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-   -   Are Syllabics Metrical? (https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=2492)

Alan Sullivan 01-24-2001 06:41 PM

Hello all,
On the "Loose Meters" thread, we had gotten round to talking about syllabic vs. accentual-syllabic vs. accentual verse. This looked like a good topic for another thread, particularly since there have been several syllabic poems posted on the Metrical Board lately. I would argue that syllabics are not metrical at all, and belong on the Other Board, as a variant of free verse.

First some simple definitions. Writing syllabic verse, we count syllables for lines of fixed length, regardless of accents. Writing accentual-syllabic verse, we count both stresses and syllables, in rough or strict accordance with pre-determined patterns. Writing accentual verse, we count stresses only, for lines of varying length.

Stressed syllables are the determinants of rhythm in English. Verse written with accentual rhythm is also known as "qualitative." In some other languages, the rhythms of speech are time-based. Verse in those languages is called "quantitative." See the discussion of duration on the "Musical Measures" thread.

I would reserve the term "metrical" for speech which has a sustained rhythm. Syllabic poetry would, by definition, become accentual-syllabic if it displayed this property. Does it not, therefore, fall outside the boundary of metrical practice? I'd be curious to hear what others think.

Alan Sullivan

Julie 01-24-2001 07:37 PM

Syllabics are the proverbial neither fish nor fowl.

I do not consider them metrical, nor do I consider them free verse, though I would argue that since our "other forum" is simply the non-metrical forum, syllabic verse belongs there.

So, in a strict definitional sense, I agree with you.

In another sense, though, I consider people working in syllabic verse to be a hell of a sight more akin to metrical people than they are to free versers. Meter and syllabics are both explorations of limitations--working within set boundaries.

So, frankly, I think they can get more help reaching their goals in the metrical forum than in the other forum.

Julie

Julie 01-24-2001 07:39 PM

And if that isn't the wishy washiest answer you've heard all day, you spend too much time with politicians.

Julie

MacArthur 01-24-2001 10:21 PM

What about Accentual verse? Does that belong on the "Other Poetry" forum? A lot of Modern Poetry ordinarily considered "free verse" could, within reason, be rationalised as accentual verse without consistent alliteration--e.g. Eliot, Pound, Auden, WCW etc.
It would seem odd to put syllabic verse, which is often so exquisite and painstaking in the "ghetto", and keep Accentual, which is a bit loose (who knows what syllables to count as Strong absent alliteration?)

Alan Sullivan 01-25-2001 06:08 AM

Julie, you make a good roundabout argument for keeping those haiku on the metrical side.

Mac, I have the impression that a lot of what gets called free verse (which I rarely read) is actually to some degree accentual. Speech abhors arhythmia just as nature abhors a vacuum. Unfortunately, most free versers are dogmatic in their rejection of meter and refuse to recognize their own rhythms. Another example of politics (religion by another name) infesting every human pursuit during the twentieth century.

Alan Sullivan

RCL 01-25-2001 06:28 AM

Given the definitions and distinctions made so far, Dylan Thomas would be required to post "Fern Hill" on the "other" forum? I agree with Julie that he would get more help on the metrical side. It is amazingly shaped, structured, and highly textured with sound and imagery, but is syllabic and without end-rhyme: the syllable count of each line in each stanza echoed in every stanza, with four or five significant variations.

------------------
Ralph

Julie 01-25-2001 06:58 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Alan Sullivan:
Julie, you make a good roundabout argument for keeping those haiku on the metrical side.

See, if you waffle long enough, people start to think you believe in something!

I think I would argue for haiku on the metrical board, yes.

I tend to think of the metrical side as "metrical poetry plus formal poetry of whatever stripe."

(I do have to say that I dislike haiku, though. They always leave me saying, "Annddd??")

Julie

mandolin 01-25-2001 08:06 AM

Syllabics are just about impossible to hear in English. But they are certainly a measure, and they require more discipline in the line than does free verse -- getting the syllable count to match an effective line-break is hard. I'd vote for keeping them in the metrical section -- though I don't understand why one would write one other than as a sort of puzzle.

