In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

62 The Films of Stan Brakhage The general effect is unlike that of common metre verse. The coincidence of accentual and intonational stress in four­beat metre prompts us to stress the marked syllables heavily. This implied performance pattern made four­ beat metre congenial to choral reading—that is likely why it is mainly in verse that is chanted in chorus (nursery rhymes, sports cheers, lines sung out at political demonstrations, and the like) that the four­beat metre survives. The lack of coincidence between the two rhythmic patterns that coexist in most iambicpentameter verse, and the lack of any criterion that determines how much emphasis a reader should give either, along with its more fluent style, make pentameter verse's implied performance style more free and more open to individual variation. Consequently, when assessing a readingof a poem in iambic pentameter, we are likely to assume that the reading reflects the richness ofthe individualreader's interpretation, and so conveys his or her sensitivity and emotional depth. Weassume that the quality of the reading reflects the performer's character, since the cross­pulse creates the illusion that no single rhythm constrains the reader's performance to a par­ ticular result, and that the reader, consequently,is free to choose—or rather, what is more important, to create—the rhythm of his or her reading. The long line further strengthens this effect of the triple­metre cross­pulse that iambic pentameter frequently employs, for it bolsters the impression of the reader's freedom. A long line allows the reader greater freedom ofinflection and stress. How the reader handles this freedom, what he or she does with the latitude of interpretation that the cross­pulse and the long line afford, we take as evidence of the reader's character. Wevalue characteristics that sug­ gest that the reader possesses a highly developed sensitivity; our high regard for such sensitivity is the reason we prize recordings of poems by great interpreters. The picture of the free individual, set apart from the col­ lective and valued for the richness of his or her sensibility, is one that appears commonlywherever and whenever bourgeois humanismholds sway. The identification of the performer/reader with the voice represented in the poem renders the poem's linguistic material transparent. The accentual counterrhythms that enable us to slip easily between rhythms and that allow the movement from one to another to seem "natural" (i.e., so thoroughly habituated as to be effortless) make the poem's textual mechanisms still more transparent. Further, these counterrhythms enable the poem to accom­ modate idiomatic and idiolexical expressions; the presence of such expres­ sions strengthens the impression that the poem embodies natural speech. The seeming naturalness of the represented voice makes the actual words withdraw from consciousness, leaving behind only pure, amaterial sound and meaning. This effect of "language," as Foucault terms it, contrasts with the Styles of English Metre 63 effect of the heavy stresses that the coincidence of intonational and accen­ tual patterns in the four­stress line lends itself to, for the degree and metro­ nomic regularity of the stress characteristic of common metre are marks of what Foucault terms "discourse," since they throw the material of language into relief. Mukafovsky has pointed out that foregrounding the signifier indicates that language is "being used for its own sake."43 His insight helps explain the widespread use of four­stress metre in nonsense verse. The pleasure that we take in nonsense verse results primarily from escaping the iron laws of meaning. Only when we are free of meaning can we enjoy language for its material, rather than its referential, properties. Uses of language that isolate the material of language from sense allow us to play with language without paying the cost of illogic or breaching the taboo of misstatement. Modernity is founded in a triangular relationship among discourse (in the sense Fou­ cault used that term in Les Mots et les chases, of a seemingly transparent lan­ guage), bourgeois humanism, and the idea that the cardinal attribute of the individual is the transcendentality of the ego (as this feature guarantees the individual's inviolability and the freedom and the consistency and coherence of his or her experience); this triangular relationship ensures that culture will privilege meaning. The hostility that such Romantic poets as William Wordsworth showed towards rigid metres is evidence enough that the Romantic poets harboured the ideal of a transparent language. They prized this effect of transparency because it enabled the...

Share