Iambic Rhythm Research Articles

Iambic Rhythm: AI Drug Developer Enters the Clinic, Targeting HER2 Cancers

Iambic Rhythm: AI Drug Developer Enters the Clinic, Targeting HER2 Cancers

Pope’s Openers and the Almost Four-Beat Dunciad

ABSTRACT “A little learning is a dangerous thing”. Though that line is amongst Pope’s best known, and though it is a model example of iambic pentameter, it is also remarkable that, as a line, it only appears to have four strong stresses. We can choose to thump out five strong beats, but in practice we are unlikely to do so. Such lines have been variously theorised—as “balanced pentameters”, as “heroic tetrameters”—but however they are labelled, their effects within the context of verse tend to be under-appreciated. Where they are usually subsumed into the workings of iambic rhythm, such lines, when strategically deployed in large enough numbers, can conspire to throw of the rhythm of whole verses, and even entire poems; a case in point, I argue, is Pope’s four-book Dunciad, which can be heard as carrying a quasi four-beat rhythm. This essay is an attempt to account for that rhythm, and to attend to the relation between line and verse that is implied by the conspiring presence of almost four-beat lines alongside more traditional pentameters.

The Greek Tragic Trimeter as a Prosodic Milieu

The iambic trimeter has been studied extensively, but mostly from a descriptive point of view. This article places the discussion of the tragic trimeter in relation to the functionalist tradition of the study of rhythm and syntax in verse. It presents new data on the interdependence of rhythm and word boundary placement in the tragic trimeter (based on the work of Attic tragic playwrights and the Byzantine Christus Patiens), focusing on the remarkable stability of word placement patterns and the salience of the underlying binary structure of the iambic rhythm toward the end of the line. In this light, the restrictions on word boundaries in the last metron, most importantly Porson’s bridge, are argued to have a rhythmical explanation. Furthermore, based on a juxtaposition of a number of prosodic criteria, including the repertories of word shapes (rhythmic words) in various genres and authors, the study argues that the tragic iambic trimeter represents a distinctive prosodic milieu, different from both prose (and, very likely, spoken speech) and melic poetry.

Meter and Performance

Meter and Performance

РИТМІКА ДРУГОЇ ЧАСТИНИ КНИГИ ВАСИЛЯ БАРКИ «ОКЕАН» (РІЗНОСТОПОВИЙ ХОРЕЙ)

The article is dedicated the verse rhythm in the second part of the book “Ocean” by the Ukrainian poet Vasyl Barka (1979). The rhythm of the first part (iambic) was investigated in our previous article. The meter of the second part of the book is a mixed trochee, the scheme of which is 5454. The stresses in the poetic lines were counted and the rhythm profiles of the trochaic tetrameter and the trochaic pentameter were plotted. The rhythm diagram method developed by Taranovsky, Gasparov (for Russian verse) was used to compare Barka’s verses with Ukrainian and Russian verses. To illustrate the trends in Ukrainian verse, our calculations of the verse of Stus and Andrukhovich were also used. The results of the research showed that the character of Barka’s rhythm is unique; it has no correspondence either in Ukrainian or in Russian verses. In the rhythm of Barka’s poem, ‘the law of regressive dissimilation’, discovered by Taranovsky and extrapolated to the Ukrainian verse by Kostenko, does not work. That is, there is no alternation of strong and weak foot. Barka in trochee avoids full-accented lines, which are commonly used by Ukrainian and Russian poets. The set of rhythmic forms of verse differs from other poets. The drawing of the diagrams is also different. For a trochaic pentameter, this is a “bucket”, with strong 2nd and 5th feet and weak 3rd and 4th feet. And for a trochaic tetrameter, this is an almost equal strength of the first three feet and a strong last foot. A rhythm, approximately similar to that of Barka, was revealed only in Goethe’s verse for a trochaic pentameter and in Schiller’s verse for a trochaic tetrameter (according to Taranovsky). Given the unique nature of the iambic rhythm and rhyme in Barka’s verse, we consider it promising to search for the factors that determined Barka’s poetics.