BTW, I agree with Julie about haiku in English. Traditional haiku are highly allusive, referring to texts and traditions of which most of us in the West have little knowledge. Western haiku generally retain only the syllable count and (sometimes) the seasonal reference, making depth of insight, image, or feeling nearly impossible in 17 syllables.


John Beaton 01-25-2001 09:08 AM

I would argue that some syllabic poetry belongs on the metrical side, but I can't explain why except to say I suspect it has something to do with a quality that I will call "cadence" for now, and some sort of regularity in line duration. It's what differentiates oratory from ordinary speech. Maybe, as Alan suggests, much free verse has this too. I'm reminded of Tim Murphy's comments on another thread:

"Alan and I learned how to write isochronous verse in Modern English. Using a substantial proportion of trisyllabic feet and heavy caesuras, we crafted lines which impose their duration on the reader."

I would argue that something happens in some syllabic poetry that amounts to more than free verse, and whatever it is, it's a quality of sound and pacing that is "metrical". I've seem "syllabic" poems posted that look like free verse chopped up into regular lengths with little regard for sound except to avoid line-endings in the middle of words. In other syllabic verse there is a definite "feel" to the sound that makes the line-breaks seem natural. "Fern Hill" is a good example. I say these poems belong on the metrical board because their success depends on whether or not the overall "cadence" of the lines works.

Porridginal

Tim Murphy 01-25-2001 10:48 AM

Atlantis by Wystan Auden is the great syllabic poem of the past century. But Wilbur has written three poems in Haiku stanza which are contenders. Auden's poem is fully rhymed (or slant rhymed). Wilbur's stanzas are rhymed ABA. Both poets give the hearer something to satisfy the ear. Marianne Moore defended her syllabics on the grounds that her "ear" could hear seventeen syllables. Gimme a break. It is prose lineated into precisely minced pieces, meat for the cutting board. I memorized Fern Hill when I was fifteen and never saw it was syllabic. E-Citizens, might it derive its majesty from its music? Tim

RCL 01-25-2001 11:09 AM

Tim, I wholeheartedly agree, "Fern Hill" derives its majesty and magic from the music.

------------------
Ralph

Caleb Murdock 01-26-2001 02:53 AM

Metrical just means "measured", and counting syllables is one way of measuring language. Any verse which is measured in any way, be it by beats or syllables or whatever, is metrical poetry.

I've said often that I count syllables and then allow my ear to determine the beats and rhythms, and I resent it when people tell me that I'm a free-verse poet, which I certainly am not.

As I've said before, the ear hears everything:

* beats
* number of syllables
* the relationship of beats to syllables
* duration of time

As long as the poet is imposing some limitation on the line, it isn't free verse.

Alan Sullivan 01-26-2001 06:23 AM

Varied responses, but clearly everyone wants to be catholic regarding Metrical Board inclusiveness. I guess the next time someone posts a sonnet with ten-syllable lines and no rhythm, I shall have to call it syllabic. Usually, of course, that sort of sonnet has a couple of nines and elevens, with maybe a twelve as well. Hypersyllabic?

Caleb, I know you have remarked before that "the ear" hears everything. Since we don't have earlids, that is certainly true. But the issue isn't what the ear hears. It's whether the brain discerns any sensible pattern. If there is no cue in the voice or manner of a speaker to indicate line breaks, how is the hearer of a lengthy syllabic poem going to distinguish the form? Though it may seem paradoxical to say so, I think syllabics are more a visual than an auditory form---a way of organizing poetry on the page. And Fern Hill's music does not derive from the form, but from the poet's rich language.

Alan Sullivan


RCL 01-26-2001 07:07 AM

Alan, when I mentioned "form" in "Fern Hill," above, I not only meant the regular number of lines per stanza and their matching syllable counts, but their visual appearance as hour-glasses measuring off time, punctuated in the first two stanzas by a reference to time at, roughly, their midpoint lines. So it might be considered a "concrete" or "shaped" poem attempting to organize and visualize for the eye as much as for the ear. (Like your "earlids"!)

