On the Grasshopper and Cricket

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 556.

The Raven

The Ancient Mariner

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!... (S. Coleridge)

...Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood

there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal

ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness

gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered

word "Lenore"!

This I whispered and an echo murmured back

the word "Lenore".

Merely this; and nothing more.... (Edgar Allan Poe)

By the Lyric we usually mean a short poem like a song which is usually the expression of a mood or feeling.

То

— Music, when soft voices die.

Vibrates in the memory —

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead.

Are heaped for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone.

Love itself shall slumber on. (P.B. Shelley)

A Sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines which follows a very strict rhythm pattern. Sonnets tend to be difficult because a great deal of meaning is often conveyed in a few lines.

The poetry of earth is never dead

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

That is the grasshopper's — he takes the lead

In summer luxury — he has never done

With his delights; for when tired out with fun

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half-lost,

The grasshopper's among some grassy hills. (J. Keats)

In verse the similarity of rhythmical units is certainly strengthened by the metre, which is some strict number and se­quence of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line. Strict alter­nation of stressed and unstressed syllables in metric versification allows us to regard a syllable as the minimal rhythmic unit in metric verse. Then again comes a rhythmic group, an intonation group, a line, a stanza. They all form the hierarchy of rhythmic units in poetry. English verse is marked by a descending bow-shaped melody contour, decentralized stress organization. The

strict recurrence of such intonation patterns secures a stable peri­odicity in verse rhythm. The basic rhythm unit in verse, howev­er, is a line. On the prosodic level the rhythm in a line is secured by the similar number of syllables, their temporal similarity, de­scending melody contour, tone and intensity maximum at the beginning, tone and intensity minimum at the end and the final pause. These parameters make the line a stable rhythmic unit.

It should be claimed here that the great effect produced on us by poetic rhythm is not created by the prosody alone. The de­light we get when reading poetry often comes from its musical qualities, or from the striking way a poet uses words. But this can only be a partial explanation, for poetry does not follow hard and fast rules; every poem is unique and has special quali­ties of its own as you could make sure yourself. Some of these, however, are properties common to all poetry. They are struc­tural, semantic and sound devices which help the poet to fulfill his intentions and strengthen the prosodic means of rhythmicality. As we have already mentioned in the analysis of the stylistic devices that follows the examples have been drawn from the po­ems illustrating the types of poetry given above.

We shall naturally start with the phonetic devicesto see how they help the impression of rhythmicality. They add con­siderably to the musical quality a poem has when it is read aloud.

1. First and foremost among the sound devices is the rhymeat line endings. Most skilful rhyming is sometimes presented by internal rhyme with two rhyming words within a single line, e.g.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea. ( Coleridge. The Ancient Mariner)

Edgar Рое also uses internal rhyming in the poem "The Raven" in every first and third line of each stanza: peering — fear­ing; unbroken —no token; shutter—flutter; make he—stayed he.

2. Assonanceoccurs when a poet introduces imperfect rhymes often employed deliberately to avoid the jingling sound of a too insistent rhyme pattern, e.g. "stone" is made to rhyme with "one" by W. Wordsworth in "Lucy"; "youth" is rhymed with "roof by E. Brontë in "Mild the Mists Upon the Hill".

In this way the rhymes do not fall into a sing-song pattern and the lines flow easily.

3. Alliterationis the repetition of the same sound at frequent intervals, e.g.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free. (S. Coleridge. The Ancient Mariner)

The repeated "b's" and "f's" here make the lines run quickly and give the impression of a ship travelling at high speed. Or:

Open here I flung the shutter and with many a flirt and flutter...

The same impression of quickness is created by the repetition of the "f" sound. Also:

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood

there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever

dared to dream before. (E. Рое. The Raven)

The repetition of the "d" sound suggests both monotony and immobility.

4. Sound symbolism (imitation of the sounds of animals) makes the description very vivid. An example of sound symbol­ism is found in Shakespeare's verse "Winter", e.g.

Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-who

Tu-whit, to-who — a merry note...

Structural or syntactical stylistic devices indicate the way the whole poem has been built, thus helping the rhythm to fulfill its constitutive function.

1. Repetition. Poets often repeat single lines or words at in­tervals to emphasize a particular idea. Repetition is to be found in poetry which is aiming at special musical effects or when a poet wants us to pay very close attention to something, e.g.

Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere

Nor any drop to drink. (S. Coleridge. The Ancient Mariner)

Also the repetition of the last words of each stanza in the poem "The Raven" by Е. Рое.

2. Syntactical parallelism helps to increase rhythmicality, e.g.

...Perched above my chamber door

Perched upon a bust of Pallas. (E. Рое. The Raven)

Or:

The poetry of earth is never dead... ...The poetry of earth is ceasing never...

(J. Keats. On the Grasshopper and Cricket)

3. Inversion, the unusual word order specially chosen to em­phasize the logical centre of the phrase, e.g.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down.

(S. Coleridge. The Ancient Mariner)

Or:

Open here I flung the shutter... Not the least obeisance made he Not an instant stopped or stayed he.

(E. Рое. The Raven)

4. Polysyndeton is a syntactical stylistic device which actual­ly stimulates rhythmicality of a poem by the repetition of phras­es or intonation groups beginning with the same conjunctions "and" or "or", e.g.

When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul...

(W. Shakespeare. Winter)

Semantic stylistic devices impart high artistic and aesthetic value to any work of art including poetry.

1. Simileis a direct comparison which can be recognized by the use of the words, "like" and "as". The most striking example of simile is found in the lines:

Day after day, day after day, We stuck; nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

By relating the real ship to a painted one S. Coleridge enables us to imagine just how still the ship was.

In the poem "Lucy" W. Wordsworth compares the girl to a star:

Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.

2. Metaphoris a stylistic figure of speech which is rather like simile, except that the comparison is not direct but implied and that makes the effect more striking.

In the poem "Lucy" W. Wordsworth does not say that the girl was like a violet. He writes:

A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye.

Lucy in these lines is a violet. The metaphor vividly repre­sents a girl of rare beauty who lived unknown. In his sonnet "On the Grasshopper and Cricket" J. Keats uses the words "poetry" and "luxury" metaphorically:

The poetry of earth is never dead...

That is the grasshopper's — he takes the lead

In summer luxury.

3. Intensification is a special choice of words to show the in­crease of feelings, emotions or actions, e.g.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there

wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared

to dream before... (E. Poe. The Raven)

4. Personification occurs when inanimate objects are given a human form or human feelings or actions, e.g.

...the day has wept its fill...

(E. Bronte.The Mild Mists Upon the Hills)

...the rose is dead; ...soft voices die;

Love itself shall slumber on. (P. Shelley.To — )

...and an echo murmured back the word "Lenore"!

(E Poe. The Raven)

We do not aim at analysing all the numerous stylistic devic­es known in poetry but tried to demonstrate the effect of rhythm created by the surprising unity of the semantic, syntactic and phonetic means. Summarizing we can say that poetic rhythm is a complex system with the hierarchical organization of its units arranged by prosody as well as lexical and syntactical means.

Our further point should concern prose. We would like to start with a fairy-tale which is nearest to poetry and could be considered an intermediate stage between poetry and prose as it is famous for its obvious rhythmicality and poetic beauty, e.g.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there lived an Em­peror who loved to wear new clothes. Every spare wardrobe in his palace was packed from ceiling to floor with gorgeous waist­coats, tunics, and capes (The Emperor's New Clothes).

A fairy-tale has a specific manner of oral presentation, differ­ent from any other sort of text. The reading of a fairy-tale pro­duces a very strong impression on the listener. The prosodic organization of a fairy-tale creates the effect of euphony which im­plies sound harmony, melodiousness, measured steps of epic character of phonation. The most functional features of euphony are rhythmicality and the melody component of intonation.