O dodecassílabo iâmbico misto: uma proposta para a adaptação do verso branco épico inglês ao português

A tradução do verso branco épico usualmente toma duas formas: fidelidade formal à contagem silábica como recriação do pentâmetro em decassílabos ou fidelidade semântica como transposição adaptativa em versos livres. Ambos os modos causam detrimento aos efeitos particulares da forma original por não transporem à língua de chegada as qualidades essenciais do verso branco inglês: o ritmo cadenciado e constante e a tensão entre o ritmo métrico e o ritmo sintático-semântico. Em nosso artigo, buscamos estudar as qualidades e efeitos que tornam o verso branco épico distinto de outras formas métricas, explorando os mecanismos do pentâmetro iâmbico, seus limites e mutações dentro da tradição inglesa, e como esse verso opera em composições não-rimadas de caráter narrativo e meditativo, nas quais as diferenças entre prosa e poesia tornam-se mais tênues e a métrica toma um caráter ao mesmo tempo menos marcado e mais fundamental. Após esse levantamento, propomos uma nova variação do verso branco em português, o dodecassílabo misto, composto de ritmo iâmbico, formado pela alternância de sílabas átonas e tônicas ou subtônicas, e dodecasílabos acéfalos quando o verso precedente é grave. Ilustramos nosso estudo do verso branco com passagens de The Prelude, de William Wordsworth, e traduzimos trechos da mesma obra segundo nossa medida métrica para determinar sua eficácia. Como resultado, notamos que nossa forma adaptada mostra-se capaz de acomodar aquelas qualidades consideradas essenciais ao verso branco, reformulando, em português, efeitos poéticos frequentemente perdidos no processo de versão de obras inglesas, como o ritmo regular binário e o momento de leitura vertido de um verso a outro de modo integrado. Concluímos, dessa maneira, que uma abordagem não-tradicional das potencialidades métricas da língua portuguesa, em diálogo com os moldes da poesia inglesa, é capaz de abrir novas perspectivas tradutórias para pesquisadores em língua portuguesa e trazer a lume qualidades de tradições métricas distintas que podem oferecer novas ferramentas a seus tradutores.

How can Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter enable inclusion of and encourage participation of autistic pupils in a year 7 boy’s mainstream classroom?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to facilitate a greater understanding of verbal and non-verbal communication in an open space learning (OSL) environment. This is an exploration of the premise that by using Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter as a scaffolding for learners on the autism spectrum, a “safe place” can be accessed.Design/methodology/approachUsing an action research model and following government guidelines, using common assessment framework analysing the findings using School’s assessment criteria model that is used for single exercises through to whole scheme of work: making–performing–evaluating (self-evaluation sheets/peer evaluation sheets/teacher evaluation).FindingsThere has been hypothesis that people with ASD may be more able to track their heart beats for longer than neurotypicals. Kimberly et al. (2015) suggest that empathetic abilities and emotional experiences in people with ASD can produce negative experiences, anxiety can occur and the interoceptive awareness and ability to positively relate to self can be caused to dislocate. The use of the rhythm of the heartbeat may aid communication skills in ASD learners.Research limitations/implicationsIn the autistic learner, overload, caused by hypersensitivity/hyposensitivity, can also affect and be effected by environmental issues in OSL environment. The autistic learner can be deeply affected. Unlike a desk-based class there is nowhere to hide, no place of safety.Practical implicationsBy trying to find a common ground where the autistic learners can realise their full capacity the use of the heartbeat iambic rhythm can, the author posits, impact on the autistic learners sense of self and confidence, aiding learning.Social implicationsAs Hunter (2015) espouses, the heartbeat is a nurturing instrument. The author advocates that the heartbeat is also a unilateral marker that unifies a class/the environment at the same time as comforting the autistic learner.Originality/valueThere is an element in every being that has to be present from inception, the heartbeat, it is the first function an embryo performs. The heartbeat also produces a primal symbiotic interdependency in mother and child. It is a pure connection. The author posits that the replication of this pure function can comfort, reassure and foster communication. There is no empirical evidence, but research is currently taking place at the Nisonger Centre at the Ohio State University, where, under the leadership of Dr Marc J. Tasse, pilot workshops have taken place. The author also have no empirical evidence as to why the heartbeat is instrumental in helping the autistic learner to communicate. The author gives the conjecture in the paper.

