The aim of the present study is to describe the prosodic systems of the Greek and Latin languages and to find out the versification systems which have been realized in the poetical practice. The Greek language belongs typologically among the mora-counting languages and thus provides possibilities for the emergence of purely quantitative verse, purely syllabic verse, quantitative-syllabic verse and syllabic-quantitative verse. There is no purely quantitative or purely syllabic verse in actual Greek poetry; however, the syllabic-quantitative versification systems (...) (the Aeolian tradition) and quantitative-syllabic versification systems (the Aeolian tradition) were in use. The Latin language, on the other hand, has a number of features, which characterize it as a stress-counting language. Since at the same time there exists also the opposition of short and long syllables, there are preconditions for the syllabic, accentual and quantitative principle, as well as for the combinations of these. The Roman literary heritage shows examples of purely accentual, syllabic-quantitative, quantitative-syllabic, as well as of several other combinatory versification systems. (shrink)

The aim of the present study is to describe the prosodic systems of the Greek and Latin languages and to find out the versification systems which have been realized in the poetical practice. The Greek language belongs typologically among the mora-counting languages and thus provides possibilities for the emergence of purely quantitative verse, purely syllabic verse, quantitative-syllabic verse and syllabic-quantitative verse. There is no purely quantitative or purely syllabic verse in actual Greek poetry; however, the syllabic-quantitative versification systems (...) (the Aeolian tradition) and quantitative-syllabic versification systems (the Aeolian tradition) were in use. The Latin language, on the other hand, has a number of features, which characterize it as a stress-counting language. Since at the same time there exists also the opposition of short and long syllables, there are preconditions for the syllabic, accentual and quantitative principle, as well as for the combinations of these. The Roman literary heritage shows examples of purely accentual, syllabic-quantitative, quantitative-syllabic, as well as of several other combinatory versification systems. (shrink)

The modern study of versification is based on the hypothesis that language is rhythmically organized, that metrical patterns are defined by simple rhythmic schemata, and that the two are related by correspondence constraints. Some analyses of the phenomenon of “inversion” in iambic verse reject a central aspect of this hypothesis in positing more complex metrical schemata containing both trochaic and iambic feet. I present evidence against such “trochaic substitution” analyses and demonstrate the iambic character of inverted feet with statistical (...) data from the metrical practice of thirtysix Finnish poets. As a latecomer to the use of statistical evidence in theoretical linguistics I gratefully dedicate this article to one of the pioneers of this method. (shrink)

Russian verse: Its metrics, versification systems, and prosody (Generative synopsis). In the article the general verse metre theory and its application to Russian verse is adressed, allowing us, thereby, to observe not the single details, but only the most general characteristics of verse. The treatment can be summarised in the five following points:1) the basis for the phenomenon of verse is its metrical code: the special feature of verse text is the presence of its metre (this feature is common (...) to every verse type, to the most regular verse, as well as to vers libre);2) the nature of verse metre is extralinguistic, there is no metre within a language, the latter can only induce certain limitations in choosing a metre;3) metre is an abstract chain of translational symmetry, the elementary period of which is called verse foot (i.e. firstly, verse feet are contained in every versification system, incl. syllabic verse and free verse, and, secondly, verse feet can not be defined in terms of natural language, e.g., as the combination of short and long or accented and unaccented syllables).4) in verse text, metre appears through the medium of natural language: verse metre is coded in terms of natural language; the nature of its codification is detennined by the versification system. Hence, every verse metre can be realised in different versification systems, e.g. iambus can occur in syllabic-accentual, syllabic-quantitative, and some other versification systems;5) verse prosody is a consequence of the influence of verse metre on the prosodies of language; the range of transformation of a language system by verse metre extends from the unification of the strength of verse accents in accentual verse to such artificial formations as the origination of long syllables in languages which lack phonological quantity. (shrink)