------------------
Ralph

Alan Sullivan 01-26-2001 08:20 AM

Good point, and relevant to what Caleb said above. A shape poem has a limitation on the line, but it is a visual limitation, not an aural one. Such a poem may or may not be metrical.

Alan

Caleb Murdock 01-26-2001 11:14 AM

I don't, in fact, think that syllabic poetry really exists in English -- English cannot escape its nature as a stress language. However, when a poet such as myself counts syllables as a means of measure, I do believe that the listener, consciously or unconsciously, hears the regularity of syllables as a kind of form, especially if the poet closes many of those lines. Like most poets, I close many of my lines (with the end of a sentence, a comma, a distinct phrase, etc.), so the listener does indeed hear the regularity of the syllable count. I also tend to close my stanzas, using cross-stanza enjambments only occasionally.

Now, if a poet were to use my method but did not close at least half of his lines, then yes, there is no way for a listener to distinguish what he's hearing from free verse. That is, in fact, what a few faux-formalists (I like to call them) are doing. But I'm not a faux-formalist -- I WANT the listener to hear form in my poems.

I compared the kind of poetry that I like to jazz improvisation in another thread. What I like to do is to play with different elements -- play them against each other, you might say. Thus, in a poem in which I am limiting myself to ten syllables per line, I will also regularly insert lines of iambic pentameter (although other lines may have 4 beats). Thus, the listener hears different patterns coming and going -- patterns of syllables, patterns of beats. A poem which is based on one pattern only -- say, five beats per line -- doesn't sound nearly as interesting to me.

I am not saying that I successfully achieve my aims, but I try.

I hate to dredge up the spectre of a poem that we have discussed before, but it is appropriate here. In "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child", Hopkins adheres very closely to a syllable count of 7-8 (which is what I do -- I give myself a narrow range). The lines, however, can be read with as few as 2 stresses and as many as 5 stresses, depending on the line. However, the regularity of the syllable count is where the poem gets its "measure", and certainly the listener hears that regularity (especially since most of the lines are closed). Towards the end of the poem, Hopkins inserts two lines of 6 syllables each, but that is, I believe, a purposeful variation -- short lines are more dramatic, and he inserts them at the point where he is revealing the moral of the poem.

When I read that poem, I do not hear chaos or any kind of free-verse quality -- I hear form. I hear the blues, I hear a melancholy jazz improvisation, I hear the regular/irregular rhythms of sex. I hear things that excite me. As I've said before, that poem is the epitomy of how I want to write. It is acknowledged by history and by virtually every authority as being a great poem, and I wish that you, Alan, would try to appreciate it. If you could learn to appreciate it, you would understand my own sensibilities much better.

Now, in "Nocture" by Auden, there are also multiple patterns. There is the regularity of the syllable count, and the regularity of the beats (which, together, form the meter, of course), but Auden also uses a recurrent device of two beats in a row throughout the poem. I haven't analyzed that poem completely, but there's more to it than just the meter.


[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited January 26, 2001).]

MacArthur 01-26-2001 11:45 AM

Maybe what Alan proposes is that what is now described as the Metrical Poetry Forum should be confined to poems written in Accentual-syllabic practice (or Stress-Syllable) and every thing else including all alternative metrical systems referred to the Other Poetry category.
He's probably right. The "reformed", or refined, Forum could be called Traditional Poetry, since accentual-syllabic is the tradition in English for most of four or five centuries.
It doesn't denigrate other approaches to Form to place them together in some Other Poetry category-- in my opinion, it doesn't damn a poem to call it Free Verse.

Caleb Murdock 01-26-2001 11:56 AM

What you are suggesting, MacArthur, is that all us poets who write in less conventional ways get pushed out of the Metrical board. No thanks! Aside from the fact that I don't like being kicked out of a party, the last thing the metrical board needs is more rigidity.

