3.1.4 Rhythm

Rhythm is created through word stress, timing, single/double off-beats, metre, word order and punctuation. All these elements combine to make the music of the poem. Further on in this poetry discussion, there will be an examination of the poet's deliberate use of one or all of the following: alliteration, assonance, consonance and sound variation to enhance a particular rhythm.

Word Stress

When word stress, originating from the many and varied stresses found in spoken English, is applied to poetry, it generally refers to something like the fluid regularities of the body, such as, heartbeat, breathing and walking. So one of the keys to one's understanding of rhythm in poetry, lies in one's keeping in mind that English words can be composed of a single syllable, or even double or multiple syllables and that uniformity does not exist in each of these forms.

Single Syllable Words

In the first place, for example, monosyllabic or single syllable words are of two kinds, stressed and unstressed:

See an extract from a poem below containing stressed and unstressed single syllable words:

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She's crying with all her might and main,
And she won't eat her dinner - rice pudding again -
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

From A.A.Milne's "Rice Pudding".
In The Book of Verse for children (1962). R.L. Green (Comp.). London: J.M. Dent & Sons.)

Words of Two Syllables

Then, there are duo-syllabic words or words of two syllables which can take the stress on either syllable:

Polysyllabic Words

The third group are polysyllabic (more than two syllables) in which the stress pattern also varies:

In compound words there is a stress on each syllable:

(NB In compound words or words in which there are two heavy stresses, the second stress is slightly lighter than the first.)

Usually words cannot lose their normal stress but there are times when we under-emphasise a normally stressed word to bring out a particular meaning. See the difference in meaning between the following:

Where two stresses occur side by side, the second stress is usually the heavier. So in spoken language all stresses are felt whether they are heavy or less heavy. This factor contributes to feeling and tone in a sentence or phrase. They are the means of setting up the beat of a rhythm. The poet relies on the stress patterns of words to construct his/her verses and his/her skilful use of stress patterns can produce whatever kind of "music" desired in the poem (Leonard, 1991).

Timing

As well as stress, the poet has to be aware of timing. English is what is called a "timed" language: a sentence has a beat which occurs at almost equal intervals. One could have two sentences almost identical in structure and, although one may be longer than the other, the speaker will take approximately the same time to say both sentences because he/she learns in speaking the language to keep the beat of a rhythm, for example:

Both of the above sentences would be delivered in approximately the same amount of time. Of course, timing has an elastic quality and is subject to a speaker's stopping or pausing. This same idea of timing is transferred to the speaker/reader of poetry.

Single/Double Off-beats

Lastly, in considering rhythm, one needs to realise that any monotony in our spoken language is counteracted by the creation of a single or double off-beats, for example:

The single offbeat in "lyric style" does not have the light and quick double off-beat of "lyrical style" in which two syllables are covered in the time of one (Leonard, 1991). The poet is quick to imitate and utilise the single or double off-beats to create contrast, or change of pace or a rhythm that reflects the theme. For example, W.H. Auden in his poem, "Night Mail" relies heavily on the contrasting effects of single or double off-beats to create the illusion of a train's journey through the countryside:

  /   ^  ^      /      ^      /   ^    ^   /   ^
This is the/ Night Mail/ crossing the/ border
  /    ^   ^     /        ^   ^   /   ^   / ^
Bringing the cheque and the postal order

(In The Four Corners (1968). A.K. Thomson. (Ed.). Brisbane: The Jacranda Press.)

Rhythm

Cadden (1984) speaks of Rhythm as the music of a poem out of which the message is transmitted. He points out that originally, when considering the rhythm of a poem, the reader would also have to consider what is called metre. He reminds his readers that poets writing before modern times, had to give a great deal of thought to the metre in which they would set their poem because metre provides a powerful control and energy within the poem. In so many of the works of the great poets of the past, he adds, such as Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, the message was forcefully delivered through the chosen metre.

Metre

The idea of metre is borrowed from the Classical Greek and Latin poetry which demanded that a verse (a line of poetry) should follow a precise and regular pattern, that is, it should conform to having a number of set syllables in a line and a specific arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables. In this way, the poet achieved a firmly connected and unified piece of work. However, when one reads a poem written in a specific metre, one pays attention to the actual movement in the verse and not to the constricting stresses of metre, unless the poem in question is a nursery rhyme or doggerel (Cadden, 1984). One needs to realise that Greek verse was originally performed to movement or dance which took place around a rough stone altar dedicated to a god, and probably to the sound of a dactylic drum played by a priest.