Russian verse: Its metrics, versification systems, and prosody (Generative synopsis). In the article the general verse metre theory and its application to Russian verse is adressed, allowing us, thereby, to observe not the single details, but only the most general characteristics of verse. The treatment can be summarised in the five following points:1) the basis for the phenomenon of verse is its metrical code: the special feature of verse text is the presence of its metre (this feature is common (...) to every verse type, to the most regular verse, as well as to vers libre);2) the nature of verse metre is extralinguistic, there is no metre within a language, the latter can only induce certain limitations in choosing a metre;3) metre is an abstract chain of translational symmetry, the elementary period of which is called verse foot (i.e. firstly, verse feet are contained in every versification system, incl. syllabic verse and free verse, and, secondly, verse feet can not be defined in terms of natural language, e.g., as the combination of short and long or accented and unaccented syllables).4) in verse text, metre appears through the medium of natural language: verse metre is coded in terms of natural language; the nature of its codification is detennined by the versification system. Hence, every verse metre can be realised in different versification systems, e.g. iambus can occur in syllabic-accentual, syllabic-quantitative, and some other versification systems;5) verse prosody is a consequence of the influence of verse metre on the prosodies of language; the range of transformation of a language system by verse metre extends from the unification of the strength of verse accents in accentual verse to such artificial formations as the origination of long syllables in languages which lack phonological quantity. (shrink)

Nietzsche regarded 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as his most important work, and his story of the wandering Zarathustra has had enormous influence on subsequent culture. Nietzsche uses a mixture of homilies, parables, epigrams and dreams to introduce some of his most striking doctrines, including the Overman, nihilism, and the eternal return of the same. This edition offers a new translation by Adrian Del Caro which restores the original versification of Nietzsche's text and captures its poetic brilliance. Robert Pippin's introduction discusses (...) many of the most important interpretative issues raised by the work, including who is Zarathustra and what kind of 'hero' is he and what is the philosophical significance of the work's literary form? The volume will appeal to all readers interested in one of the most original and inventive works of modern philosophy. (shrink)

The naming of facts is a difficult matter / it isn’t just one of your holiday games..." A versification of a disturbing philosophical tribulation, after T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Naming of Cats’.

Plato seeks to establish in _Phaedrus_ a close link between poetry and the eidetic sphere to which philosophical knowledge belongs, or which the philosopher accesses through a practiced synoptic-dialectic understanding. This type of philosophical poetry is perfectly illustrated in the Socratic palinode itself, which Socrates –and ultimately Plato – establishes as a paradigm of the poet philosopher, a palinode by necessity must be uttered “with certain poetic terms”. Working from that palinode as a model, Plato seeks to approach the subject (...) of _éros_ with philosophical discourses fed with poetical terms, that is, through an explicit blend of philosophical and poetic elements, the clearest example of which is the _Phaedrus_ as a whole, or, in more general terms, the Platonic dialogical genre in as much as this puts forward an interaction between the philosophical and poetic registers. Taking into account this relationship of compatibility that Plato establishes in _Phaedrus _between the poetic-philosophical paradigm and the traditional paradigm – which in books I, III and X of the _Republic_ clearly appeared in tension–in this paper I’m interested in supporting such a relationship in the dream anecdote as told by Socrates at the start of the _Phaedo_. In this anecdote, the philosopher confesses to Simmias and Cebes that since his time in prison, although he had never done such a thing before before, he has been composing poems based on the versification and musicalization of Aesop’s fables and a hymn to Apollo. (shrink)

