The Case for Pace

Abstract

I wish to suggest category that can be helpful in focusing our attention on rhythm of free verse, that is similarly applicable to metrical verse. The category of pace, which I am offering here, has advantage of operating across several levels of a given text and its perception. In linguistics, finds that (often termed tempo, and at times inaccurately meshed with duration) is a suprasegmental parameter that sometimes appears as a component of rhythm in ordinary language. (1) As a crude working definition, can begin to think of as speed of a stretch of language. Changes in can explain some of flexibility in metered verse (two iambic pentameter lines can have differing dynamics), and can also operate in free verse regardless of metrical element. In context of traditional distinction between meter and rhythm, can be found on side of rhythm: is not metrical, and it operates both inside and outside of a metrical context. Furthermore, does not necessarily rely on a regularity or recurrence of numerical elements in any strict sense. It is rhythmical by virtue of engaging reader in an experience of speed, and therefore temporality. Researchers in linguistics or psycholinguistics classify pace, which they call into two or three components. The first is the tempo of articulating an utterance, excluding any silent pauses, but including non-linguistic speech material such as filled pauses [=any gap in verbal structure of a speaking-turn filled by non-linguistic material] and prolongations of (Laver 539). This is measured in number of syllables or words per time units, for example, number of syllables per millisecond. The other two variables, embedded under term pause have to do with number and duration of pauses in examined utterance. In a stretch of speech, overall impression of tempo has to do both with speed/pace/rate of words uttered and (sometimes independently) with frequency and duration of pauses interspersed between syllables or words uttered. John Laver points out that there are different relationships possible. For example, a stretch of speech can be characterized by a fast articulation rate, but could still exhibit a relatively slow speaking rate, if speech has frequent or long silent pauses (541). Empirical research on speaking rate has produced a myriad of results, which hint at significance of in poetry, though area of investigation is not poetic. (2) John Ciardi, American poet and critic, stands out as giving most attention to as key to illuminating effects of poetry. In his book, How Does a Poem Mean?, Ciardi states plainly that [a] poem, by very fact of its existence in time rather than in space, has duration and pace (994, emphasis in original). Earlier Ciardi argues that one poem obviously urge voice at a faster than does another. Within same poem, moreover, part urge itself much more rapidly than another. Even within an individual line, phrase clearly be indicated as moving more rapidly or more slowly than another (920). In fact, it seems that for Ciardi, is definitive element of rhythm in poetry, and he makes an effort to systematically account for devices that affect a poem's pace. When Ciardi claims that part of poem may urge itself much more rapidly or more slowly than another, he is suggesting not just that changes throughout poem, and is therefore relative, but also that poem itself indicates its pacing. Although becomes physically manifested when poem is read out loud (and echoes of can be heard by an attentive silent reader in proverbial mind's ear), there are cues or indicators of within written text, and we are not solely in realm of subjective performance whereby any string of words can be performed at various speeds at will. …