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An Objective Study of Syllabic Quantity in English Verse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Ada L. F. Snell
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Extract

In a previous paper the syllabic quantity of twenty-five lines of Milton's Paradise Lost was discussed. In that paper it was shown that for three different readers approximately 90% of the syllables standing in the metrically stressed position were longer than the other syllables in the same foot in the unstressed position. In the following study it is my purpose to consider syllabic duration in lyric verse of different metres. The first two selections are iambic. They were read by I and Ka respectively, both instructors in vocal expression in western universities. All times are given in tenths and one-hundredths of a second; the times of pauses are in parenthesis.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , 1919, pp. 416 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1919

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References

1 An objective study of syllabic quantity in English verse in these Publications, xxxiii, pp. 396 ff.

2 The instrument into which the readers spoke the lines is one devised by Professor John F. Shepard of the University of Michigan. It consists of various tambours covered with mica and rubber and mounted with pointers which record the vibrations and outflow of air during speech. The pointers remove the soot from a revolving band of smoked paper, writing thus the various vibrations and curves which represent speech. From records thus made it is possible to determine in most cases with great precision the limits of syllabic duration. Since voiced sounds may blend, it is not always possible to determine exactly the limits of syllables one of which ends and the other of which begins with a voiced sound. In doubtful cases I took the average time of the same syllable found in other places in the material studied but standing between consonants, or made up sentences containing syllables like those under consideration. All cases of this sort are indicated as doubtful.

3 Doubtful division.

4 The second stanza was taken rather than the first, since the fourth line of the first stanza is metrically anomalous. The refrain was omitted since it, also, on account of pauses and substitutions is not a normal iambic line. For the curious I will, however, give the results here.

.15 .58 .2 .8 .3 .38 .2 .76
The splen - dor falls (.2) on cas -tle walls (.65)
.26 .3 .15 .38 .2 .5 .2 .5 .28
And snow-y sum -mits (.5) old in stor -y; (.8)
.12 .6 .4 .6 .09 .5 .08 .5,
The long light shakes a - cross the lakes, (.52)
.19 .08 .55 .3 .08 .4 .6 .18 .3 .22
And the wild cat - a - ract (.12) leaps in glor -y. (.85)
.8 .4 .25 .8 .32 .18 .64 .2 .35 .6 .4
Blow, (.08) bu -gle, blow, (.08) set the wild ech - oes fly - ing, (.6)
.7 .35 .3 .25 .2 .3 .36 .75 .35 .6 .4
Blow, bu -gle; (.78) an-swer, ech-oes, (.7) dy-ing, (.3) dy - ing, (4.) .65 .3
dy - ing.

These lines read, as they were very beautifully, make an interesting study on account of the pauses and time variations. In all three stanzas of the poem, ech of echoes is the shorter syllable. In two or three instances dy of dying is the shorter, because, undoubtedly, of the pause.

5 Doubtful division.

For this line a more satisfactory division might be,
From my wings / are shaken / the dews / that waken /
And for line 10 in the same selection
And whiten / the green plains / under /

7 Doubtful division.

8 The two lines might be scanned as follows:

Baked in a / pie
And ) snapped off her / nose

They probably were thus read.

9 For this line a better division is

Life there / outlying

with the first unit a spondee and the second a bacchic. The two feet should be excluded from the results.