MacArthur 01-26-2001 01:06 PM

All of us includes me. I've written a lot more free-verse than anything else, and as I said I don't disparage free-verse as a form of poetry. It's just that categories are justified by their usefulness.

robert mezey 01-26-2001 01:42 PM

I think that technically you'd have to say
that syllabics is a meter, but one which
is usually inaudible in English. Unlike
accentual-syllabics, it can sound like just
about anything, from song to prose. Thomas'
"In My Craft or Sullen Art" is a highly
melodic example of syllabics. Tim admires
Auden's "Atlantis" (which I like well enough)
but I'd say that his most ravishing sound in
syllabics is the elegy for Freud, in alcaic
stanzas. There's probably one exception to
the assertion that we don't hear syllabics
per se in English, and that would be short
rhymed lines. For example, Elizabeth Daryush
who was the great pioneer in syllabics. Here
is one of her poems in which I think the meter
can be clearly heard:

Above the grey down
gather, wan, the glows;
relieved by leaden
gleams a star-gang goes;

in the dark valley
here and there enters
a spark, laggardly,
for the faint watchers

that were there all night--
factory, station
and hospital light...
Tired of lamp, star, sun,

bound to my strait bed
uncurtained, I see
heaven itself law-led,
earth in slavery.

Another beautiful example of the meter, by
J. V. Cunningham:

I write only to say this,
In a syllabic dryness
As inglorious as I feel:
Sometime before drinking time
For the first time in some weeks
I heard of you, the casual
News of a new life, silence
Of unconfronted feeling
And maples in the slant sun
The gay color of decay.
Was it unforgivable,
My darling, that you loved me?

And many more, including the syllabic stanzas
of Henri Coulette's "War of the Secret Agents"
But I would certainly agree that the re-
sources of syllabics are very meager, com-
pared to what can be done with accentual or
accentual-syllabic.


Alan Sullivan 01-26-2001 02:57 PM

Caleb and Mac, WHOA! I thought we'd pretty much agreed on catholicism (small case variety) for the Metrical Poetry board. I posed my initial question as Advocatus Diaboli, to stir up a discussion. Sure succeeded at that! In fact, given the power of anti-metrical prejudice, already mentioned, I would be inclined to accept anything an author regarded as metrical, though I might request a clarification of the author's intent, if I could not discern form.

Robert, again, welcome. You have brought three poets along who deserve some attention in the Eratosphere. I have been planning to post two of them, Cunningham and Coulette, at the Musing on Mastery board. Feel free to do so yourself. The third, Daryush, who comes first in your sequence, is unfamiliar to me. But her short, rhymed lines close clearly, so her type of syllabic is distinctly audible, and I like her poem very much.

Alan Sullivan

RCL 01-26-2001 04:34 PM

RM, thanks for the post. Except for Cunningham, they were unfamiliar to me, but there is distinct music in those syllabics.

Here's one by Sylvia Platch that seems to announce itself as syllabic, in nine lines and nine syllables per line. It doesn't do much for me. How about others?

Metaphors

I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.

[This message has been edited by RCL (edited January 26, 2001).]

wendy v 01-27-2001 09:51 AM

I'd very much look forward to a thread on Coulette -- I was introduced to his work online, but couldn't find him in the BIP. Is he really out of print ? None of the posted examples of syllabic poems have interested me much, ("syllabic dryness" seems apt enough), but I'd very like to see War of the Secret Agents posted -- if anyone's inclined.

I think in order to fairly consider syllabics metrical, one would also have to consider poems with any intention of "regularity" metrical, which might include stanza length, line length, number of words per line, number of letters per line, abcediaries, and on and on. I generally don't mind blurred lines, but this one seems sorta wacky to me.

wendy

Golias 01-27-2001 01:30 PM

Wendy,

The Collected Poems of Henri Coulette, edited by Robert Mezey and Donald Justice, is available from the University of Arkansas Press. Your bookstore or an online bookseller can get it for you, though it might take a few weeks. The U. of Ark. Press is not speedy when it comes to marketing and distribution.