Iambic Pentameter

The reader of a line of poetry will stress the important words in the line. See the line below from John Keats' poem, "When I have fears that I may cease to be" (1818) which is written in the metre called iambic pentameter. (See Seven Centuries of Poetry in English (1991), J. Leonard (Ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.). This expression means that there are five feet in a line, each line consisting of an unstressed syllable (expressed as ^) followed by a stressed syllable (expressed as /):

 ^     /     ^      /     ^    /    ^      /     ^   /
When I /have fears/ that I/ may cease/ to be

The reader of this line would put stresses on what he/she would consider as the important words in the line, namely, "fears" and "I", and "cease" and "be" and would so read it in the following way:

                     /           /         /         /
When I have fears that I may cease to be

The rhythm of a poem, therefore, is the natural movement that the poet has created from word to word, and then line to line. It makes a strong musical contribution to the feeling aspects of the poem, tone, mood and atmosphere, be they gloomy, happy, light and carefree, harsh, angry, frightening or whatever.

Word Order

Rhythm is assisted by word order. If the poet decides to place words out of their usual order, he/she does so in order to emphasise certain words; for example, in "Hurrahing in Harvest" Gerard Manley Hopkins uses the following inversion of word order to highlight the wonder of the constant wind activity up among the clouds creating unusual but delicate shapes:

what lovely behaviour
Of silk sack clouds! Has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?

(In Gerard Manley Hopkins Poems and prose (1972). W.H. Gardner (Ed.). Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books.)

In prose form Hopkins is actually saying:

Has anyone ever seen such clouds which, in their constant movement and formations, are like the fine soft powder of meal en masse which repeatedly and purposely falls in and out of shapes?

In prose, the magic and energy of the moment as Hopkins experiences them are lost but in his poetry, on the other hand, his deliberate inversion forces attention on "wilder, wilful-wavier" as well as "meal-drift", and then on "moulded ever and melted". The reader is forced to focus not only on the swiftness of movement and constant changing shapes but also on the white, soft, springy texture of the clouds. So, the result is both visual and kinaesthetic and achieved through Hopkins' use of, sprung rhythm, assisted by the use of inversion. He has been able to make one long stress equal to one foot in a line. So he has created a "halt" or "an impediment" to the smooth-flowing of the ideas. At the same time, he has also been able to convey an almost electrified element to the transformation of clouds melting and merging at a pace he finds intriguing. The reader, as a result of the word inversion and sprung rhythm, starts to share the excitement of the moment and to see what Hopkins is seeing.

Punctuation

Punctuation is also an important tool for the poet to express rhythm. It can occur at the end, middle or near the beginning of lines. A different rhythmic effect is produced if the poet ends the line with punctuation - such as a full-stop, colon, semi-colon instead of choosing to carry the line over to the next line. Then the poet can use punctuation within the line, such as exclamation and question marks and dashes, and even full stops and colons which will affect the poem's rhythm and make a particular meaning clear. A stanza ending in a semi-colon does not make as strong a pause as a full-stop nor cause a hiatus. See the excerpt from a poem below which illustrates how punctuation can give pause and flow and meaning:

Of neither water nor land. Seeking
Some world lost when first he dived, that he cannot come at since,
Takes his changed body into the holes of lakes;
As if blind, cleaves the stream's push till he licks
The pebbles of the source; from sea

To sea crosses in three nights
Like a king in hiding. Crying to the old shape of the starlit land,
Over sunken farms where the bats go round,
Without answer. Till light and birdsong come
Come walloping up roads with the milk wagon.

(From: Ted Hughes's "An Otter")
(In Poets and Poetry (1992). R.K. Sadler, T.A.S. Hayllar & C.J. Powell (Eds.). Melbourne: Macmillan Education.)

The first quoted stanza simply begins with a phrase: "Of neither water nor land" followed by a full stop, which creates a pause, almost a jolt, and focuses the reader on the uniqueness of the nature of the otter which does not seem to equate with other animals of land and/or water. By placing "seeking" immediately after the full stop and then carrying it over into the next line, Hughes is able to achieve a flowing action which reflects the otter's dive under the water, but note, only after he has established something spirit-like, or perhaps magical, about this creature. The use of the two commas in the middle and end of the next line, make the reader pause and absorb how every dive seems to be a new experience to the otter. Then the semi-colon creates a shorter pause than a full stop at the end of the line and so closely relates the idea in this line with what follows before the next stage on the new line is introduced. The opening focus on the verb, "cleaves", an action not unlike a blind person waving his/her arms around to clear the way forward. Again, an uneven rhythm is created which again reflects the otter's movements, with the carry-over line, punctuated midway with a semi-colon:

As if blind, cleaves the stream's push till he licks
The pebbles of the source;

The relationship between the content of the first stanza and the one that follows is assisted by both the semi-colon and a carry-over line (an example of enjambement) which gives a movement of thought like the movement of the otter's body through the water. In this stanza, there is again the dual use of a full stop mid-line and then commas at the end of two lines and one carry-over line at the end of the stanza. This diversity of pause supports the versatility of this creature which the poet creates with its silent, mysterious identity, contrastive with the normal everyday natural sounds and sounds made by humans, introduced in the last one and a half lines.