The rhythm of a fairy-tale is created by the alternations of commensurate tone, loudness and tempo characteristics of into­nation (70). Intonation groups are marked by similarity of tone contour and tempo in the head and the nuclear tone. Rhythmi­cality is often traced in alternations of greater and smaller sylla­ble durations.

The fairy-tale narration is marked by the descending or level tone contour in the head of intonation groups and specific com­pound nuclear tones: level-falling, level-rising, falling-level, ris­ing-level. The level segment of nuclear tones adds to the effect of slowing down the fairy-tale narration and its melodiousness.

We would like to mention right here that the reading or re­citing of a fairy-tale is not utterly monotonous. Alongside with the even measured flow of fairy-tale narration we find contras­tive data in prosodic parameters which help to create vivid im­ages of fairy-tale characters and their actions. For example, with respect to medium parameters high/low pitch level is predomi­nant in describing the size of a fairy-tale character (huge bear — little bear); fast/slow tempo strengthens the effect of fast or slow

movements and other actions. Splashes of tone on such words of intensification as: all, so, such, just, very make for attracting the lis­tener's attention. Deliberately strict rhythm serves as a means of creating the image of action dynamism so typical of fairy-tales.

It is interesting to note that though the prosodic arrangement of English and Russian fairy-tales is universal some differences are traced in their rhythmic and pitch characteristics. In an Eng­lish fairy-tale the nuclear segment is characterized by the level tone. In the Russian fairy-tale the pre-nuclear segment has the level contour. The discrepancy in the mechanism of rhythm con­stituents is observed mainly in the temporal characteristics of in­tonation. As we have already said fairy-tale rhythm in English is created by the alternations of contrastive maximum and mini­mum syllable durations. In Russian relatively equal syllable du­ration is typical of fairy-tale rhythm. The following table clearly illustrates the difference:

Due to its rhythmicality the English fairy-tale becomes an ex­pedient material for teaching practice. A highly rhythmical fairy­tale text could be of great help in developing the habits of ex­pressive reading and speaking. The reading of a fairy-tale should be anticipated by the analysis of its topic and composition as well as lexical and structural means of expressiveness in it. In the process of working at a fairy-tale text the listener's attention should be attracted to the stylistic effect of rhythm in it.

Now we shall turn to other types of prosaic text. We have already mentioned the oral text units which form the hierarchy of rhythm structure in prose. We are going to describe their prosodic characteristics which make them rhythmic units. As we have al­ready said the basic rhythmic unit is a rhythmic group. It is char­

acterized by one stressed syllable with one-three unstressed sylla­bles attached to it. The regular recurrence of the stressed syllables at relatively isochronous intervals is perceived as rhythmicality. Rhythmic groups blend together into intonation groups which correspond to the smallest semantic text unit — syntagm. The in­tonation group reveals the similarity of the following features: the tone maximum of the beginning of the intonation group, loudness maximum, the lengthening of the first rhythmic group in compar­ison with the following one, the descending character of the melo­dy, often a bow-shaped melody contour. An intonation group in­cludes from 1 to 4 stressed syllables. Most of intonation groups last 1—2 seconds. The end of the intonation group is characterized by the tone and loudness minimum, the lengthening of the last rhythmic group in it, by the falling terminal tone and a short pause.

The similarity of the prosodic organization of the intonation group allows us to count it as a rhythmic unit. The next text unit is undoubtedly the phrase. A phrase often coincides either with an intonation group or even with the phonopassage. In both those cases a phrase is perceived as a rhythmic unit having all the parameters of either an intonation group, or a phonopas­sage.

A. M. Antipova finds a remarkable regularity in the sounding of long phrases. Syntactical units like subordinate clauses, enu­merations and other constructions are often grouped into a kind of steps. The first intonation group of each step is pronounced on a higher level than the final intonation group of the previous step. Such periodicity creates a sort of background against which the rhythm units are realized, e.g.

The British Isles | consist of England and Wales, | Scotland, | Ire­land I and many small islands | chiefly to be found in the West¹.

