A
Short Essay on Syllabics by Elizabeth Darush
I
have had a fondness for the poetry of Elizabeth Daryush for a long time. However, my reading of her poetry has been
from anthologies and the occasional poem I found on the web. My interest in Daryush was first stimulated
by coming across some of her syllabic sonnets.
I found them very attractive. So,
now and then, I would do a web search for her poems and was never disappointed
with what I found.
Most
of the poetry of Daryush is currently available only in used editions. Recently I decided to buy her Collected Poems which was published in
1976. It is a surprisingly slim volume;
only 198 pages. But that has its
advantages as the collection gives the reader a good overview of her poetry. I will have more to say about the poems in a
future post, but what I want to highlight here is a short ‘Note on Syllabic
Metres’, written by Daryush, found on pages 24 and 25. I found it to be insightful and one of the
clearest presentations of syllabics in an English language context that I have
run across. Here it is:
Note
On Syllabic Metres
Some
of the poems here re-printed are written on a syllabic system, and I should
like to comment on what seems to be a wide-spread misunderstanding and
under-estimate of what the principle implies: a strict syllable-count, although
of course essential, is, in my view, merely the lifeless shell of its more
vital requirements.
Accepting
that not only a work of art but every aspect of its medium is intrinsically a
contrived relation between the known and the uncomprehended, the fixed and the
unpredictable, recalling, too, that in accentual verse, as in barred music, the
fixed element is that of time, and the unfixed that of number (of syllables or
notes) we can assess what part should be played by these factors in a truly
syllabic system. Here the position is
reversed: the fixed element is no longer time but number; the integrity of line
and syllable is challenged by the stress-demands of sense or syntax. The aim of the artist will be so to balance
these incommensurables as to reflect his own predicament of thought or feeling,
thereby enhancing his consciousness of an imagined relation with the
unattainable. The rules for achieving
this are by their very nature unwritten ones, but a few guide-lines can be laid
down.
In
general, meaning should make the greatest possible use of time-variety without
losing sight of the number-pattern.
First, therefore, the line-ending, the highest point of emphasis and
tension, being no longer led up to by steps of regular stress, must be
established and maintained by other means.
The first few lines of a syllabic poem should when possible be complete
sentences or phrases. Rhyme is almost
indispensable, but since it can be unaccented need be neither over-obvious nor
monotonous. The integrity of the
syllable must be ensured by the avoidance of all dubious elisions. Stress-variations are more effective in
fairly short lines, and more easily obtained from those with an odd
syllable-count, since here there is a choice of two equally accessible
stress-counts. Full advantage should of
course be taken of the release from stress-restrictions, with their often
unavoidable distortions of the natural speech-rhythm. Inversions should now be used only for meaningful
emphasis.
With
these main principles in mind, the writer replaces the usual regular
stress-waves by such other currents and cross-currents, such expectations and
disappointments, as may further his purpose.
He may, for instance, introduce the same irregularities into the
corresponding lines of a lyric’s every stanza; or he may repeat, often with
great effect, in the last line of a poem, some startling upheaval in the first;
or, again, he may use a similar break in a previously established pattern to
express some violent change of mood or thought.
These and many similar devices will with practice become the
instinctively chosen instruments of the poet whose ear is attuned to their
possibilities.
Without
them, there will be no poem.
E.
D.
**
Here
are some comments on the essay:
“.
. . a strict syllable-count, although of course essential, is, in my view,
merely the lifeless shell of its more vital requirements.”
I
understand this to mean that Daryush is pointing out that a method of poetic
construction does not guarantee attractive, or profound, results. There is a dialectical dance between the
learned constructive elements and the unpredictable elements; both of them are
combined in a poem. This is true for all
artistic, or craft, methods: they do not guarantee beauty, insight, or depth.
“
. . . in accentual verse, as in barred music, the fixed element is that of
time, and the unfixed that of number (of syllables or notes) we can assess what
part should be played by these factors in a truly syllabic system. Here the position is reversed: the fixed
element is no longer time but number; the integrity of line and syllable is
challenged by the stress-demands of sense or syntax.”
This
is insightful and a useful analog to music.
Daryush is suggesting that accentual verse resembles the regular meter
of music. In a song that is in 4-4 time,
the number of notes in a bar of four beats will vary: one bar might contain
four notes, the next six notes, the next ten notes, etc. But each bar will contain four beats.
Similarly,
in metrical verse, each line will contain the same number of beats, but the
number of syllables can vary. For
example, a poem written with four beats per line might have eight syllables if
each beat consists of an iamb, or a combination of iambs and trochees. If, however, one of the beats contains an
anapest, the line will have nine syllables.
