Form and Ceremony in "A Prayer for my Daughter"

Metrical analysis is a complex field of study, and getting more so on a steady basis.  What most current prosodists agree on, unfortunately, is to attack traditionalist prosody.  Few if any prosodists today draw on George Saintsbury, except to vilify his work.  I would like to consider the new metrical approaches, but use them as an add on to traditional prosody.  In particular, I will retain the metrical foot.  Whereas many (not all) prosodists today seek to replace the metrical foot, I will add new elements, but keep the "foot" (as the word implies) as the underlying foundation in the analysis of a metrical line.  Before going on to the analysis, it would be advisable to present my arguments as to why the metrical foot is a valid, i.e. a real and analytically useful, element. Besides being recognized by generations of poets (including Yeats), the metrical foot has other arguments in its favour.  The whole concept of pattern is obviously vital to metrical analysis.  When the foot is defined as "a fundamental unit within a metrical pattern," it ties directly into this concept.

In traditional metrical analysis, the foot is considered a "real" unit.  In this context, "real" means that it is defined by the actual pattern of syllabic accentuation.  The alternating configuration, -/-/-/-/-/, actually does contain these subdivisions:  -/ -/ -/ -/ -/.

It can be argued that the iambic unit is a "real" and existent element within this alternating syllabic pattern.  Secondly, "real" means that these feet are a dimension of the rhythm as perceived by the reader. It can be argued that the human mind, which is a very pattern oriented organ, actually perceives, both the alternating pattern, and the iambic unit within it.  Within a clearly alternating line like this by Tennyson,

It little profits that an idle king,

It LIT tle PRO   fits THAT   an ID   le KING.

Traditional metrical analysis discusses the effect of variations on the iambic pattern, i.e., metrical "substitutions."  In this essay, I will discuss the traditional concept of substitutions, along with an additional type of divergence from the iambic pattern.  Besides substitutions among the basic units, there are also alternate groupings of the syllables.  These alternate groupings, which vary and play upon the iambic groupings, can also be heard and perceived to texture the rhythm.

These additional metrical units, which supplement foot analysis, occur when syllables group into word and phrase segments; these, too, are real, and audible, configurations.  This is not to say that the reader isolates the word segment, per se.  However, the accentual configuration delineated by the word is an audible layer in the rhythm.  For example, in the above line, there is a trochee on the words "little," "profits," and "idle," and the reader hears a trochee pattern caused by these words,

It    LIT tle    PRO fits    THAT an    ID le   KING.

It LIT    tle PRO    fits THAT    an ID    le KING.

It is the great evidence of rockfast genuineness in the "foot" that you can apply it everywhere, in metre and in rhythm, in verse and in prose.  But you cannot everywhere make a satisfactory and corresponding aggregation of feet.  (History, vol. 1, p. 31)

Now it is this necessary preliminary which the plain- and fancy-stress prosodists neglect; putting their stress divisions not on the top, but in the place of it [the foot].  And the probable result would be, if the proceeding were widely followed -- as, indeed, it has been already to some small extent, -- the creation of a new chaos . . . (Manual, 269).

The unique feature of W.B. Yeats's poetry is a more distinctive use of these overlays.  Specifically, his higher level configurations tend to repeat themselves, forming a more sophisticated rhythmical unity than is seen in most earlier poetry.  His "rhythmical motifs" create an added layer of metrical organization that explains, among other things, his uniquely vocal tone and emphatic rhythm.  Yeats is a metrical innovator, in spite of his own claim to being a staunch traditionalist.