A Peculiar Feature in the Word-Order of Gower's Confessio Amantis

Iwasaki points out that in Gower's English syntax part of a subordinate clause may precede the (205). By Iwasaki means conjunctions relatives. As an example we may take the following lines: Sche bad Yris hir Messagere / Slepes that she schal wende (4.2972-73). In the second line, the adverbial phase To Slepes hous precedes the connective that. This type of inversion is quite common in the CA even parts of a sentence that begin with and or bot may have their order reversed. Macaulay often correctly points out how a line should be construed, but neither he nor the original scribes are always consistent with how they punctuate such inversions. Gower's principal motivation for using this peculiar word order was likely to maintain the iambic rhythm of the line. [CvD]

The Trauma ofThe Making of Americans:

The self-absorption with which Gertrude Stein read literature and philosophy was reflected in the autobiographical interests of her literary production.1 The scope of this production has inspired some psychoanalytic approaches to analyzing her work, such as research by Merill Cole and Priscilla Wald; while Cole focuses on a more semiotic analysis through the Oedipal signifier of the Name of the Father in Stein’s work, Wald explores her literature through the historical context of Stein’s autobiography as a lesbian and second generation American immigrant.2 In this article, I am interested in reading Stein’s work psychoanalytically, but with a particular consideration of the relation between her language practice and her Jewishness.3 Inspired as Stein was by visual artists in her Paris community, her experiments in representing people repeating themselves “insistently,” led her to devise a unique history of American migration in The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family’s Progress (TMA) (1925).4 Evident in Stein’s stylistic signature of repetition in her portrait making are repetitive motifs in her works based on her life, which Wald brings to light in her analysis.5 One motif in particular is emphasized in Barbara Will’s paper on Stein and Zionism in which she observes that the race-centered focus in Stein’s “more explicitly Jewish autobiographical novel Q.E.D. (1903)” is repeated in the representation in Melanctha.6 While this race-thinking may explain an avoidance Maria Damon sees in Stein scholarship, my attention is drawn to the fact that the recurring racial narratives would

The iambic pentameter and its rivals

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Error by Elizabeth Campbell (Review)

There is something about the poetry of Elizabeth Campbell that syncopates like an idling Harley Davidson. In the poem “destiny”, written mainly in lines of fourteen to sixteen syllables, the urge to settle into a steady iambic rhythm is constantly frustrated, only to return again to its regular beat before once again hopping sideways in distinctive fitfulness.

Phonologically-constrained change

Changes in word shapes in Mainland Southeast Asia are usually attributed to contact-induced typological convergence. However, little attention has been paid to the role of structural constraints in defining paths of change. In this paper, we describe two distributional gaps in paths of word shape shifts: (1) there are no attested cases of direct shift between trochaic and iambic rhythm and (2) monosyllabization does not occur in trochaic languages. We argue that universal phonetic tendencies and structural constraints on their phonologization that derive from the Iambic-Trochaic Law are sufficient to explain these gaps and seem to account for at least part of the typological convergence usually attributed to contact.

A Greek Lyric Metre as Vector of the Self in the Poetry of Arthur Symons and Christopher Brennan

Arthur Symons was a major influence on the Australian poet Christopher Brennan (1871–1932). For his long poem The Wanderer, Brennan took from Symons's poetry of the fin de siècle the theme of longing for a lost love, and much of its associated imagery and rhythms. Chief among the latter is the dochmial rhythm of the Aeschylean drama, which expresses, in shorter irregular lines, the spasmodic emotional ejaculations of the common people, and stands in contrast to the measured iambic rhythm and longer lines of the great speeches of the nobles. Eros was highly problematic for both writers, contributing to Symons's breakdown of 1908, and Brennan's ongoing psychological crises of the 1890s. I propose that both writers’ employment of the dochmial rhythm in longer, measured lines, was to ennoble the Self as a subject worthy of respect and study, in a way typical rather of modernism than Decadence.

