Verse and Prose

• The art of making verses
• Theory of the phoetic structure of verse

Accentual-syllabic - the pattern made between the number of syllables in a line of verse and the accents placed on them.

One bar of metrical form is a foot.

Monometer = 1 foot to a line

Dimeter = 2 feet to a line

Trimeter = 3 feet to a line

Tetrameter = 4 feet to a line

Pentameter = 5 feet to a line

Hexameter = 6 feet to a line

Heptameter = 7 feet to a line

Octometer = 8 feet to a line

Rising rhythm:

•  Iambus - unstressed followed by stressed (weak STRONG)
  • But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
• Anapest - 2 unstressed followed by 1 stressed (weak weak STRONG)
  • The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold

Falling rhythm:

•  Trochee - stressed followed by unstressed (STRONG weak)
  • Never Never Never Never Never 
• Dactyl - stressed followed by 2 unstressed (STRONG weak weak)
  • To be or not to be, that is the question

Other

•  Spondee - 2 feet with equal weight
  • Alone, alone, all, all alone

Remember forms of rhythm as IT | AD | S

Blending of rhythms:

• use of more than one rhythm in a poem to make it more interesting
• a change in rhythm can bring a change in meaning/mood or vice versa

Scansion:

• scan a piece of verse and identify the weak and strong stresses in the lines
• rhythm has to be correct in order to emphasise the correct words to create the right emotion

Blank verse:

• Unrhymed lines with a regular rhythm
• Occasional change to rhythm is added in order to create variety

Free verse:

• Possesses a structure that is more open and less bound by classical rules
• Uses a rhythm most suitable for the expression of a particular thought and emotion, e.g. slow rhythm = profound emotion/thought; faster rhythm = trivial thought or emotion
  • Let us go then, you and I/ When the evening is spread out against a sky/ Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Petrarchan/Italian sonnet:

• Dates back to the Renaissance and used by Petrach and Dante
• 14 lines divided into an octave (2 quatrains) and a sestet (2 tercets)
• Rhyme scheme:
  • Octave - abba, abba
  • Sestet - cde, cde
• Structure:
  • Octave - idea is presented in 1st quatrain, developed in 2nd
  • Sestet - idea is considered but particular details are shown; then brought to a forceful close
• Introduced to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt; developed by Henry Howard
• Changes in rhyme had to be incorporated
• There was a rearrangement of the sestet:
  • cd, cd, cd

• Consists of an octave (2 quatrains) and a sestet (1 quatrain, final rhyming couplet)
• Rhyme scheme:
  • Octave - abab, cdcd
  • Sestet - efef, gg
• Shakespeare then:
  • Presented an argument in the octave
  • Recognise a development or contradiction in the 3rd quatrain
  • Strong concluding statement in the couplet

When a speaker attatches extra prominence to a particular word or thought. It is achieved through:

• Modulation (varying use of stress, volume, pace, pitch, inflection, tone colour and pausing)
• Lengthening individual sounds
• Intensity

Dramatic emphasis can be achieved by increasing the intensity of the breath force, building volume and widening the pitch range

Under emphasis causes speech to become dull and flat

Over emphasis causes speech to become irritating and tiring to listen to

Stress:

• When prominence is given to a particular word or syllable through extra breath force, change in pitch and lengthening of sound
  • Word stress - words of more than 1 syllable has its own stress, e.g: dragon. Some words change meaning according to word stress, e.g: subject and subject
  • Sentence stress - sentence stress depends on 2 things:
    • Relative importance of words in a sentence which can affect their meaning. The more important the word the stronger the stress
    • The rhythm of the sentence can be changed by varying the stress, e.g:
      • In the dark, dark wood sat a cruel hairy giant
      • In the dark, dark wood sat a cruel hairy giant

Volume - level ofloudness or softness with which words are spoken

Pace - integral to the communication of meaning and mood. There should be constant fluctuations of pace

• A slower pace can be achieved by lengthening vowels, lengthening the space between words. Words suggesting size, effort, astonishment and long periods of time can be taken slowly
• A faster pace can be achieved by shortening vowel sounds, shortening the space between words. Quick, easy, ordinary things can be taken more rapidly. An increase in pace can be used to build climax

Tempo - overall rate or time signature of the writing. Pace will fluctuate within the limits of the tempo used by the speaker and set by the writer

Pitch - the specific level of highness or lowness in a speech note. A higher pitch is used for lighter and happier thoughts. A lower pitch is used for sombre and sad thoughts

Tone colour - variation of light and shade of voice. Various tensions and relaxations

Inflection - the rise and fall of pitch in the voice

• Falling tune is used in: complete statements, commands, agreement, agression, strong emotion
• Rising tune is used in: doubt, anxiety, surprise, pleading, threats, complete statements

Intensity - indicates tension and relaxation

Bones:

• The spine is made up of a series of vertebrae
• 12 thoracic vertebrae curve to the front of chest = rib cage
• 7 pairs join the sternum and there are 2 pairs floating