An important feature of traditional prosodic analysis is the separation of the metrical and the syntactical dimensions of the line.  The collocation of syllables via word groupings and phrase groupings has no bearing on the collocation of syllables via metrical feet:  "It is, I think, a mistake to try to make foot- correspond with word divisions:  the best metre is often that which divides words most"  (Saintsbury, History of English Prosody, vol. 1, page 387).  A good example of this separation would be Tennyson's line,  "It little profits that an idle king," since each trochaic word is split in forming each iambic foot.  The attack on traditionalist concepts in  prosody was begun early. The whole concept of a foot, as an independent metrical segment independent of lexical boundaries, came under fire -- ("no word naturally occupies more than one foot," quoted in Omond, 116) -- and is still a most vilified concept.  These metrists present an early attempt to view the line "linguistically" rather than "metrically," beginning what has turned out to be two centuries battle between poetic sensibilities that shows no sign of abating.

Some metrists still use the distinction between metrical groupings and syntactical groupings.  In "Rhythm- Morphology- Syntax- Rhythm," (Style, 18 1984 1, 3) Marina Tarlinskaja states that Jakobson's essay on Yeats "was actually the first to discover a link between rhythmical and grammatical line patterning" (32).  She states accurately that "The expressive functions of word boundary await further study" ( ).  Others, however, have taken a more radical approach and simply reject the notion of a metrical foot altogether, ignoring its historical importance as well as its audible and patterned reality; this rejection is usually accompanied by generous insults against George Saintsbury.  It is possible that the rejection of the foot is underlined by a rejection of absolute measurement in general.  If so, this would give an ideological basis to the prosody wars.

In this essay, I would like to retain the foot and add a superstructure to the analysis, discovering configurations that take place specifically over top of  the foot, and in addition to the foot.  Traditional terminology will be heavily used in metremic analysis.  Metreme units tend to be longer than feet, so we will capitalize on such classical  terminology as the "choriamb" (/--/), the "diamb" (-/-/), numerous "cretics" (/-/), and "amphibrachs" (-/-).  If a metreme has five or more syllables, a name may have to be invented.

The analysis presented in this essay has similarities to that of Craig Ladriere, who sees phrasal units, but not specifically the "minimal phrase" that I will discuss, and not at all the foot.  It also has ties with Richard Cureton.  However, Cureton's analysis is confined to a subsuming principle.  He sees units inside of units extensively, but not units that merely intersect or interconnect.

If the foot is real, and the word/phrase unit is real, then their combination, or overlay, is real as well.  These combinations are the focus of this analysis.  I would like to present a systematic way of isolating these combinations (caused by the overlap of foot and word/phrase units), and then to point out that in Yeats, the combined units tend to have repeating accentual configurations. There is a highly "designed" layer of rhythmical echoing that goes on in a Yeats poem, over and above the foot and stanza prosody.

To do this analysis in a justifiable way, the combination units must be derived objectively, according to rules.  We must determine what the feet are, and what the word/phrase units are, and how they form into combinations, all according to a mechanical process that is somewhat distanced from the personal impressions of the analyst.  Only if they are objectively derived, can these units show an objective phenomenon in the rhythm of Yeats's poetry.  The combination units also need a name.  They are neither feet nor simply phrase units, but in fact are the product of an overlay of these two units.  Since they are specifically units of metrical analysis, I will propose the name "metreme" ("a unit of measure").  A segment identified by this overlay analysis will be called a metreme.  When, in a case like Yeats, the accentual configurations of the metremes tend to repeat themselves, and thus to condition the vocal texture of the poems, then I will refer to these configurations as "rhythmical motifs."
 

Robert Beum is a metrist who attributes the close and subtle attention to rhythmical pattern to Yeats's ideas about aristocracy, ceremony, and order:

Yeats preferred anything to anarchy.  It is more important to recognize this passion for order than to debate whether Yeats was more favorable to traditional aristocracy or the new nationalistic and emotional order of fascism.  Order within the self and then, by extention, within the society was the important thing; the particular type of political structure -- feudal or fascist state, limited monarchy or Burkean stratified republic -- would be almost a matter of indifference if it could produce a settled commonwealth and at the same time encourage other Yeatsian prime values such as beauty, imaginativeness, individuality, variety and a healthy moral tone.  (Beum, The Poetic Art of William Butler Yeats, 47-48)

