Syllabic verse

Syllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed number of syllables per line or stanza regardless of the number of stresses that are present. It is common in languages that are syllable-timed, such as Japanese or modern French or Finnish—as opposed to accentual verse, which is common in stress-timed languages, such as English.

Syllabic verse in English

Dylan Thomas' "In My Craft Or Sullen Art" is an example of syllabic verse in English: it has seven syllables in each line, but no consistent stress pattern.

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 labour 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.

Syllabic poetry can also take a stanzaic form, as in Marianne Moore's poem "No Swan So Fine", in which the corresponding lines of each stanza have the same number of syllables.

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.

When writing syllabic verse, there is some flexibility in how one counts syllables. For example, diphthongs may count as one or two syllables depending on the poet's preference.

A number of English-language poets in the Modernist tradition experimented with syllabic verse. These include Marianne Moore, Dylan Thomas, Louis Zukofsky, Cid Corman, and Leo Yankevich.

Criticism

In languages like Spanish and Japanese all syllables are pronounced with nearly the same length and nearly the same stress, and syllabic verse is conventional. In English, unstressed syllables are much weaker and shorter than stressed syllables, and English speakers adjust the timing of unstressed syllables so that there is always the same amount of time between one stress and the next. This means that an English speaker tends not to notice the number of syllables within a line of verse unless a stilted manner of recitation is adopted. The conventional pattern of accentual and accentual-syllabic rhythmic English verse is appreciated as poetry. Robert Wallace compares counting the number of syllables in a line as the equivalent of counting letters. ^[1]

Syllabic verse in French

See French poetry

The modern French language does not have a significant stress accent (unlike English) or long and short syllables (as Latin does). This means that the French metric line is generally determined by the number of syllables. The most common metric lengths are the ten-syllable line ("décasyllabe"), the eight-syllable line ("octosyllabe") and the twelve-syllable line (the so-called "alexandrine").

Special syllable counting rules apply to French poetry. A silent or mute 'e' counts as a syllable before a consonant, but not before a vowel (where "h aspiré" counts as a consonant). When it falls at the end of a line, the mute "e" is hypermetrical (outside the count of syllables).

Notes

1. ^ Robert Wallace, Meter in English (essay) reprinted in Meter in English, A Critical Engagement, University of Arkansas Press, 1996. ISBN 1-55728-444-X.

See also

• Tanaga - a Tagalog syllabic verse form of four lines of seven syllables
• Haiku