Most of our knowledge about the life of Matthew of Vendôme derives from autobiographical passages in his writings. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it is known that after the death of his father he went to Tours, some twenty-five miles from his birthplace, where he was raised by his uncle and studied composition under Bernardus Silvestris. Matthew continued his studies at Orléans during the residence of Hugh Primas in that city, and eventually achieved a position of some (...) prominence as a teacher of grammar in the cathedral school. It was toward the close of his stay here that, sometime before 1175, he composed the Ars versificatoria as a textbook for beginning students. But Matthew's peace at Orléans had been shattered by the arrival of Arnulf of Saint-Euverte, best known as a scholiast on Lucan and Ovid, with whom he entered into a bitter rivalry; the Ars is filled with invective against Arnulf under the nicknames Rufus and Rufinus. Around 1175, Matthew left Orléans and proceeded to Paris, where he seems to have resumed his studies. He remained there for ten years, and in the course of this decade wrote the Epistolarium, a collection of letters in verse. He then returned to Tours, where he was perhaps granted a canonry at the cathedral of St. Martin, and where he completed the Tobias, a versification of the book of Tobit which he dedicated to Bishop Bartholomew of Tours and to the prelate's brother, the dean of St. Martin. It is presumed that he died shortly after its composition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Alcaics In Exile: W. H. Auden’s “In Memory Of Sigmund Freud”Rosanna WarrenOn September 23, 1939, Sigmund Freud died in exile in London, a refugee from Nazi Austria. Within a month, Auden, who had been living in the United States since January of that year, wrote a friend in England that he was working on an elegy for Freud. 1 The poem appeared in The Kenyon Review early in 1940. (...) A stately public ode, the poem mourns not only the death of a publicly significant individual, but the collapse of a world. Hitler had overrun Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland; assaults on Jews had intensified; England and France had just declared war on Germany. There would be, indeed, many who would have to be mourned:When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed to the critique of whole epoch the frailty of our conscience and anguish,of whom shall we speak?...Someone encountering this poem for the first time, on the page or in the ear, might be pardoned for puzzling over its form. It sounds prosy. It seems to have some recognizable English cadences, pentameters (“[inline-graphic 01]”), tetrameters (“ ”), and even trimeters (“ ”). But the pattern seems unruly, with some [End Page 111] lines stretching out beyond five traditional beats, and ignoring any iambic order: “turned elsewhere with their disappointment as he.” Groping for a more satisfactory principle of organization, a reader with some knowledge of versification may be moved to count syllables. Such a reader will discover that the poem is indeed organized syllabically in lines of 11, 11, 9, and 10 syllables. “Aha,” says the reader, alert to Auden’s intimacy with Classical civilization: “A Horatian ode. Not inappropriate for a formal elegy.” Reflecting further, and leafing through the pages of Horace, that reader will find, or remember, that two thirds of Horace’s odes are in these quatrains, the alcaic stanza. Auden, it appears, has composed his elegy in some version of the meter of Alcaeus, the 7th century b.c.e. Greek poet whose stanza became second nature to Horace. And we cannot enter the world of Auden’s poem without asking, why alcaics? And how do they work here?“In Memory of Sigmund Freud” is sometimes said to be Auden’s first syllabic poem. 2 Others demur, proposing both earlier and later examples. 3 Whatever the spats about dating Auden’s early syllabic practice, scholars conventionally agree that his turn toward syllabic composition reflects his evolving interest in a discursive poetry; in the poet as a private intelligence with a public voice; and in the work, respectively, of Horace and Marianne Moore. Having identified the poem as syllabic, many critics move on to heftier topics like psychoanalysis versus Marxism, Auden more than most poets having laid himself open to an overridingly thematic criticism of Big Ideas. But if, having acknowledged the influence of Horace and Moore in Auden’s refusal of English iambic lyricism here, we stay with the question of meter, we are led back to the older progenitor, Alcaeus, a great poet of exile, whose stanza Auden adopts and adapts. I shall ask how it affects our reading to observe that the stanza itself has a genealogy, and brings its expressive burden to bear on Auden’s poem.“In Memory of Sigmund Freud” relies on a counterpoint of two metrical systems, the largely iambic accentual/syllabic system, traditional in English since Wyatt, and a flattened version of Greek quantitative meter, which was a musical notation of syllable length. For Auden, whose great prosodic facility was almost a handicap, the problem was, “not how to write in iambics but how not to write in them from automatic habit.” 4 Throughout his poetic life, he reached for cadences to interrupt the “natural” iambics, sometimes recalling the Old English alliterative beat, and often turning to ballads and popular tunes for rhythmical variation. By the late thirties, he was not only disillusioned [End Page 112] with the Spanish Civil War and his role as quasi-Socialist bard, but was seeking new compositional principles as well. Free verse was not an alternative: his ear required an evident... (shrink)