Muscles:

• The intercostal muscles are situated between the ribs
• The diaphragm is a dome shaped muscle

Breathing in:

• Intercostal muscles contract - ribs move upwards and outwards
• Diaphragm flattens creating more space for the lungs to expand in
• Abdominals release and lungs fill with air

Breathing out:

• Muscles converge at the same time to support the release of breath
• Diaphragm rises and rib cage returns to original place
• Lungs compress and air flows out of mouth, generating sound

Clavicular breathing:

• Negative
• Ribs move upwards but not outwards
• Puts strain on the vocal chords

Projection:

• Audibility - strong secure breath supported by diaphragm
• Intelligibility - clarity of speech, appropriate emphasis and modulation
• Mental projection - engaging the audience by commanding their attention

The pharynx - long, muscular tube which extends upwards from the larynx which ends at the back of the aural and nasal cavities. The first resonating space

The mouth - lower jaw forms the floor of the oral resonator. Tongue lies on the floor; lips form the exit and direct and shape the breath stream; hard pallette is arched bone that forms the roof of the mouth; soft pallette is the back third

The nose - creates 'm', 'n' and 'ng'. When air doesn't pass directly it pitches onto the hard pallette

Sense pause - used in connected speech to mark the sense by indicating the end or beginning of a sense group

Emphatic pause - pause for emphasis

• No history much? Perhaps

Emotional pause - voice is suspended with strong workings of emotion

• Bosnia. November.

Rhythmical or Metrical pause - rhythmical used at the ends of lines of verse and between stanzas to show form and pattern. Metrical pause is used when one line is shorter than the others and the rhythm and timing needs to be balanced

• Trapped in the spectrum of a dying style:/ A village like an instinct left to rust

Caesural pause - slight pause that occurs mid-line, sometimes indicated by a punctuation mark

• Over traverses of cloud: and here they move

Suspensory pause - no punctuation at the end of a line (enjambment).  The last word of the first line is suspended by pitch and length

• A sterile earth quickened by shards or rock/Where nothing grows

Full title - Great Expectations

Author - Charles Dickens

Genres - Bildungsroman, social criticism, autobiographical fiction

Time and place written - London, 1860-1861

Date of first publication - Published serially in England from December 1860 to August 1861; published in book form in England and America in 1861

Climax - A sequence of climactic events occurs from Chapter 51 to Chapter 56: Miss Havisham’s burning in the fire, Orlick’s attempt to murder Pip, and Pip’s attempt to help Magwitch escape London

Protagonist - Pip

Antagonist - Great Expectations does not contain a traditional single antagonist. Various characters serve as figures against whom Pip must struggle at various times: Magwitch, Mrs. Joe, Miss Havisham, Estella, Orlick, Bentley Drummle, and Compeyson. With the exception of the last three, each of the novel’s antagonists is redeemed before the end of the book.

Setting (time) - Mid-nineteenth century

Settings (place) - Kent and London, England

Tone - Comic, cheerful, satirical, wry, critical, sentimental, dark, dramatic, foreboding, Gothic, sympathetic

Themes - Ambition and the desire for self-improvement (social, economic, educational, and moral); guilt, criminality, and innocence; maturation and the growth from childhood to adulthood; the importance of affection, loyalty, and sympathy over social advancement and class superiority; social class; the difficulty of maintaining superficial moral and social categories in a constantly changing world

Motifs - Crime and criminality; disappointed expectations; the connection between weather or atmosphere and dramatic events; doubles (two convicts, two secret benefactors, two invalids, etc.)

Many of the events from Dickens’s early life are mirrored in Great Expectations.

Pip, the novel’s protagonist, lives in the marsh country, works at a job he hates, considers himself too good for his surroundings, and experiences material success in London at a very early age, exactly as Dickens himself did.

Great Expectations is set in early Victorian England, a time when great social changes were sweeping the nation.

Although social class was no longer entirely dependent on the circumstances of one’s birth, the divisions between rich and poor remained nearly as wide as ever

Throughout England, the manners of the upper class were very strict and conservative

Born in India, 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990

He lived and worked in London, Paris, Cairo, Belgrade, Beirut, Athens, Cyprus, Argentina, and Provence. Many of the places mentioned above are familiar to readers as settings of his novels or travel books; they are also prominent in his poems.

In the event that triggered World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, along with his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914

One day the little love god was asleep, having put his heart-inflaming torch down, while several of Diana’s maids, who had all taken vows of lifelong chastity, were tripping by. The most beautiful votary lifted the torch that had warmed the hearts of legions of true lovers. And so, the general of hot desire was disarmed while sleeping. The maid quenched the torch in a nearby cool spring and the spring took eternal heat from this fire of love and became a hot bath full of healthful qualities. But when I, entirely captivated by my mistress, went there to be cured, this is what I found: the fire of love heats water but water doesn’t cool love down.