On the Grasshopper and Cricket

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

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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 devices to 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 rhyme at 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. Assonance occurs 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".

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

3. Alliteration is 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)

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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. Simile is 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.

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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. Metaphor is 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)

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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

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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:

 

Английский текст	once	u  pon	а	time	there	were	three	bears
Длительность слога в милли­секундах	320	40 190	40	440	90	90	270	450
Русский текст	жи	ли бы	ли	три	мед	ве	дя
Длительность слога в милли­секундах	260	240 230	140	180	260	280	240

 

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

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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.

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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, I with 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.

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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?

The experimental investigations carried out in recent re­searches give ground to postulate the differences in the prosodic organization of prosaic and poetic rhythm: 1. In verse there are simple contours often with the stepping head, the falling nuclear tone is more often gently sloping; there is a stable tendency towards a monotone. 2. In verse the stressed syllables are stronger marked out by their intensity and duration than in prose. 3. In verse the tempo is comparatively slower than in prose. 4. In verse the rhythmic units except the rhythmic group tend to be more isochronous than in prose. The rhythmic group presents an exception in this tendency of verse. 1 Three vertical bars indicate the end of a phonopassage. 179 We have attempted to portray rhythmic effect in different lin­guistic activities, different speech realizations. To sum it up, we should say that rhythm is a complicated language system, its el­ements being hierarchically organized. They represent hierarchy of functional character, or to put it in more general terms, this system comprises well-organized elements of different sizes in which smaller rhythmic units are joined into more complex ones:, a rhythmical group — an intonation group — a phrase (a line in poetry) — a phonopassage. In discussing rhythm we should emphasize its functional aspect. Rhythm serves to unite elements in speech: smaller units are organized into larger ones, larger units include smaller ones. So rhythm unites text segments into a whole and at the same time cuts the discourse into elements. This integrative and delimitative function of rhythm illustrates the dialectical unity of the contrary manifestations of rhythm. Rhythmically organized speech is easily perceived. From the psycholinguistic point of view the accuracy of the temporal simi­larity in rhythm has a definite effect on the human being. The regularity in rhythm seems to be in harmony with his biological rhythms. And which is by far more important the emotional ef­fect of rhythm especially of poetic rhythm on a human being is very strong, its aesthetic significance is great. In the theory of aesthetics speech rhythm is counted as one of the objective signs of beauty. On the linguistic level the pragmatic value of speech rhythm is realized in its volitional function. Rhythm is capable of ex­pressing different degrees of emotional effect on the listener, e.g. ˋWill you 'stop that 'dreadful ˋnoise. By way of conclusion we would like to say that prosodic ele­ments together with the lexical and syntactical means play the role of the constituent of rhythm. Rhythm in itself is functioning as a framework of speech organization and is a very effective means of speech expressiveness. Unfortunately we very often find the English rhythm to be the stumbling point for Russian learners. Many students learn to make the individual sounds of English correctly enough, yet their speech remains barely intelligible to English ears. The rea­son for this paradox is usually to be found in faulty rhythm and intonation. 180 As we perfectly know the basic rule of English rhythm is that the stressed syllables follow each other at regular intervals of time, that is to say there is the same amount of time between each pair of stressed syllables in a given sentence. A simple illus­tration of this rule is found in counting. From 1 to 6 every sylla­ble is stressed, and they follow each other like a regular drum beat: one, two, three, four, five, six. The number 7 has two sylla­bles, the first of them stressed and the second unstressed and this means that the two syllables have to be said in the same space of time as the other single syllables. The sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 has eleven syllables, but only ten rhythmical beats, corresponding to the ten stressed syllables. Counting is the simplest form of rhythmical exercise. Perhaps the next simplest form is children's verses and counting games. ↘Jack and 'Jill went 'up the > hill | To ↘fetch a 'pail of ˎwater. || → Jack fell ˌdown ⌇ and → broke his ˌcrown | And Jill came 'tumbling ˎafter. || In the foregoing examples there was one unstressed syllable between each pair of stressed ones. The next step will be two un-stressed syllables between each pair of stressed syllables. I ↘like to go 'out in the ˎgarden, | I ↘like to get 'up on the ˎhill | I ↘like to do 'anything ˎreally, | But ↘hate to do 'nothing at ˎall. || The popular sort of comic verse called a limerick has a simi­lar pattern. There are two unstressed syllables between each pair of stresses. Here is an example. There ↘ was a Young 'Lady of ˎNiger | Who smiled as she 'rode on a ˎtiger | They re → turned from the ˌride | With the →lady inˌside | And a ↘smile on the 'face of the ˎtiger. || It is fairly easy to keep the regular drum beat of stresses go­ing, when there are the same number of unstressed syllables be­tween them. It is a little more difficult to do this when there are different number of unstressed syllables between pairs. In the next example there are four stresses in each line, but the first line 181 has no unstressed syllables between the stresses, while the second and the fourth have one unstressed syllable between each pair, yet each line takes the same length of time to say as the others. ↘One, 'two, 'three, ˎfour, | ↘Mary 'at the 'cottage ˎdoor. || ↘Five, 'six, 'seven, ˎeight | ↘Eating 'cherries 'off a ˎplate. || In the serious verse that follows the number of unstressed syllables in between the pairs of stressed ones is sometimes one and sometimes two so that the absolute regularity is missing. Nevertheless the stresses still form a drum beat as before and this beat must be kept going all through the lines. ↘Give a 'man a 'pipe he can ˎsmoke | Give a 'man а 'book he can ˎread | And his → home is ˎbright | With a →calm deˎlight | Though the ↘room is 'poor inˎdeed. || In ordinary speaking the number of unstressed syllables be­tween each consecutive pair of stresses varies considerably. This is one of the main differences between prose and verse, so it is important to be able to keep the drum beat of the stresses going regularly no matter what the number of intervening unstressed syllables. Here is an exercise designed to help do this.   Can ↘anyone 'tell me the ˎtime? || Does ↘anyone 'know the ˎtime? || Does ↘anyone 'know ˎTom? || I'm ↘going to 'town for the ˎday. || I'm ↘going to 'town toˎday. || I'm ↘going to 'town ˎnow. || I'm ↘ perfectly 'certain you're ˎright, || I'm ↘almost 'certain you're ˎright. || I'm ↘quite 'certain you're ˎright. ||   A long passage of a descriptive text may be now recom­mended for practising rhythm. For example: The → weather in ˌEngland ⌇ can → change 'very ˎquickly. || → One 'day 'last ˌweek | I ↘went for a ˋwalk in the ˎcountry. || 182 → When I ˌstarted ⌇ → early in the ˌmorning | the → weather was ˎbeautiful. || The → sun was ˎshining, ⌇ the → sky was ˎblue | and there were ↘no 'clouds at ˎall.