The existing research on Peshitta has mostly overlooked the translation techniques used in Peshitta Psalms. Prior studies have primarily focused on comparing Peshitta Psalms with the Masoretic Text (MT), the Septuagint and Targum, leaving a gap in the analysis of Peshitta Psalms within the context of Classical Syriac Poetry. This study will delve into how adeptly the Syriac translator employed poetic elements to construct strophic structures and poetic style within the Peshitta Psalm. This article presents an analysis of strophic structure, (...) word repetition, sound figures and versification in the Syriac translation of Psalm 29, comparing them with their Hebrew counterparts. In this study, the utilisation of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) is employed for the MT, while the ‘Leiden edition’ is employed for the Peshitta. The findings from this analysis reveal that the Syriac rendition of Psalm 29 within the Peshitta incorporates numerous poetic elements. This suggests the translator’s familiarity with the strophic arrangement, word repetition, alliteration and various other poetic characteristics utilised by Hebrew scribes. The Peshitta translation of Psalm 29 closely resembles the MT Hebrew text, resulting in a balance of fidelity and aesthetic elegance. The Syriac rendition incorporates poetic elements like strophic arrangement, word repetition and alliteration but employs these features in a distinct manner. The Syriac text has a lower frequency of alliteration and word repetition but still possesses appealing poetic characteristics. The Syriac approach to verse composition closely resembles the Hebrew method, with some exceptions. Contribution: This study explores the Syriac translator’s use of poetic elements in Peshitta Psalms, revealing their familiarity with Hebrew techniques and the unique incorporation of elements. It provides insights into the evolution of Classical Syriac Poetry and contributes to our understanding of Biblical and Syriac poetry. (shrink)

Rhythm should be regarded as a perceptional category rather than as a property of the work of art. Rhythm might be classified according to three principles, serial rhythm, sequential rhythm and dynamic rhythm, three basic sets of gestalt qualities that lay the foundation for versification systems.Two schemas decide the rhythm of a poem: direction and balance. ‘Direction’ refers to rising and falling movements in the line. ‘Balance’ refers to repetitions in a play between symmetry and asymmetry as well as (...) a moment of rest.Rhythms produce meaning, probably due to the fact that rhythms activate internalized bodily experiences as well as conventional meaning patterns. This is demonstrated on the basis of a poem by Sylvia Plath. (shrink)

Aśvaghoṣa follows his scriptural sources closely in his narration of the story of the Buddha’s last journey leading to his nirvāṇa. The Buddhacarita and the Pāli Mahāparinibbānasutta mirror each other in their accounts of most of the places that the Buddha visited and the many events that took place during that journey. What the Buddhacarita and the Pāli sutta have in common also suggests that Aśvaghoṣa’s sources are already highly literary, even though the Buddhist poet transforms the traditional materials through (...) versification and literary embellishment. He also freshly designs occasional religious dialogs and philosophical meditation. Aśvaghoṣa’s literary accomplishments met with different responses outside South Asia. In China, the translation of the Buddhacarita was used as an authority and a source of information in erudite biographies of the Buddha, a Buddhist history, a Buddhist encyclopedia, and lexicographical works. In Tibet, where Indian literary classics were actively studied, interpreted, and used as literary models, the Buddhacarita has been surprisingly ignored after it was rendered by a lesser known Tibetan translator between 1260 and 1280. (shrink)

