Syllable-counting verse principle

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As a syllable-counting or syllabic verse principle , a verse principle is referred to in verse theory, in which the metrical form is primarily determined by the number of syllables in the verse . Accordingly, in the terminology of literatures in which syllable counting dominates, the meter is often named on the basis of the number of syllables, for example the endecasilabo ("eleven-silver") in Italian poetry.

Features and problems

The versification according to the number of syllables has a very old tradition, evidence of which can be found in the oldest texts of ancient Iranian and Sanskrit , in ancient Greek texts and the earliest examples of Chinese and Japanese poetry. In addition, the syllabic verse has played a role, at least temporarily, in the poetry of most European languages.

Despite this venerable tradition, purely syllabic forms, that is, versification in which the number of syllables in the verse is the only structural principle, are the great exception. Perception-psychological problems in reception are named as the most important reasons for this, especially the lack of marking, which can be illustrated by the following example:

At the foot of the Alps, near
Locarno in Upper
Italy, there was an
old
castle belonging to a Marchese , which you can
now see
lying in ruins when you come from St. Gotthard
.

Here the first sentence of Kleist's beggar woman from Locarno was grouped into “verses” of 7 syllables each. Only at the end of this does the grouping collide with the word sequence. Obviously this text is perceived as prose rather than bound speech . Without explicitly counting, we can perceive small object groups as being the same size or partial sequences in a sequence as being of the same length, but without any indication of the beginning and end of such partial sequences, the grouping escapes the listener's perception.

As a result, in the vast majority of forms of syllabic poetry, the verse boundary is marked by other linguistic means, including in particular the pause in the speech at the end of the message, the accentuation on the last syllable and the end rhyme .

As I said, the human ability to grasp episodes of equal length without explicitly counting them is limited to relatively short episodes. This maximum length corresponds to the well-known limitation of short-term memory ( chunking ) to about 7 to 8 objects, i.e. even if the sending is marked accordingly, the regularity in the number of syllables can only become apparent to the listener if the verses are at most 7 or 8 Syllables are long. If syllabic verses are longer, they are usually divided by caesura. Purely syllabic forms, i.e. those without marking except for the speaking pause, are generally short overall. Well-known examples are the Japanese forms of haiku and tanka , which, however, are no longer purely syllabic, since the quantity of syllables is included here, i.e. mores and not syllables are counted. The 17 mora long haiku is divided into three groups according to the scheme 5–7–5, the 31 mora significantly longer tanka into five groups according to the scheme 5–7–5–7–7, which is again divided into two parts ( 5–7–5 and 7–7).

Development in the European languages

As in Japanese, in Chinese, ancient Indian and Greek poetry, purely syllabic forms were abandoned early on in favor of additional structuring through additional features such as pitch or syllable duration. In Latin , the quantitative principle of Greek poetry was introduced from the 2nd century BC. And was decisive for the Latin poetry of the Golden and Silver Latinity . With the beginning of late antiquity, however, the intuitive recording of syllable quantities was lost for most listeners and they switched to counting syllables, with the dispatch being increasingly marked by obligatory stressing of the last or penultimate syllable and end rhyme.

These features carried over to Medieval Latin poetry and, to varying degrees, to modern European languages. French poetry, for example, was largely syllable-counting, with caesura and forwarding being marked by elevation; in Italian and Spanish poetry, emphasis played a significantly greater role, even if the meter was derived from syllable-counting forms. In the Anglo-Norman seal which initially were Old French forms and thus the dominant position of Achtsilblers ( octosyllabe taken). However, the exact number of syllables was often not adhered to, but the verses had four accentuations very regularly, so de facto the syllabic principle could not prevail in English and the English metric developed an accentuating verse principle .

Incidentally, there are uncertainties when counting syllables from the start, insofar as it is not clear from the outset whether one or two syllables should be counted when two vowels meet at the syllable boundary, since the two vowels can be merged into the diphthong in pronunciation , as in the classical one Latin ( Synaloiphe ), or pronouncing them separately, as in Middle Latin ( Hiatus ). In addition, when the mailing was marked by stress, it was often unclear whether an unstressed syllable should be included in the mailing or not. In French, an unstressed syllable is regularly elided when it is sent .

In German poetry, syllabic forms in the Middle Ages and early modern times were adopted from Medieval Latin and French poetry, but in connection with alternation , i.e. the regular alternation of raised and lowered accent , whereby the natural accent (the word accent ) was often ignored, whereby it Tonbeugungen came. Examples of such syllabic forms can be found in the strict Knittel verse , the Meistersang and the hymn poetry . With the reformation of the German metric by Martin Opitz , the transition to an accentuating metric came in the Baroque in German as well. Since then, the syllabic verse no longer plays a role in German poetry.

