Even when we do not recognize them, we are surrounded by rhythms; we cannot escape them; it may be said that the entire universe is founded on rhythm. Every planet has its own regular rhythm ... the seasons proceed in firm precision ... Night and day, light and darkness, sun and moon, succeed each other at regular intervals. All is recurrence and return; we are swung to the beat of an infinite pendulum.
9
Everything we do, our breathing, our pulse, the blinking of our eyes, even waking and going to work, establishes an organic rhythm. We grew up on the soothing rhythms of lullabies and the familiar beats of nursery rhymes. Jump-rope had songs to accompany the game; playing with jacks involved regular timed phrases to match up with bouncing beats. Still later, school cheers at sports events and rallies stressed heavy beats to be echoed by spectators in the stands.
Poetry continues the tradition. Perhaps the most unifying element in all verse is the idea of rhythm. Movement—be it rapid or dragged out, staccato or smooth—is always found in the lines.
The repetition of syllables is a delight that is enlarged by rhyme and alliteration. In music, ballads were easily remembered because of the repetition of whole lines of the song. These repetitions were called refrains or burdens.
Many refrains acted as a “chorus” in which the listeners joined. Certainly spirituals accomplish this aim. Folk songs, old and new, frequently use this technique to capture a particular mood. In each stanza of “Billy Boy,”’ the repetition is marked:
-
Did she ask you to come in, Billy boy, Billy boy,
-
Did she ask you to come in, Charming Billy?
-
She did ask me to come in, with a dimple on her chin,
-
She’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother.
Rhythms that move at a rapid pace tend to excite the reader while those that move at a slower pace tend to leave us saddened. John Milton’s lines, “Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee/ Jest and youthful jollity” really fly happily along. In contrast, his “Oft, on a plat of rise ground/ I hear the far-off curfew sound/ Over some wide-watered shore”
11
cannot be read quickly if we are thinking in time with the slower pace of the rhythm.
Exercise 1: The Beat Goes On
Directions
Play different types of music for your students. Ask them to clap along in time, with stress on stronger beats. Then select one or two poems that have a definate beat (iambic pentameter works well) and have the group clap up a storm together!
Homework
Students are to pick out two songs they really like, one up beat, one slow. They should then write two things:
1.
|
List words and word combinations which establish the mood.
|
2.
|
Write three imaginative phrases for each song which convey the feeling the song gives.
|
**********
A loose definition, therefore, would identify rhythm as the recurrence of certain sounds. When it is fixed into definite forms, it is meter. To simplify matters for students, meter can be divided into the four most popular “feet.” A foot is a group of two or three syllables. Those with two syllables are disyllabic feet, and those with three, trisyllabic. A brief review of the four English feet with examples of each follows. The teacher may wish to use this summary as a worksheet, combined with any of the exercises in this section.