The rhythmicality of a phonopassage is marked by the long­est pause, the descending/stepping melody contour in the initial and final intonation groups, tone maximum at the beginning and

¹ The example is borrowed from the hook: Антипова A. M. Ритмическая система английской речи. М., 1984, с. 58.

tone minimum at the end of the phonopassage. The prosodic pa­rameters are practically the same in every rhythmic unit but each time they come into play on a larger scale and in a new variety of interrelationship. Thus in prose an intonation group, a phrase and a phonopassage seem to have similar prosodic or­ganization:

1) the beginning of a rhythmic unit is characterized by the tone and intensity maximum, the slowing of the tempo;

2) the end of a rhythmic unit is marked by a pause of differ­ent length, the tone and intensity minimum, slowing of the tem­po, generally sloping descending terminal tones;

3) the most common pre-nuclear pattern of a rhythmic unit is usually the High (Medium) Level Head.

The prosodic markers of rhythmic units differ in number. The intonation group has the maximum of the prosodic features con­stituting its rhythm. The phonopassage and the rhythmic group are characterized by the minimum of prosodic features, being mostly marked by the temporal similarity. The following extract may serve as a model of prosodic rhythm.

^↘Many of the 'old houses, round aˌbout, | ^↘speak very 'plainly of 'those ˌdays | when ^↘Kingston was a 'royal ˎborough, | and ^↘nobles and 'courtiers ˎlived there, | near their ˎking, | and the long 'road to the 'palace ˎgates | was ^→ gay all >day ⌇ with ^→ clanking ˌsteel | and ^→ prancing ˎpalfreys | and ^↘rustling 'silks and ˎvelvets, | and ^→fair ˎfaces. || The ^↘large and 'spacious ˎhous-es, Iwith their oriel 'latticed ˎwindows, | their ^↘huge ˎfireplaces, | and their ^→ gabled ˎroofs, | ^↘breathe of the 'days of ↑ hose, and ˎdoublet |of pearl-em'broidered ˎstomachers | and ^→ complicat­ed ˎoaths. ||(Jerome K. Jerome. Three Men in a Boat)

The description of style differentiating functions of rhythm is at its starting point. Still it is quite clear that there are some obvi­ous differences between the rhythmic patterns of various speech realizations. Rhythm organization of, say, a dispassionate mono­logue will vary greatly from that of a familiar conversation.

It should be also noted that there are many factors which can disrupt the potential rhythm of a phrase. The speaker may pause at some points in the utterance, he may be interrupted, he may make false starts, repeat a word, correct himself and allow other hesitation phenomena.

Spontaneous dialogic informal discourse reveals a rich varie­ty of rhythm organization and the change of rhythmic patterns within a single stretch of speech. The most stable regularity is observed on the level of rhythmic and intonation groups. They often coincide and tend to be short. The brevity of remarks in spontaneous speech explains the most common use of level heads of all ranges, abrupt terminal tones of both directions. The falling terminal tone seems to be the main factor of rhythmicality in spontaneous speech. Longer intonation groups display a great variety of intonation patterns including all kinds of heads and terminal tones. The choice of the intonation pattern by the par­ticipants of the conversation depends on their relationship to each other, the subject matter they are discussing, the emotional state of the participants and other situational factors. As a result informal spontaneous conversation sounds very lively and lacks monotony.

The extract from a conversation between a married couple il­lustrates the rhythm organization of spontaneous informal dia­logue.

Wife. ^vCareful, Jack! || There's a ˎbend over there. || Husband. I've ˎseen it, dear. [ ^→Don't ˌworry. || Wife. ^→Don't hit that ˎlorry! | ^→Slow ˎdown a little. |j Husband. We're going 'very slowly as it ˎis. || Only ^→forty miles an ˎhour. ||

Wife. ^→ Forty miles an ˌhour | ^→ isn't very ˎslow. || There's a

ˎcrossing. ^→Can't you see the ˌsign? || Husband. I ^→see it all ˎright. Why ˎworry?