The unique quality of Yeats's poetry seems to be connected to his effort to achieve the emphasis of a speaking voice in his poetry.  Yeats's versification is a definite extension of the metrical flexibility of his models, Spenser,  Shelley, and other traditional poets.  Unlike his predecessors, W. B. Yeats present a number of difficulties in applying a traditional metrical analysis.  In Yeats, more than in most canonical English poets, metrical substitutions outnumber the paradigmatic feet. What may be considered the traditional standard is summarized in a passage by George Saintsbury's Historical Manual of English Prosody, which describes "Forty-two Rules of the Foot System."  The problem of Yeats's prosody is that while he insists that he is a strict traditionalist few of the lines in his major poems conform in any consistent way with Saintsbury's rules.

Yeats is an example of a poet whose "substitutions" eventually produce lines that are variant at all points.  The traditionalist standard -- "An English versifier must so arrange words that their chief accents shall coincide with and distinctly locate enough of the rhythmical ictuses to enable the mind unconsciously, or at least with slight effort, to locate the other rhythmical ictuses" (quoted in Omond, English Metrists, p. 194) -- falls through in many of Yeats's lines.  Yeats is clearly working with some additional cohering principle.  His lines violate the iambic pentameter principle, and yet they retain a strong rhythmical coherence of their own.

Paul Fussell, in Poetic Metre and Poetic Form, notes the metrical irregularity of many of Yeats's lines.  Fussell is a traditionalist, and tries to account for this irregularity through a complex application of the substitution theory:

Why Should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly fisher's wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce.
 
Hardly a regular line at all here, and yet the variations are conducted with such tact that we are never permitted to forget the pattern of the basic meter that underlies the texture.  The variations are managed not merely with a fine colloquial illusion but also with a highly formal sense of balance:  for example, against the four-stress base, the first line -- with its five stresses -- gives an effect of excessive weight which may suggest imbalance; but the balance is carefully restored in line 4, which offers now three instead of the expected four stresses.  And line 3,
 
     - -              - /                / /              - /
That had   /   a sound   /   fly-fish   /   er's writst,
balances its initial pyrrhic against a spondee in the third position so that, although an illusion of flexible colloquial utterance is transmitted, the illusion is not bought at the cost of any lessening of formality.

Fussell's argument is not fully cogent:  how a missing accent (the pyrrhic), can balance one accent too many (the spondee), and how a line that is too light, can balance a line that is too heavy, is unclear.  The problem of Yeats's prosody leads to many exigencies on the part of commentators.

However, Fussell is right about two things, Yeats employs a flexible prosody, and he is a uniquely "vocal" poet.  Yeats is a poet known for his uniquely vocal rhythm.  He wrote considerably on the subject of vocal performance, and was notorious for composing his poems in a loud voice, trying various combinations for the rhythm.

Strictly speaking, however, the above lines violate the rules set down by Saintsbury.  In spite of their obvious rhythmical strength, Yeats's lines are not traditional iambic tetrameter.  The question of what they are, rhythmically, is the focus of this essay.  The answer that I will present will focus on the rhythmical strong points that appear to repeat themselves; for example, the two sections, "old men be mad" and "all dan- te once," both look like this, metremically:  //-/.

Throughout his career, W. B. Yeats insisted on the importance of tradition to both the themes and the techniques of his poetry.  Much of what he thought about tradition, originality, and his own poetry is distilled in his essay, "A General Introduction for my Work," written in 1937.  He was, emphatically, a traditionalist:  "Talk to me of originality and I will turn on you with rage" (Essays and Introductions, 522).  Paradoxically, however, metrists have had difficulty scanning Yeats's poems in the traditional manner.

In the "Introduction," Yeats explains his personal need to write in traditional forms:

Because I need a passionate syntax for passionate subject matter I compel myself to accept those traditional metres that have developed with the language.  Ezra Pound, Turner, Lawrence wrote admirable free verse, I could not.  I would lose myself, become joyless . . . .   (Essays and Introductions, 521)

If I repeat the first line of Paradise Lost so as to emphasize its five feet I am among the folk singers --  'Of man's first disobedience and the fruit,' but speak it as I should I cross it with another emphasis, that of passionate prose  --  'Of man'sfirst disobedience and the fruit;' or 'Of man's first disobedience and the fruit':  the folk song is still there, but a ghostly voice, and unvariable possibility, an unconscious norm.  What moves me and my hearer is a vivid speech that has no laws except that it must not exorcise the ghostly voice.  (Essays and Introductions, 524)

Thus, Yeats has the traditional concept of a meter as a minimum necessary degree of order (like Saintsbury), i.e., that verse language is "a spume that plays / Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;" he believed that his own poetic lines were versions of an essentially traditional paradigm.

Given this belief on the poet's own part, the problem remains that many of Yeats's lines do not seem to meet this minimum degree of metrical order.  Exegencies like that of Fussell above are necessary.  Another metrist to come up against Yeats, Thomas Parkinson suggests that it becomes useless to talk about the iambic pentameter paradigm in reference to lines such as this -- "Calculations that look but casual flesh, put down" -- from Yeats's "The Statues."  This line has thirteen, instead of ten syllables, and it has this accentual configuration:  --/--/-/--///.  In dealing with such lines Parkinson proposes a "very flexible prosody," in which "a five stress line is the equivalent of a ten syllable line, and the two are interchangeable" (Parkinson, 230 ?page).

Parkinson finally despairs that Yeats's prosody actually meets traditionlist standards, since so many lines are neither iambic nor pentameter, nor visibly patterned by balances and parallels.  Parkinson's explanation becomes impressionistic when he finally claims that a strict metrical analysis of Yeats's poetry is not really feasible.  In reference to "The Statues," {?} Parkinson claims that the "Passion" side of the "passion and precision" equation takes over, and the possibility of discovering order (i.e. metrical analysis) is lost:

A passion that cannot be balked over-powers the formal requirements and establishes another norm (that of the casual flesh) that distorts the expected shape.  It can be justified prosodically but largely, I think, because we want to justify it, because of its cogency and the articulation of the stanza, rather than the norms of any prosody. (Parkinson, 230)

I agree with some of Parkinson's conclusions mentioned above.  "The Statues" does present difficulties for a traditional scansion; it does not, however, defy structural analysis altogether.  Structural analysis must simply become more complex in order to reflect the additional layers of complexity in Yeats's poetic language.

The theme of "The Statues" is a blend between the stasis of mathematical precision, and the energy of human passion.  The phrase "passion and precision" is a theme of Yeats.  In this poem, "passion and precision are one" ("Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation"), presenting an image in which "Boys and girls, pale from the imagined love / Of solitary beds . . . /  pressed at midnight in some public place, / Live lips upon a plummet-measured face."  In his poetic language, just as in this image, there is a blend of precise measurement with passionate expression.  The metrical structure shows both.  It is the intensity of this blend, where the passion is held in and contained by disciplined form, that causes Yeats's poem to transcend standard meter.  The "metremic" level of pattern is needed to reveal the actual rhythmical quality of these lines.

Rules for Deriving the Metrical Foot

The main rule upon which foot units can be determined is that of "most pattern."  In any configuration of accents, there will be one subdivision which presents the most highly patterned result.  These units will be the feet.

It will be necessary to choose the smallest possible subdivided groupings, but not so small that they are no longer groupings.  A series of mono-accents is not likely to present the highest degree of pattern; likewise, overly large groupings will cover up some of the inherent patterning.  In a configuration of ten alternating accents, -/-/-/-/-/, the iambic subdivision identifies the most patterned possibility: -/ -/ -/ -/ -/.  Likewise, in a line with this configuration, -/--/-/-/-/, the scansion which produces an anapestic substitution in the second position ( -/ --/ -/ -/ -/ ) identifies the most pattern possible for that configuration.

Rules for Deriving the Metrical Word/Phrase

The main rule for determining the word/phrase unit also relies on the principle of smallest grouping.  The individual word is rarely taken as this unit; to do so would be to short change the grouping principle.  At the same time, a fully extensive phrase, such as a full prepositional phrase, is also rarely taken as this unit.  To do this would be to short change the smallest grouping principle.  The word/phrase unit will be identified on the level between the individual word and the full grammatical phrase; it will be a cluster of two to three words, covering three to four syllables.  The syntactical identity of such phrases is an ongoing topic in curent linguistics.  The unit goes by the name of the "clitic phrase" in linguistics.  It is a kind of "minimal phrase."  In the field of literary prosody, it is Richard Cureton who incorporates this unit most consistently into the analysis.

Once the foot and word/phrase units are settled upon, we may produce "metremes" by combining them in any instance where they overlap (i.e., where the two units share one or more syllables). The resulting metremes usually range from four to six syllables.  These are an intermediary unit between the single metrical foot and the complete poetic line, a unit of audible, perceptible rhythmical texture, accounted for by an analysis of both the metrical (foot) and syntactical (word/phrase) aspects of the poetic line. This method of analysis is specifically different from that presented by Richard Cureton in that his method does not recognize overlapping, but only a full subsuming. of lower-level units into the higher-level units.  He will subdivide a segment into smaller syllable groups, but has no mechanism for recognizing a syllable group that includes only a part of another group.

William Butler Yeats uses several metremic rhythms habitually in his poetry, as part of establishing his "own voice" ( ) in his poetic language.  One such metreme may be observed in the following line from "A Prayer for my Daughter":

Where all's accustomed, ceremonious.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower
And under the arches of the bridge and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
            ("A Prayer for my Daughter," Stanza 2)

An intel >lectual hatred<  is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accurst.
Have I not seen the  >loveliest woman<  born
>Out of the mouth<  of Plenty's horn,
Because of her   >opinionated mind<
>Barter that horn<  and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?

These units are "metremes" because they are isolated according to the foot and minimal phrase rules.  In turn, the metremes are "rhythmical motifs," because they turn out to have the same or highly similar accentual arrangement and thereby contribute to the rhythmical texture of the piece. A metrical analysis of this type results in underlining, italicizing, or bracketing segments which have the same or a similar accentual pattern. It reveals a rhythmical texture based on repeating segments that are a combination of the foot and the minimal word/phrase.

The pyrrhicretic metreme, another characteristic feature of Yeats, one in both "A Prayer for My Daughter" and in the last poem that I wish to present, "Adam's Curse," is usually created by the combination of a pyrrhic, such as "by the," a trochaic bisyllable, such as "noisy," and an accented monosyllable, such as "set," which all together forms a rhythmical unit:  "by the noisy set." In a poet like Yeats, the pyrrhicretic has the added feature of following an accentual configuration that repeats itself throughout a stanza or poem. I would like to name this configuration the "pyrrhicretic," a combination of the pyrrhic (--) and the cretic (/-/).

There are five rhythmical motifs in "Adam's Curse."  These are metremes other than the traditional feet, iambs, trochees, anapests and dactyls.  All exceptions to the traditional feet take one of the following forms:  the amphibrach (-/-), the pyrrhicretic (--/-/), the spondee (//), the choriamb (/--/), and the monosyllable (/).

It does not seem a coincidence that the exceptions all fall into a limited set, grammatically and objectively derived.  It is in passages where these metremes occur most heavily that traditional metrical analysis runs into problems.  Prosodists have noted that Yeats's prosody, in these passages, is definitely an innovation over traditional versification; however, this higher level of repetitive structure argues an exacting precision in control of rhythm, tone, and voice.

Another example is similar to the metreme, "by the noisy set" (discussed above), but with an important difference.  The clause "who thought love should be" forms into two separate metremes:  "who thought love" and "should be."  The gap between these two sections is not bridged, as in the earlier example, by a single bisyllabic word, in that case, "noisy."  "Who thought love should be," therefore, forms grammatically into two separate metremes, which have the following accentual arrangement:  --/  -/.  However, in the presence of "by the noisy set" and other pyrrhicretic metremes, "who thought love should be" can be taken as a pyrrhicretic also; the gap between "love" and "should," between "--/" and "-/," may be taken as closed.  Technically, "who thought love should be" is not a pyrrhicretic, but is an "allometer of the same metreme;" it is taken as a pyrrhicretic because it flows so easily into the same rhythmical thrust. These exceptions to the exact accentual arrangement are to be considered as "allometres," or valid variations, of the same metreme.

The above explication is necessary, because it is important to keep in mind the level of grammatical justification.  Grammatically, it is not justified to treat "who thought love should be" as a pyrrhicretic.  The grammatical analysis produces two objective segments, not the single segment, as in "by the noisy set."  Metremic analysis proceeds by an objective procedure of deriving segments, and then comparing the resulting accentual arrangements.
The conmparison shows a repetition of very few distinct metremes throughout the poem.  When the same metreme is repeated, and thus begins to texture the poetic language, it may be referred to as a "rhythmical motif."

The extreme variance from the iambic pattern gives Yeats a rhythmical freedom -- "I feel that one's verse must be as direct and natural as spoken words" () *80 -- however, the repetition of the variants gives the poetry a high degree of rhythmical cohesion. Although the meter of "Adam's Curse" is "loose" in the sense that it employs many rhythmical motifs, there is still a clear iambic texture in the poem.  At times, metrical analysis will be applied as usual and will "expose" or derive iambic metremes.  The couplet making up lines three and four, for example, consists largely of iambic metremes, although feminine rhymes and grammatical blending minimize the paradigm:

And you    and I,    and talked    of poetry.
I said,    a line    will take us hours    maybe.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears;
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

the amphibrach   (-) -/- (-)
the spondee        (-)(-)  // (-)
the pyrrhicretic    (/)(-) --/-/
the choriamb       (-)  /--/
the monosyllable  /

(amphibrach)
spondee
pyrrhicretic
>choriamb<
monosyllable
 
 
Adam's Curse
 
We sat    (together)    at one summer's end,
That beautiful    mild woman,    your close friend,
And you    and I,    and talked    (of poetry).
I said,    'A line    will take us hours    maybe;
Yet    if it does not seem    a moment's thought,
(Our stitching)    (and unstitching)    has been naught.
Better go down    upon your marrow-bones
And scrub    a kitchen pavement,    or break stones
Like an old pauper,    in all kinds    (of weather);
For to articulate    sweet sounds    (together)
Is to work harder    than all these,    and yet
Be thought    (an idler)    by the noisy set
(Of bankers),    schoolmasters,    (and clergymen)
The martyrs call    the world.
 
(And thereupon)
That beautiful    mild woman    for whose sake
There's many a one    shall find out    all heartache
(On finding)    that her voice    is sweet    and low
Replied,    'To be born woman    is to know --
Although    they do not talk    of it    at school --
That we    (must labour)    to be beautiful.'
I said,    'It's certain    there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall    but needs    much labouring.
There have been lovers    who thought love    should be
So much    (compounded)    of high-courtesy
That they    would sigh    and quote    with learned looks
Precedents    (out of beautiful)    old books;
Yet now    it seems    an idle trade    enough.'
We sat    grown quiet    at the name    of love;
We saw    the last embers    of daylight die,
And    (in the trembling)    blue-green    of the sky
A moon    worn    as if  it had been    a shell
Washed    by time's waters   as they rose    and fell
About    the stars    and broke    in days    and years.
I had    a thought    (for no one's)    but your ears:
That you    (were beautiful),    and that I strove
(To love you)    in the old    high way    of love;
That it    had all    seemed happy,    and yet    we'd grown
As weary-hearted    as that hollow moon.

Decadent style consciously exploits unfulfilled anticipations.  It purposely violates expectations while creating a new structure to replace the apparently implied structure assumed by the audience. (9)