The island Celtic poetry developed in Ireland and Scotland ( Gaelic ) and in Wales ( Cymrian ) , which was largely independent of the forms from late antique Latin . In both lines of tradition, extremely complex syllabic forms dominate in some cases , in which predefined syllable positions are marked by stress, rhyme entanglement, alliteration and assonance . As an example, the relatively simple Deibhidhe called the four-line Irish stanza form consisting of 7-syllable verses:

xxxxxx á
xxxxx x́ a
xbxxxx b́
xxxbx x́ b

Here, the accent shows a stressed syllable, x a non-rhymed and a and b rhymed syllables, whereby the Irish rhyme requires the syllabic correspondence of the vowels and corresponding classes in the consonants.

Modern syllabic poetry in English

A modern development is syllabic verse in English and American literature from the late 19th century. The pioneer of this form is Robert Bridges , whose Testament of Beauty (1929) is the longest syllabic poem in English with 5000 verses. Bridges also developed a theory of elision based on John Milton's Paradise Lost , according to which he proved the metrical correctness of the Miltonian verses. His distinction between two forms of vowel elision ( y-glide and w-glide ) is still used in metric studies today.

In the volume Verse , published posthumously in 1915 , the American poet Adelaide Crapsey developed the five-line cinquain based on Japanese forms with the scheme 2–4–6–8–2, combined with ( iambic ) alternation. As an example the poem November

Listen ...
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.

Such mixed forms between syllabic and accentuating verse are called accentual-syllabic verse in English terminology . Another author known for her complex syllabic forms is Marianne Moore . As an example, No Swan so Fine :

"No water so still as the
dead fountains of Versailles. "No swan,
with swart blind look askance
and gondoliering legs, so fine
as the chintz china one with fawn-
brown eyes and toothed gold
collar on to show whose bird it was.

Lodged in the Louis Fifteenth
Candelabrum-tree of cockscomb-
tinted buttons, dahlias,
sea ​​urchins, and everlastings,
it perches on the branching foam
of polished sculptured
flowers - at ease and tall. The king is dead.

The underlying scheme are two stanzas with the scheme 7–8–6–8–8–5–9. It is noticeable that the structure is hidden from the listener. The dispatches are not only rhythmically not marked, but additionally camouflaged by enjambement ( cockscomb / tinted buttons ). The two rhymes in each stanza are indented to the reader, but the less attentive listener will miss them. This principle of using syllabic verse to hide the underlying structure and connection from the reader and listener, which makes a poem appear like free verse with a few occasional rhymes and assonances , was also followed by Dylan Thomas . As an example, In My Craft Or Sullen Art :

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labor by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

a
b
c
d
e
b
d
e
c
c
a

a
b
c
d
f
e
c
c
a

This is where the complex rhyme scheme [abcdebdecca abcdfecca] With the mostly large distance between pairs of rhymes and the lack of rhythmic regularity, the underlying structure of the 7-syllable verse is hidden rather than marked.

In addition to these, numerous other authors of modern Anglo-Saxon literature have written syllabic verses, including Elizabeth Daryush , WH Auden , Donald Justice , Thom Gunn , Richard Howard and Robert Wells . For these poets, the syllabic verse, which hides its regularity, offered an interesting and flexible alternative halfway between classical accentuating forms and free verse.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lewis Turco: The New Book of Forms. Hanover & London 1986, p. 131 f.
  2. ^ PK Ford, A. Ll. Jones: Celtic Prosody. In: Roland Greene, Stephen Cushman et al. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 4th edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton 2012, ISBN 978-0-691-13334-8 , pp. 217-220 ( limited previewhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3DuKiC6IeFR2UC~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3DPA217~ double-sided%3D~LT%3Deingeschr%C3%A4nkte%20Vorschau~PUR%3D in Google Book Search).
  3. ^ Robert Bridges: Milton's Prosody. With a chapter on accentual verses & notes. Frowde, Oxford 1901. Rev. final ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1921. Reprinted by Clarendon Press, Oxford 1965.
  4. ↑ Adelaide Crapsey: verses. Knopf, New York 1922, p. 31.
  5. ^ Marianne Moore: No Swan so Fine. In: Poetry October 1932, p. 7, online .
  6. ↑ Dylan Thomas: Deaths and Entrances. Dent, London 1946.