The pool players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Gwendolyn Brooks, "We Real Cool," from The Bean Eaters, 1960

rhythm

Natalia Cecire, University of Sussex

Thinking Literature 1, Week 11, Lecture 2

http://natalia.cecire.org/presentations/

Listen to the rhythm!

— Strictly Ballroom, 1992

Practice works.
Learning is real.

1. Syllables and stress

Most meter in English is accentual-syllabic.

1. Syllables and stress
2. Feet

1. Syllables and stress
2. Feet
3. Lines

1. Syllables and stress
2. Feet
3. Lines
4. Interpretability

1. Syllables and stress
2. Feet
3. Lines
4. Interpretability
5. Tension

1. Syllables and stress
2. Feet
3. Lines
4. Interpretability
5. Tension
6. Variation

1. Syllables and stress
2. Feet
3. Lines
4. Interpretability
5. Tension
6. Variation
7. Rhythm beyond meter

1. Syllables and stress

A syllable is a grouping of sounds around a resonant, usually—but not always—a vowel.

There are a lot of vowel sounds, but we represent those vowel sounds using combinations of only six letters:
a, e, i, o, u, and y.

If you want to get into the linguistic details, you can check out the Wikipedia article on the sonority hierarchy.

Some monosyllabic (one-syllable) words:

a
an
and
band
brand
branch
we
real
cool

Some non-vowel resonants:

Tumblr — /r/
syllable — /l/
spasm — /m/

We can count the number of syllables in any amount of written English. Occasionally there will be something that’s up for interpretation, but in most cases there will be an objective, correct answer.

How many syllables are in each of these lines?

a. We real cool. We

b. After great pain, a formal feeling comes

c. To be or not to be, that is the question

d. This is just to say

e. I like big butts and I cannot lie

Stress

In prosody in English, stress is an intensification of sound produced by a combination of loudness, duration, pitch, and sometimes how the vowel sound is pronounced.

Stress is relative.

A syllable is stressed if it is more stressed than the syllables around it.

Word stress: the stress pattern inherent in individual words.

If you know how to pronounce the word and you don’t overthink it, you already know where the stresses fall.

The English language loves alternating stress patterns.

Which syllables are stressed?

Sentence stress: the stress pattern produced by the relative emphasis that we give different words within a sentence.

Form interacts with meaning to produce sentence stress.

Lexical words have a "meaning" or definition: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs
examples: house, you, blue, beautifully, run

Nonlexical or function words have a use, but it would be hard to say what they mean: articles, conjunctions, prepositions
examples: an, or, to

Lexical or nonlexical?

of
that
and
the
whose

Lexical or nonlexical?

man's
first
fruit
tree
taste

Things to consider in evaluating sentence stress:

lexical or nonlexical?
grammatical function ("Í am the walrus.")
relative stress
phonetic weight

2. Feet

3. Lines

Thou sór|row, vé|nom Élfe:
      Is thís | thy pláy,
To spín | a wéb | óut of | thysélfe
      To Cátch | a Flý?
            For Whý?

Edward Taylor, "Upon a Spider Catching a Fly," c. 1680

Thou sór|row, vé|nom Élfe:
      Is thís | thy pláy,
To spín | a wéb | óut of | thysélfe
      To Cátch | a Flý?
            For Whý?

Edward Taylor, "Upon a Spider Catching a Fly," c. 1680

Thou sór|row, vé|nom Élfe:
      Is thís | thy pláy,
To spín | a wéb | óut of | thysélfe
      To Cátch | a Flý?
            For Whý?

Edward Taylor, "Upon a Spider Catching a Fly," c. 1680

4. Interpretability

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

William Wordsworth, "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal," 1798/1800

| Rolled round |

5. Tension

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that cóuld nót féel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

William Wordsworth, "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal," 1798/1800

6. Variation

Some sources of variation (not a comprehensive list):

• elision
• hiatus
• extrametricality
• catalexis

elision: the contraction of two syllables into one

hiatus: the drawing out of a compound vowel into two syllables

1    Those Hours, that with gentle work did frame
2    The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
3    Will play the tyrants to the very same
4    And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
5    For never-resting Time leads Summer on
6    To hideous Winter and confounds him there;
7    Sap check'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
8    Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
9    Then, were not summer's distillation left,
10    A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
11    Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
12    Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was.
13          But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,
14          Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet #5, late C16

1    Those Hours, that with gentle work did frame
2    The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
3    Will play the tyrants to the very same
4    And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
5    For never-resting Time leads Summer on
6    To hideous Winter and confounds him there;
7    Sap check'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
8    Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
9    Then, were not summer's distillation left,
10    A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
11    Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
12    Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was.
13          But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,
14          Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet #5, late C16

extrametricality (a.k.a. "feminine ending"): an extra unstressed syllable at the end of a line

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

Christina Rossetti, "Song," C19

catalexis: an empty syllable position

Tyger | Tyger, | burning | bright, Ø
In the | forests | of the | night; Ø

William Blake, "The Tyger," 1794

7. Rhythm beyond meter

I CELEBRATE myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself," 1855

I CELEBRATE myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
| For éve|ry á|tom belón|ging to mé,| as góod | belóngs | to yóu.|

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself," 1855

Poems quoted in this lecture:

Gwendolyn Brooks, "We Real Cool"
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Edward Taylor, "Upon a Spider Catching a Fly"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha
Clement Clarke Moore, "A Visit from St Nicholas"
"Dickery Dickery Dock," from Mother Goose's Melody
William Wordsworth, "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal"
William Shakespeare, Sonnet #5
Christina Rossetti, "Song" ["When I am dead, my dearest"]
William Blake, "The Tyger"
Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass" (1855)
M. NourbeSe Phillip, Zong!

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