Undoubtedly one of the high points of English literature. I have a seven-year-old character in the novel I'm working on, who was recently heard singing James, James, Morrison, Morrison in the hall or on the stairs. What does it mean? Definitely something interesting, besides her obvious good taste in poetry.
My mother used to read/recite me this poem as a child. Now that she is in decline, when I watch over her, I actually do ask her not to do ordinary things without consulting me. An irony of life and time. Thank you for reminding me of this poem today.
This was sung by the Chad Mitchell Trio, recorded in their "At the Bitter End" live album, and it's one of my favorite songs. I don't know who wrote the music.
This is the first poem I can remember knowing by heart. My grandparents gave me _When We Were Very Young_ and _Now We Are Six_ when I was rather small and they and my mother read them to my tirelessly! Several poems from these collections live in my memory through no effort of my own at all.
My mother loved this poem, recited it all the time, whispers and all (one of the few she did recite), and it was probably the first poem I memorized too. Thank you.
You're right that "Winnie The Pooh" has sun-blocked the rest of Milne's work (which is also what he felt); he also produced many plays, essays, novels and poems for adult audiences.
Off topic: what is quantity-based classical meter? Is that the same as French poetry, where the number of syllables is strict and varied deliberately? Honestly, I would love to understand alternatives to accented prosody better. I want to HEAR it, and there's nothing I can find on youtube. Maybe you guys could do something?
Essentially, quantity is the length of the vowel sound, and we still teach the different sounds of a vowel as long or short in grammar-school English. In Latin and Greek, it was held that a spondee (long long) was the same length as a dactyl (long short short), or a long syllable was equal to two short syllables.
Also there are various rules, in Latin, about when a syllable with a short vowel is considered long — "long by position," for example, where a short vowel is followed by a slow-to-pronounce consonant cluster. "Urbs" in Latin, for example. Compare "strength" in English.
I saw The Last Kingdom last year and the main character's tagline often rings in my head: I am Uhtred, son of Uhtred, and fate is all. I realize now that this line uses long and short vowels strategically, making some stressed syllables more stressed than others. So, for instance, with "FATE is ALL", the "all" dies away compared to the "fate," because of the long a in fate compared to the short a in all. For the rest of the line, long vowels coincide with stresses. I'm guessing this is just like iambs, found naturally in English, because a lot of short words--articles, conjunctions, etc, have short vowels. But like iambs, a little straightening out can make a nice rhythm.
Delightful and instructive. Although we say we replace quantity with accent, quantity is undoubtedly a primary factor in metrical composition. For example, no one would think that "handed" and "handshake" are metrically equivalent.
Derek Attridge, the discoverer of the implied offbeat, took this poem as the subject of a substantial article titled "Rhythm in English Poetry," published in New Literary History in Autumn 1990, Vol. 21, No. 4. Available on JSTOR.
Then I must be the exception! To my ear, very clearly, in both cases, the beat would land on the first syllable only. Unless I've misunderstood what you mean?
Yes, I agree 100%, but in filling out a metrical line, you are going to take into account that -ed is much shorter than -shake because short syllables make for temporally shorter feet and lines. That's what I am referring to when I say they are not metrically equivalent.
You might go so far as to say that quantity approaches stress insofar as a long unstressed syllable, though unstressed, commands greater stress than a short unstressed syllable. Thus on a 4-point scale of stress, you might hear "handed" as a 3-1 and "handshake" as a 4-3, depending on the metrical context--which could turn "handshake" into something like a spondee, if "hand-" was demoted by its position and "-shake" was promoted.
Absolutely it does. Apologies if this is pedantic or o/t from Disobedience, but line length is a factor accentual, syllabic, accentual-syllabic, and free verse have in common, and it's up to the reader/speaker to interpret the poet's line-endings to get the best results. For example, you may want to squeeze lines or stretch them to make the line lengths more alike. You might say that line-endings have a justification on/off toggle, and justification-off tends in the direction of prose.
In Disobedience, the hidden hexameters and the hidden common measure (see Attridge article) give clues as to how to interpret the line-endings.
Undoubtedly one of the high points of English literature. I have a seven-year-old character in the novel I'm working on, who was recently heard singing James, James, Morrison, Morrison in the hall or on the stairs. What does it mean? Definitely something interesting, besides her obvious good taste in poetry.
Just read this somewhere the other day. It's such a delight to read aloud; I'll have to remember to read it to the great-grands when we go to visit!
My mother used to read/recite me this poem as a child. Now that she is in decline, when I watch over her, I actually do ask her not to do ordinary things without consulting me. An irony of life and time. Thank you for reminding me of this poem today.
This was sung by the Chad Mitchell Trio, recorded in their "At the Bitter End" live album, and it's one of my favorite songs. I don't know who wrote the music.
I'm intrigued that the king in this poem is King John, who also appears in another Milne poem, King John's Christmas: https://www.thereader.org.uk/featured-poem-king-johns-christmas-by-a-a-milne/
Why King John?