This article demonstrates how Iranian classical music and Persian medieval poetry, taken as separate semiotic systems, form together, in certain contexts, a single hybrid semiotic system with overlapping structural features and shared aesthetic principles. Hjelmslev’s description of connotative semiotic systems serves as a theoretical framework to show the modalities of this hybridization. This phenomenon can be observed through comparative analysis of the interdependence of poetry and music in the Persianate World from a semiotic point of view. On the one hand, (...) the quantitative (chronemic) meter of the Persian classical versification, called ‘aruz, as well as its extraordinarily heavy use of rhyme display a formal structure that evokes that of a musical phrase. On the other hand, the dependence of the structure of the Iranian musical system upon the rhythmic structure of classical poetry suggests a unique character of which few examples exist. This interdependence manifests itself particularly in the mystic (Sufi) poetry of the medieval period, specifically in the work of such renowned poets as Rumi, Sa’di Shirāzi, and Hāfez, who are among the best-known in the West. Examples of their lyric works are examined here to demonstrate occurrences of the collusion between the two semiotic systems. (shrink)

Hayes & MacEachern’s study of quatrain stanzas in English folk songs was the first application of stochastic Optimality Theory to a large corpus of data.1 It remains the most extensive study of versification that OT has to offer, and the most careful and perceptive formal analysis of folk song meter in any framework. In a follow-up study, Hayes concludes that stress and meter — or more generally, the prosodic structure of language and verse — are governed by separate constraint (...) systems which must be jointly satisfied by well-formed verse. Apart from its convincing arguments for a modular approach to metrics, it is notable for successfully implementing the analysis in OT, a framework whose parallelist commitments might seem philosophically at odds with modularity. (shrink)

Nietzsche regarded 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as his most important work, and his story of the wandering Zarathustra has had enormous influence on subsequent culture. Nietzsche uses a mixture of homilies, parables, epigrams and dreams to introduce some of his most striking doctrines, including the Overman, nihilism, and the eternal return of the same. This edition offers a new translation by Adrian Del Caro which restores the original versification of Nietzsche's text and captures its poetic brilliance. Robert Pippin's introduction discusses (...) many of the most important interpretative issues raised by the work, including who is Zarathustra and what kind of 'hero' is he and what is the philosophical significance of the work's literary form? The volume will appeal to all readers interested in one of the most original and inventive works of modern philosophy. (shrink)

The subject “rule”, which is one of the most fundamental issues of the Islamic legal theory (usūl al-fiqh), has been in the center of methodological debates. There is one important term in this regard, which should be studied very carefully: Khiṭāb(speech) of the God. It is because that, especially since the first period of Islam, it has been taken with some significant terms in the field of Kalāmsuch as Husn (pretty; good), Qubh (ugly; evil), and the quality of God’s talk. (...) Yet, adopting this term in the description of the “rule” shows that Fiqh is based on divine inspiration, and it also emphasizes that even though there are some differences in details, wisdom of human being is not ignored when adjudicating. Moreover, it suggests that the validity or methodological accuracy of the “rule” which is adjudicated with ruling case is related to the connection through the term speech or divine inspiration. In this regard, Kalāmdimension of the term and its affect to legal theoretical discussions are very important in terms of historical process of the definition of the “rule” in Islamic law. In this study, I tried to examine whether or not the term “khiṭābof the God” which is used in the definition of the “rule” formed a limitation for consideration of legal evidence in Islamic law and if there is any limitation for the legal evidence regarding being only in the Qur’ān and the Sunnah due to this definition.SummaryThe “hukm (rule, arbritation, judgment, God’s will)”-as the backbone notion in usūl al-fiqhis one of the significant key notions discussed in the legal theory. Specifically, the term “khitabullah” mentioned in the definition of hukmis noteworthy to investigate. Since the early formation period of Islamic law, the term khitabullahhas been embraced along with the theological subjects: “husnand qubuh(the good and evil) and kalām(the attribute of speech to Allah)”. The term “khitabullah” in the definition of hukmemphasizes that indeed the source of fiqhis the revelation (wahy) and also emphasizes that the function of reason (‘aql) is not ignored in the process of adjudication- even if there are some nuances in details.Additionally, it presents that the validity or methodological accuracy of the “rule” which is adjudicated with ruling a case is connected to the term speech (khitāb), or in other words to revelation (wahy).On the whole, in the legal theory, the rule of Sharī‘ah is defined as God’s khitab(the communication of God), which means the demand of God relating to the acts of those who are subject of law or the effect of the khitābon the acts of those persons. Although, in the early formative period various explanations were made about what the rule is, it can be understood that the present definition of hukmbegan to evolve towards the end of the 5thcentury (A. H.). It is clear that al-Ghazālī had an impact on the formation of this definition. It is because al-Ghazālī defined the rule of Sharī‘ahas “the communication from God relating to an act of the person who is the subject of law”. After al-Ghazālī, al-Rādī and al-Baydāwī added to al-Ghazālī’s definition the words “iqtidā and takhyīr” and Ibn Hājib added “wad‘an”. Whereas in the Mutakallimun(theologians) tradition, Ibn Hacib's definition was preferred, Fuqaha(jurists) tradition chose two definitions-resembling each other: “Those coming to exist with the khitāb” and “the effect of God’s khitāb”.Along with al-Ghazālī’s definition, the concept of khitābcarved out a niche for itself in it and became the main element of the definition. It is understood that some discussions in the field of theology, such as husn-qubhand God’s attribute of speech have been effective on the interpretation of the concept of khitāb. The Ash‘arilegal theorists argue that the good and evil are not attributes of the self / the acts, whereas the Maturidi legal theorists argue that the exploration and determination of these attributes is rational and thus, the verdict reached via this rationale is lawful. The Maturidi legal theorists initiated the concept of being subject of law with the concept Sharī‘ah and in the line with this opinion; they defined hukmon the basis of khitāb. On the other hand, the Mutazilites’ claiming the attribute of good and evil are inherent feature of the act, did not define hukmon the basis of the khitābaccording to their theological understanding. The word of khitābassessed with God’s eternal speech (al-kalām al-azalī) has been approached from various aspects: for instance, whether the presence of the addressee is mandatory. The early Asharites scholars (mutaqaddimun), in particular Imam Asharī, did not entitle the eternal speech as khitāb. They consider that the presence of the interlocutor is necessary in the conversion of Kalāminto khitāb. The mutaakhirunAsharites (successors of the early Asharites scholars) did not consider the presence of the interlocutor necessary, thus they viewed the eternal speech as khitāb. The former identification of the hukmwith khitābby the early Ashari legal theorists caused to the problem of whether hukmis adventitious or not. Therefore, this approach was criticised by the Mutazilites. On the other hand, the Maturidi and Mutezilite legal theorists accept that hukmis adventitious; hence they do not consider as a problem naming the eternal speech of God as khitāb.When the historical course is examined, it can be said that one of the important aspects of the development of hukm’s definition is the use of khitāb. Khitābin some cases is used without possessive construction, in other cases it is used with possessive construction with God, or in possessive construction with shar’ or Shāri’. The most important one within these possessive constructions is the notion “khitaballah”. Therefore, it is necessary for khitaballahto be approached from the angle of the legal theory. In comparison to other terms, this notion narrowed the scope of the rule down. In the meanwhile, it raised the question: how the rule deduced via legal evidences can be incorporated in khitāb? As a consequence of this question, some legal theorists, such as Tūfī, proposed another definition by adducing this question.Although it is commonly accepted that the rules deduced via other evidences are within the context of the khitāb, there are also different descriptions about the concept of khitaballah. The rule is not limited to khitaballahin the conception of traditional interpretation accepting the khitābas eternal speech or literal speech (al-kalām al-lafzī). Because either all evidences are within the context of the khitāb,which is the eternal speech or other evidences are within the context of the khitāb,which is the literal speech. Thus, each result coming to exist with the other evidences is part of the Islamic law. But not all of these rules are considered equal to each other. Because each rule which is deduced from indisputable origin (qatii al-thubut) and is deduced from completely explicit sources (qatii al-dalala) are accepted as the word of God or the Prophet. On the other hand, other rules deduced via jurisprudence- in other words by jurist’s own value of judgment is viewed as the virtual rule (al-hukm al-zāhir). Such rules do not express absolute certainty. It is unacceptable for these rules to be described as the word of God or the Prophet. In this way, it is clearly understood that the concept of khitaballahmentioned in the description do not introduce restriction to the evidences ofSharī‘ah.We do not see a contradiction when the indefinite rules of Islamic law included in the context of khitāb. Because ijtihāddoes not aim to produce a new rule, on the contrary it functions in order to find out the already existing rules. The legitimacy of the rule obtained through ijtihādemerges from the way that this rule is deduced from the khitāb,which directly or indirectly represents the divine will. In addition, according to us, this legitimacy is not merely limited to versification and conception of the khitāb, but it also includes the function of the reason in (reasonable of the) khitāb. As a matter of fact, trying to solve unlimited cases with limited texts is difficult- in fact this is impossible. The majority of the legal theorists also share this opinion. Then, there is no obstacle in accepting that each rule obtained by authentic source and methodology can be considered part of Islamic law by implicating the rule in the context of khitāb(which represents the divine will) - although it may contain error and presumption. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Partial Truth (Poems 2015–19) by Christopher NorrisNiall GildeaNorris, Christopher. A Partial Truth (Poems 2015–19). The Seventh Quarry Press, 2019. 133pp.“No interval but some event takes place.”(Norris, “Freeze-Frame,” A Partial Truth)A Partial Truth, a collection of thirty-seven pieces, is the seventh volume of poetry by philosopher and literary theorist Christopher Norris. Nobody familiar with Norris’s distinguished career will be surprised to learn that his recent turn to (...) class='Hi'>versification is not a repudiation of intellectual and rhetorical seriousness, but a re-emphasis of the same using resources not typically found in academic prose. Norris, an interdisciplinarian long before that term became a slogan, has in his work clocked up considerable epistemological mileage across diverse terrain, his critical friendship with deconstruction leading him to important interventions in analytic and Continental philosophy, institutional critique, philosophy of science and mathematics, legal studies, music, politics and, after all, creative criticism.Creative criticism is a relatively embryonic genre, until recently typified generally by a prose that owes a debt to Jacques Derrida’s Cir-confession, Glas and La carte postale. This is a style that foregrounds the philosophical unsaid – the repressed autobiographical, desirous, and otherwise messy constituents of that canon. It does so in part by jettisoning the academic politesse, and let’s say timidity, which help maintain such statutes of limitation. In a more specific way, creative criticism may be understood as a Romantic development set in train by the “Yale School” of deconstruction and its fellow travelers, straining in their own ways against the subordinate role of the reader and critic instituted by the likes of Matthew Arnold and T. S. Eliot.In the foreword to his 2017 volume The Winnowing Fan, Norris at once compliments this “strong” critical rebelliousness (xii), and critiques its ecstatic, quasi-apocalyptic hubris, provisionally aligning his own creative criticism with the “poetic diction” (xxi) of eighteenth-century figures such as Dryden and Pope. It is an analogy with caveats – not least Norris’s stated allergy to the “air of arrogance” (Tempus-Fugitives ix) of [End Page 122] their heavily end-stopped tendentiousness – but one which schematizes a poetics that both carries a definite argument and could not make this argument otherwise than in a manner reliant on verse’s formal properties.Note, however, the fact that Norris takes his distance from both strong criticism and those eighteenth-century essayists on the grounds of their shared self-assurance. A steadier presiding influence is William Empson, whose enmity towards Eliotic New Criticism, which “fixes a prescriptive gulf between poetry and other kinds of discourse,” makes him a political forebear, dissenting from modern forms of literary historical doctrinalism, specifically “that whole anti-rationalist complex of ideas that made the discontinuity between poetic and non-poetic language into a shibboleth of aesthetic, ethical, and (though rarely advertised as such) socio-political principle” (Tempus-Fugitives xix–xx). Norris is no straightforward disciple of Empson – who regarded Derrida, and the other “horrible Frenchmen” Norris used to invite him to read, as “so very disgusting, in a simple moral or social way, that I cannot stomach them” (qtd. in Haffenden 52). And yet, one constant quality of both Norris’s verse and prose criticism is a welcome sobriety of explication when it comes to the more recondite or outright flamboyant enclaves of modern European thought.A Partial Truth, and Norris’s books of verse generally, are explicit in outlining the ways in which his poetry functions as a reaction to the diaristic, mumbling slackness of much contemporary poetry; but does his turn to verse also indicate some reaction to contemporary theory? A Partial Truth’s “Foreword,” with modesty, states that “[i]f these poems have any distinctive merit then it lies in the treatment of interesting ideas in a way that deploys certain formal means to draw out complexities and further implications that would lie beyond the reach of a prose rendition” (14). We will specify some of the relations between form and discursive complexity presently, but for now, it is worth suggesting that Norris’s commitment to verse forms of historically recognizable kinds forecloses from him the mealy-mouthed, argumentatively fugitive character of... (shrink)

