Today marks the final post in my discussion of sprung rhythm, and there are a few tidbits that remain.

Sprung rhythm makes use of kenningsIn addition to borrowing Anglo-Saxon ideas such as four stressed syllables per line, a caesura in the middle forming hemistichs, and the use of alliteration, Gerard Manley Hopkins also opted to use kennings in ( Read more... )

Here are links to the previous posts on sprung rhythm:
  An intro to sprung rhythm
  Yesterday's post about poetic feet in sprung rhythm

In addition to his requirement of four stressed syllables per line (using poetic feet varying from 1 to 4 syllables in length) plus a caesura mid-line, Hopkins used a lot of alliteration, as was discussed in the ( Read more... )

I am continuing on with yesterday's discussion of sprung rhythm today. And tomorrow, too, though I'm getting ahead of myself.

Today it's about poetic feet, and the "rules" of sprung rhythm.

First and foremost, there are four feet per line, according to Gerard Manley Hopkins, the founder of the sprung rhythm. (See, however, yesterday's example ( Read more... )

What I got up to earlier this week:
Anglo-Saxon or Old English verse - an intro
Anglo-Saxon or Old English verse and stress
Anglo-Saxon alliteration
More on Anglo-Saxon verse
Kennings

For me, discussion of Anglo-Saxon verse and kenning leads logically to a discussion of sprung rhythm, the invention of Gerard Manley Hopkins, noted poet and Jesuit ( Read more... )

Today, a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins, who wrote at the end of the 19th century. He converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit priest, and is best known for working with something he called "sprung rhythm", which was based in early Anglo-Saxon rhythms involving the placement of stressed syllables within a line and relying in part of repetition ( Read more... )

We left off yesterday standing out in the moist evening air looking skyward with Walt Whitman in "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer", which put me in mind of poems praising nature, which led to Gerard Manley Hopkins and "Pied Beauty ( Read more... )

As I noted the other day, it's well and truly autumn here. I know, of course, that "nothing gold can stay", and that the leaves are dying; yet they are so lovely just before they go.

It put me in mind of this passage from Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility:

'And how does dear, dear Norland look?' cried Marianne ( Read more... )

Today I woke up thinking about Yeats's falcon in his widening gyre, and how "things fall apart; the centre cannot hold". And then I got to thinking that perhaps I'd look for a more upbeat falcon poem. And I found "The Windhover" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit priest, who worked with what he called " ( Read more... )

Today being the last day of April, it is also the final day of National Poetry Month here in the U.S.A. And speaking of the country, the U.S. is still engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with saber-rattling at various times about other countries as well.


( Read more... )

With Memorial Day weekend here in the United States, accompanied by warm weather almost country-wide, folks will be celebrating the unofficial start of summer. But summer doesn't truly arrive for another three weeks or so, and so I thought I'd post a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins to remind us all to enjoy the spring ( Read more... )