The Principles of English Versification | Page 7

it has, though perhaps not always, a certain ?|sthetic value, in making labor more interesting as well as easier. It is one of the attributes of the god we worship under the name of System.
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Co??rdination, Syncopation, Substitution. The processes of the subjective organization of rhythm may best be explained under the heads of co??rdination, syncopation, and substitution. Their application to the particular problems of verse will be apparent at once, and will, in fact, constitute the bulk of the following pages.
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Co??rdination has two aspects, according as it is thought of simply as an existing fact or as a process. In the former sense it is the agreement or coincidence (or the perception of agreement or coincidence) between the simple normal recurrence of beats and the actual or predetermined pattern. Thus in the lines
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies, MILTON, Paradise Lost, II, 950.
A sable, silent, solemn forest stood, THOMSON, Castle of Indolence, st. 5.
the 'natural' beat of the words uttered in the most natural and reasonable manner coincides with the 'artificial' beat of the metrical line.
On the other hand, coordination is the process which results in one's reduction of irregular beats to an approximately regular series. When we hear a haphazard succession of drum-taps or the irregular click-click of the typewriter, most of us soon begin to feel a certain orderly arrangement, a rhythmical swing in the repeated sounds, a grouping according to a sort of unit which recurs with nearly equal intervals. The units are not absolutely equal, but are elastic, allowing of some contraction and expansion; yet they are so nearly equal, or we feel them so, that the series seems regular.
Now this process of co??rdination involves two activities, syncopation and substitution. The workings of both are highly complex and somewhat uncertain; they differ greatly in different individuals, and when analyzed scientifically seem to produce more difficulties than they explain. But fortunately the outstanding ideas are beyond dispute, and detailed examination can properly be left to the scientists.
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Syncopation is the union, or the perception of the union, of two or more rhythmic patterns.[8] A familiar example is perhaps the 'three against two' in music, where one hand follows a tum-te-te, tum-te-te rhythm, the other a tum-te, tum-te. This complexity, which strikes us as sophisticated subtlety and is not always easy to reproduce, is in fact both simple and familiar to the untutored savage. We must remember that the evolution of language and of music has been for the more part in the direction of greater simplicity of structure. Primitive music, as we find it in the undeveloped Indians and Australasians, is often too complex to be expressed by our regular notation. Another familiar example of syncopation is the negro dance, in which the "dancer taps with his feet just half-way between the hand-claps of those who are accompanying his performance."[9] And of course the commonest example is the strongly marked syncopation of ragtime.[10]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | [8] Cf. Patterson, p. 3, "... the possibility of preserving | | a certain series of time intervals, but of changing in | | various ways the nature of the motions or sensations that | | mark the beats." This may be tested by a simple experiment. | | With the foot or finger tap evenly, regularly, and rather | | rapidly. Without changing the regularity of the tapping, but | | merely by a mental readjustment, the beats may be felt as | | tum-te, tum-te, tum-te (or te-tum, etc.) or as | | tum-te-te, tum-te-te, tum-te-te (or te-te-tum, | | etc.), or even as tum-te-te-te, tum-te-te-te (or | | te-te-te-tum, etc.). It is but a step from this successive | | perception of various rhythms from the same objective source | | to a combined and simultaneous perception of them. | | | | [9] Patterson, p. xx, n. 3. | | | | [10] Experiments have shown that with a little practice one | | can learn to beat five against seven, and thus actually | | though unconsciously count in thirty-fives. (Patterson, p. | | 6.) | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
In prose, this syncopation is evident in the apparent recognition, and even reproduction in reading aloud, of a regularity of rhythm where none really exists; as when protracted reading or listening develops or seems to develop a monotonous sing-song. But this phenomenon cannot be explained briefly, and the details must be omitted here.[11] In verse also syncopation frequently occurs, though it is seldom recognized except as an 'irregularity.' In the following lines of Paradise Lost the first two coincide pretty closely with the normal beats of the measure; while in the third line the series is an entirely different one.
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub Thus answered: