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crossref-it.info - AS/A2 English Literature Study Guides - texts in context.

 

Poems for study » Hurrahing in Harvest » Structure and versification in Hurrahing in Harvest

Sonnet structure

There are so many features of patterning, that it is impossible to list them all. The rhyme pattern and basic sonnet structure are Petrarchan, with each quatrain of the octave ending in a question, though the first question is a rhetorical one. This is in line with the Petrarchan tradition, where the octave question is met with the sestet answer. However, it is not really an answer: only a development of the philosophy underneath the perceptions of the octave.

Scansion

The lines are basically iambic pentameter:

Using Hopkins’ theory of sprung rhythm, it is possible to scan the other lines with five feet:

There are some dramatic examples of enjambement (run-on lines):

Such carried-over lines help the counterpointing, one rhythm laid on top of another.

Repetition

The other obvious patterning feature is the use of repetition, mainly of individual words but sometimes phrases:

It is once again the sheer energy of the sonnet, its real excitement, that dictates such word usage.

Investigating Hurrahing in Harvest
  • See if you can scan 11.4,14.
  • Try reading 1.9 in various ways, putting stresses where you would expect them to be (as opposed to where Hopkins might have placed them), and putting pauses where you think best.
    • What seems to you the better reading?
  • Try reading the poem dramatically; then lyrically (i.e. with a much smoother, more regular rhythm).
    • Which do you prefer?
  • Find two other examples of enjambement.
    • Can you see what effect they have on both the rhythm and the emphasis of the poem?
In the style of Petrarch, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, who created both a form of the sonnet and presented a courtly ideal of womanhood.
A line containing five metrical feet each consisting of one stressed and one unstressed syllable.
A term given by Gerard Manley Hopkins to his versification. It does have a regular basic metre, but contains additional feet or outriders and other planned irregularities.
To measure the metre of verse, by determining the patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, and the length of each line.
In all languages, some syllables are pronounced with more of an emphasis than others. In poetry of many languages, this becomes a significant means of patterning. The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables within a line of verse is called its
Measuring the metre of verse, by determining the patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, and the length of each line.
The technique used in blank verse and other verse forms in which the sense of a line runs on without a pause to the next one; this often gives a sense of greater fluency to the lines.
In music, the playing of two tunes at the same time, allowing them to interweave. In poetry, the use of two rhythms at the same time, for example, one being based on the metre, and one on the grammatical structure of the sentence.
Song-like.

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the
stooks rise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely
behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our
Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love's greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding
shoulder
Majestic--as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!--
These things, these things were here and but the
beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off
under his feet.