More support for more -support: The role of processing constraints on the choice between synthetic and analytic comparative forms (review)

Reviewed by: More support for more-support: The role of processing constraints on the choice between synthetic and analytic comparative forms Olga Fischer More support for more-support: The role of processing constraints on the choice between synthetic and analytic comparative forms. By Britta Mondorf. (Studies in language variation 4.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009. Pp. xi, 222. ISBN 9789027234841. $143 (Hb). There is 'more' to this book than meets the eye. On the surface the book only deals with two different ways of expressing the comparative form in English: the synthetic comparative with -er, and the analytic comparative with more. The book aims to explore what factors are involved in the [End Page 416] choice between these two. A much larger and a more profound aim is to find out how the choice relates to the way language is processed, and what role efficiency and processing complexity (or processing effort) play. These issues further lead to even larger questions, including the general nature of language processing and its relation to cognition and linguistic theory building. In Ch. 1, M makes clear that the choice between the two comparative forms has been treated most widely in terms of word length (especially the number of syllables) and the phonetic nature of the final segment of the adjective. To discover the extent of the variability, she wishes to 'provide a quantitative and qualitative in-depth account of the multifarious forces that continually and systematically shape and design this area of morpho-syntax' (1). She investigates thoroughly and systematically what factors play a role in (synchronic) processing and considers the various diachronic tendencies in relation to the processing factors. Both variants are considered thoroughly and insightfully on different levels so as to pull apart the complex knot of the processes at work. For example, Ch. 4 presents phonological constraints and conditions, followed by a similar approach to constraints on the morphological, lexical, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic levels (Chs. 5–9). M attempts to tie the various factors together since they interact with one another. Chs. 10–11 deal with general diachronic developments and the different pathways that are found in British and American English. The investigations are firmly based on evidence from corpora such as British and American newspapers, the British National Corpus, and a diachronic corpus of British and American prose fiction. To investigate all of the possible constraints, adjectives are carefully selected for their appropriateness and frequency. The results are presented in a clear style, and amply illustrated by easy-to-read figures and tables. Relying on studies of processing efficiency (e.g. Rohdenburg 1996, Hawkins 1999), M notes a trade-off between the use of an explicit marker (more) and a more economic inflective marker (-er): the former is less dependent on context and short-term memory, making it easier to process, while the latter, being less visible, needs more processing effort. The advantage of more is that by preceding the adjective, it alerts the language user that the adjective is a comparative. It is also advantageous because it can be stressed, is more clearly isomorphic, and has a 'higher cue reliability' (7) than the -er suffix, which is also a suffix used with agent nouns. M's working hypothesis is based on this idea of processing ease: 'Language users, when faced with the option between the synthetic and the analytic variant, prefer the latter in environments that are for some reason more difficult, more complex, less entrenched, less frequent, less accessible or in any way cognitively more complex' (6). It is assumed that similar compensatory strategies will be used in other cases where there is a choice between an inflected and a periphrastic construction. This study, therefore, is meant to provide 'more' support to such a complexity principle in general, and to bring to light the parameters that potentially cause complexity. Each linguistic level has its own particular constraints. On the phonological level, the influence of the so-called principle of rhythmic alternation, which concerns the avoidance of successive stressed syllables (cf. Rohr 1929, Schlüter 2005), is first considered. In English, with its essentially iambic rhythm, A próuder cándidate is preferred to A móre próud...

Iterative footing and prominence-driven stress in Nanti (Kampa)

Abstract: In this article we describe and develop an optimality-theoretic (OT) analysis of foot-level (secondary) and word-level (primary) stress in Nanti, a Kampa language of Peru. The distribution of stress in Nanti is sensitive to rhythmic factors, syllable quantity, vowel quality, and to whether a syllable is open or closed. The interaction of these independent variables produces a complex, multigrade stress scale married to an iterative stress system whose default preference is alternating, iambic rhythm. While each of the interacting factors in this system is familiar to phonologists, Nanti is special because the particular combination of influences and factors in Nanti contributes to a complexity of interactions that has not been documented in any other language to date.

Pronouncing Shakespeare's words: a guide from A to Zounds

Preface Pronunciation Key Abbreviations Introduction Using the Guide The Basic Text: The Riverside Shakespeare Which Words Are Included? Notation Pronunciation Variants within the United States How the Pronunciations Were Determined When Is a Variant Pronunciation Wrong? Mannered Pronunciations and the Influence of British English in North America Lost Rhymes and Puns Proper Names Foreign Words and Phrases Regional, Foreign, and Lower Class Accents Altering Modern Pronunciation to Fit the Verse Variations of the Basic Iambic Pentameter Line Shifting the Stress of a Word to Maintain the Iambic Rhythm Compressing Words Expanding Words Why Follow the Iambic Meter? A Pronouncing Guide to the Plays and Poems The Most Common Hard Words in Shakespeare The Most Common Reduced Forms The Plays All's Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Edward III Hamlet Henry IV part one Henry IV part two Henry V Henry VI part one Henry VI part two Henry VI part three Henry VIII Julius Caesar King John King Lear Love's Labor's Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo and Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen The Winter's Tale The Poems A Lover's Complaint The Passionate Pilgrim The Phoenix and the Turtle The Rape of Lucrece The Sonnets Venus and Adonis Appendices Appendix A: Common Words with More than One Standard Pronunciation in Today's English Appendix B: Common Archaic Forms in Shakespeare Appendix C: The Vowel Systems of North American and British English Appendix D: Special Notes on Selected Words, Word Endings, and Prefixes Appendix E: Pronunciation in Elizabethan England References Index of Words Subject Index

George Herbert's Holy "Altar," Name and Thing

George Herbert's Holy "Altar," Name and Thing by Kathleen Lynch The first poem we encounter in George Herbert's "The Church," "The Altar," compels and rewards our visual attention with a graphically coherent shape. The verbal properties of "The Altar" amplify the visual register of wholeness. The lines are replete with biblical phraseology. The changes in the typographical shape of the poem are marked by rhyming couplets, with the shaft of the altar composed of four, or precisely half, of the couplets. The typographical adjustments further correspond directly to the manipulation of the number of metrical feet in each line. For its contemporary readers, the very orthography would have carried traces of the divine Word.1 The poem is a carefully wrought sample of what John Hollander calls Herbert's characteristic pursuit of "an authenticity of form."2 As such, it is a self-reflexive instance of the genre of technopaegnia — the epitome of utpicturapoesis — in which the represented object directly addresses its reader. The poem may speak, but the authenticity of its visual structure has been discounted recently. The lack of the kind of critical acclaim accorded "Easter-wings" is not simply a dismissal of the "trick" from which the tradition of technopaegnia takes its name. Rather, readers have been reluctant to engage with the instrumentally mnemonic form of the piece. For while the shape is completely recognizable within the bounds of the genre, it is unrecognizable as a representation of the proper place for sacramental worship in a reformed church. The poem assumes the shape of a classical or stone altar only to redefine or mark the transformation of Christian modes of worship, it is argued.3 Or perhaps the poem is acknowledged to be a typological fulfillment of ancient models, but still denied representational validity.4 In any event, we are reminded the verbal and visual congruence is not what it appears to be. The altar on the page is not broken. How can it then represent the heart, which most assuredly is?5 While the discordance between the opening words of the poem and its visual impact on the page is striking, there are nevertheless a variety of ways in which the altar may be seen to be broken, 42Kathleen Lynch beginning with the interruption of the iambic rhythm at "Made" in the second line. But whether broken or whole, or perhaps both broken and whole, "The Altar" marks the great metaphoric gaps which inescapably divide a word from referents as various as a generic tradition, the object of representation, and the matter of sacramental presence. Not coincidentally, the separate identities of "Name and Thing" were emphasized by Bishop John Williams in the title of his The Holy Table, Name and Thing (1637). The relationship between the two was the core issue of what came to be known as the Altar controversy, which raged in 1636 and 1637 around the vortex of the bishop's by then decade-old ruling that an altar was more properly called a table. In June or July, 1627, Williams was appealed to as Bishop of Lincoln to mediate a disagreement in his diocese between the pastor and parishioners of Grantham about the placement and naming of an altar. Williams retreated to his study and wrote out an opinion overnight as contending parties waited. His decision to call it a table is appropriate for the memorial sacrament celebrated in the Church of England. But the ruling is also born of Williams' vulnerable position at the end of James's reign and his reading of the prevailing political winds in the wake of Richard Montagu's embroilment in controversy over ceremony.6 Court politics determinedthe referential relationship of word and thing for Bishop Williams, keeping him safely within the still dominant party in 1627, but marking him as a target for the ascendant party in 1637. Relations between names and things as they are driven by political winds remain the crux of the availability of "The Altar" to multiple interpretations. An examination of several layers of those relations constitutes the business of this paper. First, I posit that "The Altar" functions as an emblematic title page for "The Church." Therefore, I...

