From Stress to Stress: An Autobiography of English ProsodyArchon Books, 1992 - 185 pages Burton Baffel demonstrates an absolutely unique, absolutely foolproof, completely accurate and thoroughly comprehensive method of understanding prosody in English. Instead of deriving an irrelevant terminology from Greek or Latin, instead of manufacturing a theory, instead of presenting mere verbiage, he offers hundreds of examples from the years 800 to 1990, of how poets actually use prosody, and the patterns of stress, in their work. What poets in fact do is what the prosody of poetry written in English in fact is: understanding what the poems tell us is not only the crucial but in a sense the only task. So English prosody may best tell its own story, by its own practice. Mr. Raffel has entirely refrained from offering elaborate conclusions, or imposing any theoretical frame work. It is his implicit thesis that "theories of prosody" are an unnecessary evil, and an unnecessary befuddlement that, as often as not, make poetry seem unappealing and boring to those who want to understand it. Mr. Baffel helps guide his reader by calling attention to the actual practice of real poets (both famous and not-so-famous), and he does so in his usual acute and often rather pointed way. Selections of what poets themselves say about prosody are included, as is modern linguistic explanation and commentary. |
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Page 47
... thee SWIMME , / GLADder / to CATCH / thee , THEN / thou HIM./ if THOU , / to BE / so SEENE , / beest * LOATH , / by SUNNE , / or MOONE , / thou DARK / nest BOTH , / and IF / my SELFE / hath LEAVE / to SEE , / i NEED / not THEIR / light ...
... thee SWIMME , / GLADder / to CATCH / thee , THEN / thou HIM./ if THOU , / to BE / so SEENE , / beest * LOATH , / by SUNNE , / or MOONE , / thou DARK / nest BOTH , / and IF / my SELFE / hath LEAVE / to SEE , / i NEED / not THEIR / light ...
Page 68
... thee CRE / duLOUS , / all GOLD , / who AL / wayes VA / cant , AL / wayes A / miAble / HOPES thee , / of FLAT / tering GALES / unMIND / full . HAP / less THEY / to WHOM / thou unTRY'D / seemst FAIR./ ME in / my VOW'D / PICture / the SA ...
... thee CRE / duLOUS , / all GOLD , / who AL / wayes VA / cant , AL / wayes A / miAble / HOPES thee , / of FLAT / tering GALES / unMIND / full . HAP / less THEY / to WHOM / thou unTRY'D / seemst FAIR./ ME in / my VOW'D / PICture / the SA ...
Page 107
... thee / as the STORMS / rock the RA / vens on HIGH ; / BRIGHT / REAson / will MOCK thee , / like the SUN / from a WIN / try SKY./ FROM / thy NEST / every RAFter / the HEART'S / echoes RENder / NO song / WHEN the / SPIrit / is MUTE ...
... thee / as the STORMS / rock the RA / vens on HIGH ; / BRIGHT / REAson / will MOCK thee , / like the SUN / from a WIN / try SKY./ FROM / thy NEST / every RAFter / the HEART'S / echoes RENder / NO song / WHEN the / SPIrit / is MUTE ...
Contents
The general dominance of language | 1 |
The particular dominance of the English language 36 | 3 |
Old English AngloSaxon prosody | 6 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
2nd foot line 3rd foot accent alliteration anapestic bisyllabic Blake break BRYNG caesura called century Chaucer Chaucerian Compromise Chaucerian Compromise verse clearly convention cucCU dimeter Donne Donne's doth elided Eliot English prosody EVE/ry excerpt fact feminine rhymes final line foot of line hath haue HEA/ven heptameter hexameter Hopkins iamb iambic pentameter irregular John Donne Jonson language line eight line five line four line nine line seven line six line three linguistic stresses LOVE marked meter metrical feet metrical pattern metrical stress Milton monosyllabic MOR/ning natural linguistic NE/ver O/ther obserue Old English plainly PLEA/sures poem poem's poet poetic Pound prosodic prosodic apostrophe rhyme RI/ver scanned scansion scansion of line SING SONG sound SPRING Sprung Rhythm standard stanza sweet Swinburne syllables syntactical T.S. Eliot Tennyson thee thing thou trimeter trisyllabic feet trochaic Trochee unstressed syllables vers libre Whitman WIND word Wyatt ΙΟ