on the last
syllable in the rhymed lines, and the female rhyme, when it falls on the last but one syllable:
When the lamp is shattered (female rhyme)
The light in the dust lies dead; (male rhyme)
When the cloud is scattered, (female)
The rainbow's glory is shed, (male) (P.B. Shelley)
See also the alternation of male and female rhymes in the
Russian verse in Pushkin's rhymed novel.
There may be paired rhymes. when the rhyming pattern is aabb:
The seed ye sow, another reaps; (a)
The wealth ye find, another keeps; (a)
The robes ye weave, another wears; (b)
The arms ye forge, another bears, (b) (Shelley) or alternate rhymes, with the pattern abab:
A slumber did my spirit seal; (a)
I had no human fears: (b)
She seemed a thing that could not feel (a)
The touch of earthly years, (b) (W. Wordsworth) or enclosing rhymes , with the pattern abba:
Much have I travel!'d in the realms of gold, (a)
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; (b)
Round many western islands have I been (b)
Which bards in fealty (= loyalty) to Apollo hold, (a) (J. Keats) There may also be more complicated variations of these patterns:
Rough wind, that meanest loud (a) Grief too sad for song; (b)
Wild wind, when sullen cloud (a) Knells all the night long; (b)
Sad storm, whose tears are vain, (c)
Bare woods, whose branches stain, (c)
Deep caves and dreary main, — (c)
Wail for the world's wrong/ (b) (Shelley)
Note also the possibility of the so called eye-rhyme, when the elements rhymed are similar only in spelling, but not in pronunciation:
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store ?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind. (J. Keats)
For us, even banquets fond regret supply
In the red cup that crowns our memory. (Byron)
Types of Stanza
The most common stanza, one consisting of four lines, is called a quatrain; the more seldom one, consisting of two, is called a couplet.
There is also a ballad stanza, typical of poetic folklore, especially that of the 14th—15th centuries. A ballad is a poem with a plot, which tells some story. The ballad stanza usually has four lines, of which the first and third lines contain four feet, while the second and fourth — three or two.
The first word that Sir Patrick read, (4 feet)
Sae loud, loud laughed he; (3)
The neist word that Sir Patrick read, (4)
The tear blinded his ее. (3)
This type of stanza is also found in later poetry:
The fairest one shall be my love's, (4 feet)
The fairest castle of the nine! (3)
Wait only till the stars peep out, (4)
The fairest shall be thine. (3) (Coleridge)
In R. Kipling's ballad cited below, the quatrains are combined into couplets, within which, however, is preserved the alternation of four-foot and three-foot metres:
Oh, East is East, and West is West, (4) and never the twain shall meet (3)
Till Earth and Sky stand presently (4) at God's great Judgement Seat (3).
A specific type of stanza is used in a sonnet. There we usually find twelve lines (three quatrains, i.e. three stanzas with four lines), followed by two final lines (a couplet), which contain a kind of summary of the whole verse:
O, lest the world should ask you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love,
After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O, lest your true love may seem false in this, That you for love speak well of me untrue, My name be buried where my body is, And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am ashamed by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
(Shakespeare, Sonnet No. 72) There may also be blank verse, in whic! :here is no rhyming, but the rhythm and metre are to some extent preserved; such is, for instance, the verse of Shakespeare's tragedies:
To be or not to be, — that is the question: —
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them ? — To die, — to sleep, —
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, — to sleep; —
To sleep! Perchance to dream: — ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
Wfien we have shuffled off this mortal coil... (Hamlet)