Selections from Coulette's metrical poetry may be found in the archives (Spring, Summer and Autumn 2000 issues) of <A HREF=http://www.traditional-poetry.org>The Susquehanna Quarterly</A>.

G.


Caleb Murdock 01-27-2001 09:48 PM

Robert, I love the poem by Daryush -- never heard of her. I also like the Cunningham poem. However, Judson Jerome examined "In My Craft or Sullen Art" in one of his books and said that it was accentual poetry.

I would like to note that all the examples of syllabic poetry being posted here are highly rhythmical. They tend to have short lines (syllabic poetry wouldn't work with long lines), and they are marked by varying numbers of stresses per line -- from 2 to 4 for the Daryush poem. This poetry is very far from being free verse. The "plain style" free verse being published today has the cadence of prose, meaning that it can be recited with a stress every third, fourth or fifth syllable. In metered poetry, the stresses typically come every second or third syllable. Most syllabic poetry has the frequent stresses of metered poetry, making it more akin to metered poetry than free verse.

The issue isn't really whether syllabic verse is free verse; the issue is whether we can accept poetry that has a varying number of stresses per line. Personally, I like a varying number of stresses; I think it creates an interesting sound.

Alan, I'm not sure what agreement you think we have all come to for the metrical board. I personally think that the poster needs to decide whether his poetry is metered; otherwise, it puts the moderators in the position of policing every post, which would be a disaster. My view is that as long as the poet is following some kind of measure -- even if that is only counting syllables -- then he or she is writing metered poetry and should post his poetry on the metrical board. Accentual syllabic isn't the only kind of meter.



[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited January 27, 2001).]

Alan Sullivan 01-28-2001 05:52 AM

Caleb...that's the agreement. The author gets to choose. I would reserve the right to challenge an author who claimed a form no one else could discern.

Alan

wendy v 01-28-2001 10:54 AM

Thanks, Wiley, for the information. Susquehanna is where I'd originally been introduced to, and fallen in love with Coulette. I thought I'd actually written you about him, but maybe not ? Sometimes I forget what I've actually done with what I've intended to do. Not a good thing.

My local B&N wasn't able to order anything by him when I first tried some months ago. I'll try Amazon.

wendy



robert mezey 01-28-2001 10:05 PM

Greetings.
Yes, if you're interested in Coulette's work (and
I think he's one of the six or eight best American
poets of the second half of the century), you should
get his Collected Poems from Arkansas. ("The War of
the Secret Agents" is way too long to post---it must
be close to 700 lines---but it's a masterpiece.) He
also has a very interesting little poem, which is
not accentual-syllabic, that is, not iambic or
trochaic, but both accentual AND syllabic, called
"Petition"---

Lord of the Tenth Life,
Welcome my Jerome,
A fierce, gold tabby.
Make him feel at home.

He loves bird and mouse.
He loves a man's lap,
And in winter light,
Paws tucked in, a nap.

Five syllables, three beats, but not true accentual-
syllabics. Gorgeous, whatever it is.
Don't like Plath's poem, but that could be my fault.
I can't bear her work.
Judson Jerome is wrong. Dylan Thomas' poem is in 7-
syllable lines; the number of stresses varies from two
to four, if memory serves.
Elizabeth Daryush was the daughter of Robert Bridges
and a very fine poet, almost entirely neglected. Her COLLECTED POEMS, edited by Donald Davie, was issued
by Carcanet---I don't know if it's still in print; I
rather doubt it. Here's another of her good poems,
this one in ten-syllable lines, a sonnet, "Still-Life":

Through the open French windows the warm sun
lights up the polished breakfast-table, laid
round a bowl of crimson roses, for one---
a service of Worcester porcelain, arrayed
near it a melon, peaches, figs, small hot
rolls in a napkin, fairy rack of toast,
butter in ice, high silver coffee pot,
and, heaped on a salver, the morning's post.

She comes over the lawn, the young heiress,
from her early walk in her garden-wood
feeling that life's a table set to bless
her delicate desires with all that's good,

that even the unopened future lies
like a love-letter, full of sweet surprise.

