The Principles of English Versification | Page 8

"Leader of those armies bright, Which but th' Omnipotent none could have foil'd...." MILTON, Paradise Lost, I, 271-273.
Here to stress distinctly but,-tent, could utterly ruins both the meaning and the music of the line: to utter the words as if they were ordinary prose would preserve the meaning, but destroy the verse-movement. In Milton's ear, however, and in ours if we do not resist, there is a subtle syncopation of four beats against five. (Of course syncopation alone does not explain the rhythm of this line.) A most startling syncopation is ventured by Milton in Samson Agonistes (1071-72):
I less conjecture than when first I saw The sumptuous D??lila floating this way.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | [11] Those who are interested will find the scientific | | experiments discussed in Patterson, ch. i and Appendix III. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
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Substitution is simpler. It merely means recognizing the equivalence, and therefore the possibility of interchange, of a long interval with two or more shorter intervals whose sum equals the one long. That is, in music two quarter-notes are equal to a half-note, and they may be anywhere substituted one for the other; or a dotted half-note equal three quarter-notes, etc. In verse it means that three syllables (or one, or even four) may be substituted for the normal two syllables of a foot if the three (or one or four) are uttered in approximately the same period of time.
The term substitution, however, may be used in a larger sense. Thus far only the purely temporal element of the rhythm has been thought of. When the two others, stress and pitch, are recalled, it becomes clear that another sort of substitution is both possible and usual, namely, that of either pitch or stress for duration. In other words, the groups that make up a rhythmic series may be determined or marked off by emphasis of pitch or emphasis of stress as well as by duration of time. In fact, it is from this habitual interplay of the three elements that most of the complexity of metre arises; as it is the failure to recognize this substitution which has given the older prosodies much of their false simplicity and their mechanical barrenness.
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Summary. The fundamental problems of versification are all involved in the principles of rhythm, especially the temporal rhythm of language. The rhythm of both prose and verse is a resultant of the three attributes of sound: stress, duration, and pitch (the first two being usually the determining elements, the third an accessory element) modified by the thought and emotion of the words. The feeling for this rhythm, or perception of it, has both physical and psychological explanations, and varies considerably among individuals, some being 'timers,' others 'stressers,' apparently by natural endowment. The processes of our perception of rhythm are those of coordination, or partly subjective reduction of actual 'irregularities' to a standard of 'regularity'; this reduction being accomplished mainly by syncopation and substitution.
CHAPTER II
RHYTHM OF PROSE AND VERSE
It is clear now that all language is more or less definitely rhythmical; and that the two fundamental and determining elements of speech-rhythm are time and stress. It is clear also that the essential thing in our perception of rhythm is the experience or recognition of groups, these groups being themselves distinguished and set off by stress and time. When there is an easily felt regularity of the groups, when the alternation of stress and unstress and the approximate equality of the time intervals are fairly apparent, then the rhythm is simple. When the regularity is not obvious, the rhythm is complex, but none the less existent and pleasing.[12] In other words, the character of language rhythm is determined by the relative proportion of coincidence and syncopation. In verse, coincidence preponderates; in prose, syncopation (and substitution). Between absolute coincidence, moreover, and the freest possible syncopation and substitution, infinite gradations are possible; and many passages indeed lie so close to the boundary between recognizable preponderance of the one or of the other that it is difficult to say this is verse, that is prose. Various standards and conventions enter into the decision.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | [12] When no organization of the irregularity is possible, | | the language is unrhythmical; and such, of course, is often | | the case in bad prose and bad verse. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
For practical convenience three main sorts of rhythmic prose may be distinguished: (1) characteristic prose, or that in which no regularity (coincidence) is easily appreciable; (2) cadenced prose, or that in which the regularity is perceptible, but unobtrusive, and (3) metrical prose, or that in which the regularity is so noticeable as to be unpleasing. No very clear lines can be drawn; nor should one try to classify more than brief passages in one group or another. And, obviously,