If one of the beats is a strong, single-syllable word, the line will
contain seven syllables. Even though the
syllable count may vary, the four beats remains constant, just like in a song
written in 4-4 time.
Daryush
points out that syllabic verse reverses what is constant in a line. In syllabic verse the number of syllables is
constant, or determined, but the number of beats in the line can vary. Musically, this resembles a melody in which
the meter changes. For example, a melody
might have two measures of 4-4 time, followed by a measure of 3-4 time, then
conclude with a measure of 6-4 time.
However, each measure would have the same number of notes. For example, each measure could have three
notes as follows: the two measures of 4-4 time would be quarter note, quarter
note, half note; the measure of 3-4 time would be three quarter notes; and the
6-4 measure would be three half notes.
Music
like this is not very common. But a few
composers have, and do use, this kind of procedure now and then; Stravinsky and
Prokofiev are two examples. I am not
aware of popular songs that use this procedure, but there might be some. Musically you do hear this kind of flow,
sometimes, in improvisational passages, where the musician is left to riff on a
theme.
It
should be pointed out that this analysis by Daryush only applies to syllabic
forms that have lines that all share the same count. Her analysis would apply to my quatrain
poems, the ones were the syllable count is the same for all four lines. But her analysis does not apply as well to
those syllabic forms where the line count varies. In my reading of Daryush’s poetry, I have
come across few poems with varied syllable count. As far as I know she did not write any cinquain
or syllabic haiku; both of these forms vary the syllable count and the
application of Daryush’s perspective here is more complicated.
Take,
for example, the cinquain; a five-line form with a syllable count of
2-4-6-8-2. It would be possible to
compose a syllabic cinquain in which the first three lines all had the same
number of beats. You could do this by
varying the metrics: line 1 would have two strong single syllables (something
like ‘Stop! Look!’), line two could be
two iambs, and line three could be two anapests. In this way you would have a steady rhythm
moving from line to line, but it would apply to a varying syllabic count. This is a possibility that syllabic verse can
nourish or account for, one that would not be available to a cinquain
understood as a metrical form with a gradually ascending number of beats (1
beat, 2 beats, 3 beats, 4 beats, 1 beat).
I
have seen examples in the haiku of Hackett and Wright where the three lines all
share the same number of beats, three beats, but I don’t know if this is conscious
or simply a result of intuitive skill.
But again, there are examples found in a syllabic form, where the line
count varies, in which the beats remain constant but the syllable count changes.
In
spite of these limitations, I find the analysis Daryush offers to be useful and
insightful. It directly applies to
syllabic forms in which the count of syllables is the same for each line. This would mean forms like some syllabic
quatrain forms (but not the Englyn Unodl Union, one of my favorite quatrain
forms from Wales) and the syllabic sonnet.
Her analysis also applies to sequences of any syllabic form; and here I
think the analysis is worth pondering.
When
I read a syllabic form I prefer reading a group of them, rather than a single
example. My experience has been that
there is a rhythm generated by the count that begins to emerge when reading a
sequence of cinquain, or tetractys, or syllabic haiku, or syllabic tanka. It is a kind of pulse that is unique to each
syllabic form.
Yet
there is also variety to the pulse; it isn’t always a simple repetition. And Daryush’s analysis explains why that variation
occurs. If you read a sequence of
cinquain, the syllabic count will be the same as you read one after the other,
but the number of beats will change as one moves from one cinquain to another. What I mean is, if you take line 3 of a
cinquain, you will always have six syllables in the line. One cinquain might have three beats (say 3
iambs), and the next cinquain might have two beats (say 2 anapests), and other
variations are possible. Thus when reading
a sequence of cinquain (or syllabic haiku, syllabic tanka, or etc.) there is a
constant in the number of syllables, but variation in the number of beats as one moves from poem to poem in the sequence.
The
effect of this, to my mind, mimics certain natural experiences. I am thinking of watching the flow of a river
as one example, where certain pulses in the stream reappear but with intriguing
variations. A sequence of syllabic verse
offers the listener this opportunity to experience a kind of contrapuntal
effect, where variation is experienced above the constant of the syllabic
count. I think this is a pleasing aspect
of short syllabic forms when they are spoken aloud to an audience in sequence. I first experienced this by reading such
sequences myself in collections such as the old ‘Amaze’ journal devoted to the
cinquain. I also found it one of the
more pleasing features of the haiku of Wright and Hackett. And, of course, syllabic tanka also has this
effect. It was syllabic tanka, in
translation, that really opened up this aspect of syllabic verse to me. I think that is one reason why the classic
anthologies of Japanese tanka have proven so durable.
More
to follow in Part 2.
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