Metric poetry is rhythmic language laid above, and to some degree matching, an underlying pulse. If you do not know where in that pulse you are, you may mangle the verse. In iambic pentameter the pulse is easy: five strong beats, separated by weaker off-beats. Often the pulse emerges from the rhythm even if you are not a scholar of prosody. Reading Antony’s funeral oration in
Thanks for this very lucid explanation of sprung rhythm, and a reminder to look again at a Hopkins poem I often find myself ‘humming’ the opening lines of! The version with more stress accents makes me see something I hadn’t noticed before: the whole poem comes down to the double-stressed imperative ‘Praise him’, which in a way feels ‘unsprung’ — it’s more like the repeated chord that ends a musical performance, a resonant coming-to-rest. But this double stress (in classical scansion, a spondee) is also anticipated at the end of the first stanza by ‘all trades’, where it doesn’t mark the end of the line, but signals the rounding out of the stanza into generalisation. So in terms of what might be called the rhythmic meaning of the poem, it feels as though Hopkins is contrasting the wonderful busy-ness and activity of the world (and all its varied rhythms) with the stillness of contemplation and wonder: it’s an upbeat hymn which ends ‘And now, let us pray’. Relatedly, we might hear sprung rhythm as an attempt to harmonise highly individualised perceptions (which GMH had in abundance) with an underlying order: the rhythm as man, the metre as God’s plan…
Thanks for this piece; I have never so far come across a more lucid explanation of sprung rhythm (I realise you're greatly simplifying and not accounting for all the theories, but still...).
Are those long "swooping pen marks" in Hopkins' verse the outrides? (And what do they mean - is it like enjambment but for rhythm?)
The way you explain sprung rhythm here really makes me get a "swung" feel from it (as in musical swung beats).
Have you ever identified readers who clearly "get" Hopkins' Sprung Rhythm (when reading aloud)? I assume it is not commonly done "correctly". And likewise, for Shakespeare - does everyone appreciate that you have to be careful not to elide certain syllables........I have a feeling a lot of people don't care about the meter *that much*, which is a shame....
If you mean the curved smile-shaped lines he sometimes puts under syllables, yes, those are outrides. They're most straightforwardly thought of as "internal uncounted feminine endings" (though in fact I believe it's more complicated). The line "To be or not to be, that is the question" has 11 syllables, when pentameters are "supposed" to have only 10; but the 11th, last syllable is unstressed---that's a feminine ending. An extra weak syllable can also be put in mid-line, before a pause: "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" The "ING" in "knocking" is the extra syllable. Hopkins just took this practice way farther (was much more permissive about when it was allowed) than anyone had before---thus his need to mark them.
I actually haven't done a dive into listening people read Hopkins on youtube etc; it's a good idea...
I love lines that almost force us into the strongest rhythm by the line's semantics. So if we read the line comprehendingly, it comes out musically. The trouble is, good lines often invite alternate readings - alternate to the poet's primary reading - so may invite unmusical readings. I suppose the ideal line I have in mind here would allow multiple readings, yet poet has thought through the best/most plausible ones, and ensured they're all musical. That's one reason poems can take so durn long to compose, as opposed to prose!
Thanks for this very lucid explanation of sprung rhythm, and a reminder to look again at a Hopkins poem I often find myself ‘humming’ the opening lines of! The version with more stress accents makes me see something I hadn’t noticed before: the whole poem comes down to the double-stressed imperative ‘Praise him’, which in a way feels ‘unsprung’ — it’s more like the repeated chord that ends a musical performance, a resonant coming-to-rest. But this double stress (in classical scansion, a spondee) is also anticipated at the end of the first stanza by ‘all trades’, where it doesn’t mark the end of the line, but signals the rounding out of the stanza into generalisation. So in terms of what might be called the rhythmic meaning of the poem, it feels as though Hopkins is contrasting the wonderful busy-ness and activity of the world (and all its varied rhythms) with the stillness of contemplation and wonder: it’s an upbeat hymn which ends ‘And now, let us pray’. Relatedly, we might hear sprung rhythm as an attempt to harmonise highly individualised perceptions (which GMH had in abundance) with an underlying order: the rhythm as man, the metre as God’s plan…
Thanks for this piece; I have never so far come across a more lucid explanation of sprung rhythm (I realise you're greatly simplifying and not accounting for all the theories, but still...).
Are those long "swooping pen marks" in Hopkins' verse the outrides? (And what do they mean - is it like enjambment but for rhythm?)
The way you explain sprung rhythm here really makes me get a "swung" feel from it (as in musical swung beats).
Have you ever identified readers who clearly "get" Hopkins' Sprung Rhythm (when reading aloud)? I assume it is not commonly done "correctly". And likewise, for Shakespeare - does everyone appreciate that you have to be careful not to elide certain syllables........I have a feeling a lot of people don't care about the meter *that much*, which is a shame....
If you mean the curved smile-shaped lines he sometimes puts under syllables, yes, those are outrides. They're most straightforwardly thought of as "internal uncounted feminine endings" (though in fact I believe it's more complicated). The line "To be or not to be, that is the question" has 11 syllables, when pentameters are "supposed" to have only 10; but the 11th, last syllable is unstressed---that's a feminine ending. An extra weak syllable can also be put in mid-line, before a pause: "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" The "ING" in "knocking" is the extra syllable. Hopkins just took this practice way farther (was much more permissive about when it was allowed) than anyone had before---thus his need to mark them.
I actually haven't done a dive into listening people read Hopkins on youtube etc; it's a good idea...
I love lines that almost force us into the strongest rhythm by the line's semantics. So if we read the line comprehendingly, it comes out musically. The trouble is, good lines often invite alternate readings - alternate to the poet's primary reading - so may invite unmusical readings. I suppose the ideal line I have in mind here would allow multiple readings, yet poet has thought through the best/most plausible ones, and ensured they're all musical. That's one reason poems can take so durn long to compose, as opposed to prose!