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What is a Poem?
I am interested in the comments of F.M. Price on Peter Bland’s poem, ‘The Happy Army’ – chiefly because they express a real and common bewilderment. Since the critic specifically states that poetic ‘atmosphere’ is indefinable, I will gladly leave that aside from my own argument, and also the subjective assessment of the ‘beauty’ of words and phrases, and confine myself to matters of definable verse technique. These are the points I wish to make –
| (a) |
Mr Bland’s poem possesses a distinct and powerful metrical pattern of stress dactyls. Most teachers, due to early schoolroom conditioning, tend to look for an iambic pattern. I suspect that Mr Price has fallen into this trap. Let us examine four lines of ‘The Happy Army’ –
. . . riot, filling the air with faces, arms, legs
I suggest that the metrical elucidation that would fit these lines best should go as follows – (1) trochee, dactyl, trochee, trochee, spondee; (2) amphribrach, spondee, trochee, extended split dactyl; (3) extended dactyl, extended dactyl, dactyl, single strong beat; (4) dactyl, dactyl, trochee, trochee, dactyl . . . On purpose I have chosen a difficult passage. The amphibrach is the rocking-horse foot, (weak-strong-weak), not usually recognised by schoolroom metrists, the spondee (strong-strong) is common metre in hymns and was used clumsily by Longfellow in Hiawatha. The extended dactyl (strong-weak-weak-weak) page 107 occurs more frequently than most would think likely in popular ballads. The splitting of a dactyl or trochee so that part comes at the end of a line and part at the beginning of the next line, is common usage among verse dramatists. The attempt to read Mr Bland’s verse in terms of a succession of iambs (weakstrong) or anapaests (weak-weak-strong) would naturally lead to bewilderment. |
| (b) | The fact that verse can be written as prose is no necessary indication that it is not verse. I offer this example from Shelley’s The Cenci–
Here the basic metrical pattern is iambic, thus easily recognisable; but it can be read as simple, bare prose. |
| (c) | Many poems that might baffle the schoolroom metrist yield best to the approach I have used in examining Mr Bland’s poem. Thus the first three lines of Shelley’s powerful metrical poem, ‘Ode to the West Wind’, could be elucidated like this – (1) spondee, spondee, amphibrach, trochee, trochee; dactyl, trochee, dactyl, spondee; (3) amphibrach, iamb, dactyl, trochee, trochee . . . |
| (d) | I suggest the following rhyme pattern as that which exists in Mr Bland’s poem – an (internal) rhyme BCDB (assonantal) EFF (assonantal) CGE (halfrhyme) F (assonantal) AHAFG (assonantal) FF (assonantal)IF (half-rhyme). |
| (e) |
The patterns of interior assonance, as far as I can follow them, run like this carefully; sketched – happy, rattle; bad; back – medal; generals – excitement; riot; sky – everyone; everywhere; scare (full rhyme) – enemy; expectancy – grand; and (full rhyme) – why; why; dies; why; why; why; I; why; I; I (full rhyme and dramatic repetition) – dare; edge; stare; stare (full rhyme) . . . The patterns of alliteration run like this – book; boots; bad; back; beam – runs; riot – filling; faces; faces; front – expectance; applause; and – happy; happy; happiness – rolls; run . . . I don’t think I have nearly exhausted the possible assonances and alliteration in the poem; but this may serve as an indication of those possibilities. |
| (f) | Whether a poet begins his lines with capitals, or not, is his own business – in early English verse they did not use capitals. But on all the other points that Mr Price has made, I trust I have made a full enough answer, and diminished his bewilderment. I suggest that nearly all modern poems do possess metrical patterns, rhyme or half-rhyme or assonantal rhyme, and interior patterns of assonance and alliteration; but one has to get used to a freedom and variation much greater than the Victorians allowed themselves. Skelton or Donne, if they were now alive, would (I think) recognise the modern poets as their heirs; whereas Victorian verse was devoured by metrical monotony precisely because page 108 of its lack of free variation. To those who feel I have blinded them with science, I can offer one hopeful clue – when a reader has got used to a particular poet’s metrical methods, the pattern will become more or less apparent with no special knowledge. It takes a little patience. On the other hand, if one has no ear at all for verse, then the problem will remain permanently insoluble. |
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