Care should be taken to leave the form words like am, is, are, were, has, have, can, etc. unstressed when necessary. As these words generally occur in unstressed position the weak form is more common than the strong form. It is of great importance for all learners to use the weak forms of these words in unstressed positions. It will improve their speech enormously, and will help them to acquire the characteristic rhythm of spoken English. Un­less they use weak forms of prepositions, articles, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs and also personal and possessive pronouns cor­rectly, their rhythm will never be right. When listening to Eng­lish they should try to notice the weak forms, and when speak­ing themselves, to copy the English way of using them. A. The → children are in the ˎhall. || B. → So are their ˎparents. || A. → Yes, they ˎare. || A. I → like them ˎboth. || B. ˎYes, ⌇ I →like them ˎtoo. || A. I'd → rather see ˎthem than ˎanyone. || Russian learners should be especially careful in rhythm-unit break. Mention has been made that the division into rhythmic groups does not coincide with the potential sense groups. The unstressed syllables in between the stressed ones usually tend to link to the preceding stressed syllable in spoken English which Russians often neglect. For example, the typical mistake in pro­nouncing the phrase: "↘Go and ⌇ 'tell him to ⌇ ˎphone me" is something like: " Go ⌇ and 'tell ⌇ 'him ⌇ to ˎphone me." The attention of advanced students who have already mas­tered the stable regularity of English rhythm should be drawn to the rhythmic organization of large rhythmic units, such as into­nation groups, phrases, supraphrasal blocks. The beginning of a rhythmic unit should be said on a higher level, louder and slow­er than the end of it; a pause and the terminal tone at the end of the rhythmic group contribute a lot to their rhythmicality. All you have read about intonation in this chapter is nothing but a much needed framework for understanding its uses in par­ticular social situations. We are going now to refine your knowl­edge of intonation by discussing its stylistic value. 183

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