This is the first poem I can remember knowing by heart. My grandparents gave me _When We Were Very Young_ and _Now We Are Six_ when I was rather small and they and my mother read them to my tirelessly! Several poems from these collections live in my memory through no effort of my own at all.
My mother loved this poem, recited it all the time, whispers and all (one of the few she did recite), and it was probably the first poem I memorized too. Thank you.
You're right that "Winnie The Pooh" has sun-blocked the rest of Milne's work (which is also what he felt); he also produced many plays, essays, novels and poems for adult audiences.
I am enjoying your commentaries so very much
This is a hoot! Thank you.
Off topic: what is quantity-based classical meter? Is that the same as French poetry, where the number of syllables is strict and varied deliberately? Honestly, I would love to understand alternatives to accented prosody better. I want to HEAR it, and there's nothing I can find on youtube. Maybe you guys could do something?
Essentially, quantity is the length of the vowel sound, and we still teach the different sounds of a vowel as long or short in grammar-school English. In Latin and Greek, it was held that a spondee (long long) was the same length as a dactyl (long short short), or a long syllable was equal to two short syllables.
Ok, so if wanted to do a short-long pattern of three feet it would be something like:
The boat was bane and table tied.
With oats and ale in Eire.
That nonsense actually sounds good, who knew grammar school would come in handy? I haven't thought about long and short vowels for 50 years.
How do you make this work with multisyllablic words though? A-mer-i-ca is 4 short vowels, for instance.
Also there are various rules, in Latin, about when a syllable with a short vowel is considered long — "long by position," for example, where a short vowel is followed by a slow-to-pronounce consonant cluster. "Urbs" in Latin, for example. Compare "strength" in English.
I'm guessing it is all about word choice, just as with accented prosody.
I saw The Last Kingdom last year and the main character's tagline often rings in my head: I am Uhtred, son of Uhtred, and fate is all. I realize now that this line uses long and short vowels strategically, making some stressed syllables more stressed than others. So, for instance, with "FATE is ALL", the "all" dies away compared to the "fate," because of the long a in fate compared to the short a in all. For the rest of the line, long vowels coincide with stresses. I'm guessing this is just like iambs, found naturally in English, because a lot of short words--articles, conjunctions, etc, have short vowels. But like iambs, a little straightening out can make a nice rhythm.
This is a good short introduction. https://inter-versiculos.classics.lsa.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Irby-Basic-Meter-Guide.pdf
Great introduction. People get good results adapting these to English. Sapphics sound like a record being played backwards!
I recently (today) saw the play button at the top of Substack - so I hit play on this one. 😂
Delightful and instructive. Although we say we replace quantity with accent, quantity is undoubtedly a primary factor in metrical composition. For example, no one would think that "handed" and "handshake" are metrically equivalent.
Derek Attridge, the discoverer of the implied offbeat, took this poem as the subject of a substantial article titled "Rhythm in English Poetry," published in New Literary History in Autumn 1990, Vol. 21, No. 4. Available on JSTOR.
Then I must be the exception! To my ear, very clearly, in both cases, the beat would land on the first syllable only. Unless I've misunderstood what you mean?
Yes, I agree 100%, but in filling out a metrical line, you are going to take into account that -ed is much shorter than -shake because short syllables make for temporally shorter feet and lines. That's what I am referring to when I say they are not metrically equivalent.
You might go so far as to say that quantity approaches stress insofar as a long unstressed syllable, though unstressed, commands greater stress than a short unstressed syllable. Thus on a 4-point scale of stress, you might hear "handed" as a 3-1 and "handshake" as a 4-3, depending on the metrical context--which could turn "handshake" into something like a spondee, if "hand-" was demoted by its position and "-shake" was promoted.
Though that seems a point relevant to prosody generally, rather than just metered verse specifically?
As an aside, I recall I mentioned the difference in duration between the words "wakes" and "clays" in my response to yesterday's Wilfred Owen poem (both beat syllables in this case, in adjacent lines): https://open.substack.com/pub/poemsancientandmodern/p/todays-poem-futility?r=9w4rx&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=101438627
Outstanding close reading of the rhymes and meters in the Owen poem.
Thanks!
Absolutely it does. Apologies if this is pedantic or o/t from Disobedience, but line length is a factor accentual, syllabic, accentual-syllabic, and free verse have in common, and it's up to the reader/speaker to interpret the poet's line-endings to get the best results. For example, you may want to squeeze lines or stretch them to make the line lengths more alike. You might say that line-endings have a justification on/off toggle, and justification-off tends in the direction of prose.
In Disobedience, the hidden hexameters and the hidden common measure (see Attridge article) give clues as to how to interpret the line-endings.
Yes, I commented myself on the 4/3 rhythm of this poem!
https://substack.com/@snapdragons/note/c-99160260
Well done!
I read this just over a week ago, Jody, because I was progressing through your archive! My comments for interested readers... https://substack.com/@snapdragons/note/c-99160260