Comments on: Who was written in sprung rhythm?

Question: Who was written in sprung rhythm?

rockstar — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 14:40:27 -0800

Today, in my graduate linguistics class, we studied Gerard Manley Hopkins' "sprung rhythm." It seems an interesting experiment, but I'm now curious: do any metafilter literary types know if a poet (or poets) since Hopkins has used sprung rhythm in poetry?

By: teece

teece — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 14:57:47 -0800

Hopkin's sprung rhythm has some vague similarity to the form of Old English poetry (minus the alliteration and line-splitting).

Hopkins was a fairly isolated poet, and I don't really know any body else that does it. But I'm no expert.

By: CrunchyFrog

CrunchyFrog — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:34:45 -0800

Wikipedia says that Robin Jeffers' rejected standard poetic meter by use of "rolling stresses," just as Hopkins did before him with his "sprung rhythm."

By: naomi

naomi — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:56:54 -0800

A lot of Bob Dylan sounds like sprung rhythm to me. For example: Masters of War, Tangled Up in Blue, and the talking blues songs.

By: tangerine

tangerine — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:36:08 -0800

Why, when you write in English,
would you use something quite so subtle,
scanning by subjective voice stress,
pulsing, waiting, stumbling, not like iambs
you'd ploddingly deploy instead? I am
guilty as charged, my friends,
when I write fluff for people's birthdays,
weddings, bar mitzvahs, corporate events.
Sullivan-esque whimsy, straining to the beat;
rhythms to be heard, not seen
(for auditory application only),
stashed finally with souvenirs somewhere.
Don't know what's sprung, if springing strictly takes its shape from Anglo-Saxon structures;
I doubt that Hopkins cared about exactness,
I doubt he'd ever say "exactitude."
Point being: sprung rhythm isn't dead,
You might say it's stressed out.
Resting, like a parrot with the flu;
shaky, like Jello San Francisco;
queasy like Tuesday evening,
cluttering up Metafilter.
(PS: Agreed about Bob Dylan.)

By: Joseph Gurl

Joseph Gurl — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 18:41:57 -0800

I STRONGLY recommend the Robinson Jeffers, a giant of American poetry who's sadly under-taught & under-discussed. His work has immense meaning to me, and is incredibly consistent in its excellence, a rare thing.

By: fishfucker

fishfucker — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:21:04 -0800

Wikipedia on sprung rhythm, for those who aren't familar with it (like me! thanks for asking this question!)

By: thomas j wise

thomas j wise — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:37:04 -0800

See also Brian Henry on Charles Wright's revision of Hopkins' "outrider."

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 21:49:34 -0800

i'll second the recommendation of robinson jeffers ... i think sprung rhythm has been a vague influence on some later poetry, but it's difficult to tell from free verse at times ... i can't really think of anyone who's noticably patterned their poetry after hopkins

on the other hand, a lot of rap music seems to operate on a similar principle ... but then we're leaving the world of meter for polyrhythms ...

By: kenko

kenko — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 00:35:42 -0800

Why, when you write in English,
would you use something quite so subtle,
scanning by subjective voice stress,
pulsing, waiting, stumbling, not like iambs
you'd ploddingly deploy instead?

Actually, Robert Frost, who deployed iambs anything but ploddingly, stressed (heh) the importance of natural-sounding voices and rhythms.