And she has some wonderful things in other meters.




Alan Sullivan 01-29-2001 07:10 AM

I wonder if I'm the only one who finds that Daryush sonnet scary rather than sentimental. I get the distinct impression that the author does not take her scene at face-value. It's like the opening tableau of a mini-series, during which the heiress will wind up mad or murderous. And of course, she did not attain solitary privilege without someone dying first. There is already an implicit tragedy.

Would you mind, Robert, if I copied over your comments and the two Daryush poems to the Musing on Mastery Board, in case anyone has missed them on this long thread?

Alan Sullivan

robert mezey 01-30-2001 12:39 PM

Alan,
feel free to move any of the comments or
poems to another venue. I haven't yet
checked out the Musing on Mastery but I
will.
I think the Daryush sonnet is loaded
with irony. I'm not sure if scary is
the word I'd choose, but it's not
sentimental. Not one of her very best,
probably, but I admire the movement,
the way she lets some of the 10-syllable
lines slide into pentameter.

John Beaton 02-02-2001 12:25 AM

Interesting discussion. The concensus seems to be that the "ear" doesn't hear syllabic regularity except in short line-lengths. I disagree.

I've written poems that seem to organize themselves into long syllbic lines. I don't really know what happens, but there is a quality about the regular line-lengths that comes through to me, not as strongly as accentual meter, but recognizable from stanza to stanza all the same.

What sort of reaction would one of these get on the metrical board? Let's see.

Porridginal

Alan Sullivan 02-03-2001 04:48 AM

I doubt that you could write true syllabic verse, Po, especially in long lines. You would put in some sort of rhythmic pulse by instinct. If Tchaikovsky had written with a tone row, how would the music sound?

But the lines in your posted poem were so long that I didn't even try to count them. The chopped-up display was too annoying.

Alan

Maryann Corbett 03-18-2009 11:15 AM

Bumping this up, as we're discussing this topic on GT.

Philip Quinlan 03-18-2009 05:12 PM

Counting of any kind is a substitute for hearing. Nobody in the world ever spoke in imabic pentameter (consistently at least).

If it sounds good it will fly right.

Tim, I count myself as a great lover of Dylan Thomas, especially Fern Hill, and I don't care how many syllables or stresses there are to a line. I think that means I agree with you.

Prosody has to do with analysis, not synthesis. Nobody can make a great poem simply out of rules.

Philip

Allen Tice 03-19-2009 01:52 PM

A good bump, Maryann!

I don't like syllabics unless they persuade me by other means. This comes, in part, from my counting tens of thousands of syllables, one by one, for some graduate work on a projective test in psychology*. They are too easy to write, for me at least. But Michael Hulse, the editor of a magazine that published me (among other oblate Spheroids), the lamented Leviathan Quarterly, wrote some things that positively stank of skill, and when I praised them as somehow near to what I was attempting with ancient meters, he shrugged it off and replied that they were syllabics only. Previous posters here have identified other syllabic successes. There is another slightly parallel thread going( Successful Syllabics? ) that picks out other examples.

Forums. On the question of what the Forums of the Eratosphere should contain, my views, as a relatively new mongoose among top predators here, mightn't carry much freight. For one thing, I don't know enough of the history of TDE and my own recent readings have probably not been wide enough. But from day one-and-a-half it seemed to me that some sort of allowance for S T R U C T U R E , as such, ought to be available for the deepest consideration, as in TDE.

The great wolves drink there in TDE. Even if not in TDE, shouldn't they flash their eyes over syllabics, etc., somewhere? A Serious Syllabics Forum?

Also, a Forum for "structured verse" might be founded at some future date, parameters and limits to be defined.


*

Allen Tice 03-20-2009 09:19 AM

Abject apologies for a change-of-heart boink. See above.

Matthew Minor 11-05-2017 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julie (Post 26060)
And if that isn't the wishy washiest answer you've heard all day, you spend too much time with politicians.

Julie

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha:D


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