Lecythia and the Justice of Zeus in Aeschylus "Oresteia"

RECENTLY WILLIAM SCOTT HAS SUGGESTED (36-38 and passim) that in the lyric odes of Aeschylus' Oresteia two meters have important thematic functions: the trochaic colon called the lecythion (x ~ -) is associated with the just order of the universe maintained by Zeus, while iambic rhythm is associated with the sequence of sin and punishment. Although to my mind, at least, the thematic significance of the latter remains questionable, Aeschylus' emphatic use of lecythia (not often a dominant or even prominent rhythm in tragic lyric systems) is indeed remarkable, and plausibly significant for the development of ideas and attitudes throughout the trilogy. Unlike Professor Scott, however, who even among the lecythia of the Zeus Hymn emphasizes Aeschylus' optimism and mankind's hope for betterment, I would like to suggest that lecythia in the Oresteia typically accompany manifestations or threats of a conspicuously harsh divine justice characterized by violence, human suffering, and death. Indeed for the greater

Iambic Rhythm in Plutarch's ‘Life of Marius’

In a recent article on Plutarch's style in the Marius, T. F. Carney, asserting Plutarch's ‘ability to orchestrate the action of a passage in the words used to express that action’, quotes 37.1and states that this is an all but complete Iambic Septenarius or Octonarius. How far does it fall short? δρῶσιν ἱππέων will occupy not the first 1½ metra of the line but the second ½ metron and the next metron, as the two long syllables of ἵλην cannot occupy the second half of a metron. The next 1½ metra, then, are ἵλην πρόσωθεν ἐλαύν-. Here we must stop, as the remainder of ἐλαύνοντας cannot stand in the second half of a metron, –οντ– being long. Altogether, then, we have ½ metron followed by 2½ metra, with -οντας excluded. In fact, it would be better not to think of a Septenarius or Octonarius and to be content with saying that the quoted words show a strong iambic rhythm. Or we might say that an iambic passage is immediately followed by another iambic passage

Translation for literary appreciation

During the summer quarter of 1924 the students of the Peabody College course, Latin 12, were given certain exercises in translating Catullus, intended to produce literary appreciation. The processes were carried out at three levels, or stages, as follows: 1. The usual classroom exercises were mainly analytical, to get the meaning through the fundamental matters of vocabulary, syntax, and the details of metrical form. 2. The students were then required to write a careful translation, aiming not merely at accuracy, but also at discrimination in choice of words and at elegance in phrasing. Exercises in this stage were designed to result in poetic prose. 3. Finally, the students selected some well-known English form of poetry and turned a poem of Catullus into verse. It was pointed out that a desirable English form would correspond quite nearly to the Latin form, although to attain this ideal completely is well-nigh impossible. It is well known that English seems not natural or at home with trochaic and dactylic rhythm, but rather with iambic rhythm. Stanza, rime, and stichic arrangement also are different in the two languages. These matters were discussed with the students to show that in Latin poetry we must look to the broad and fundamental resemblances to English and must expect differences in exactness of thought and in poetic form, just as in syntax we find differences of idiom--for example, the equivalent in English for the Latin ablative absolute requires a very different idiom. Below are given the results of these exercises, illustrated by a few papers from the class on the third and eighty-second poems of Catullus. First is given the Latin poem and then, omitting the intermediate analytical details and the careful rendering into prose, the verse translation. Several versions of the same poem are presented to show how varied are the possibilities and how really creative the translation may be. It may, for instance, show condensation below the measure of the original or elaboration quite above the limits of space and number of words thought necessary or desirable by the Latin author.