The deep and many-sided penetration of mathematical methods into virtually all branches of scientific knowledge is a characteristic feature of the present period of development of human culture. Even fields so remote from mathematics as the theory of versification, jurisprudence, archeology, and medical diagnostics have now proved to be associated with the accelerating process of application of disciplines such as probability theory, information theory, algorithm theory, etc. Mathematical methods are rapidly penetrating the sphere of the social sciences. One can (...) no longer speak of the "exact" sciences in the traditional sense , for today they cannot even be conceived of without the most powerful mathematical "armament." These highly complex processes proceed differently, of course, in different sciences. Let us attempt to analyze them, with our chief emphasis upon the experience of the progress of astronomy, mechanics, physics, and other "exact" branches of natural science. (shrink)

Il s’agit de comprendre l’influence exercée par Schopenhauer sur l’œuvre de Paul Claudel. Malgré son peu d’intérêt pour la philosophie allemande, il découvre dans la théorie musicale de Wagner la pensée ontologique et esthétique de Schopenhauer. Celle-ci a sur lui une grande influence. Elle lui permet de développer une conception originale du désir et une vision poétique du monde structurée par la distinction entre harmonie et mélodie. Elle inspire en outre son écriture et sa dramaturgie, puisque Claudel prête à la (...) musique une place fondamentale dans sa versification. Nous montrons l’importance de cette influence en étudiant plus particulièrement la pièce intitulée L’Échange. (shrink)

M. Marouzeau has re-directed attention to the peculiarity of Terentian versification by which a monosyllabic word is put at the end of the line, though it belongs, in point of sense, to the beginning of the next line. There is thus, for the copyist or ‘corrector’, a strong temptation to shift the little word to the beginning of the next line, or even to drop it altogether. Where scansion allows, the second course can be adopted without arousing any suspicions.

I Am not proposing in this essay to treat at length and in detail of the metric of other lyric poets. In most cases questions of metre are intimately involved with questions of text, into which so many other considerations enter that in dealing with them proportion would be lost, while metrical analysis of such material would still remain largely speculative. What follows is therefore little more than a general account of the principles of composition which these poets appear to (...) me to follow; I have, however, indicated a few passages where emendations made purely on metrical grounds and widely accepted seem to me, in the absence of responsion, based on too ready a desire to reduce all poems to the best-known formulas of versification. (shrink)

I Am not proposing in this essay to treat at length and in detail of the metric of other lyric poets. In most cases questions of metre are intimately involved with questions of text, into which so many other considerations enter that in dealing with them proportion would be lost, while metrical analysis of such material would still remain largely speculative. What follows is therefore little more than a general account of the principles of composition which these poets appear to (...) me to follow; I have, however, indicated a few passages where emendations made purely on metrical grounds and widely accepted seem to me, in the absence of responsion, based on too ready a desire to reduce all poems to the best-known formulas of versification. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze the rhetorical function of compositional neologisms in Cercidas’ versification, in order to provide a new semantical and/or syntactical explanation for single words that have not been correctly interpreted before. In particular I analyze the fragments 1.41–50 Lom., 2.25–7 Lom. and 60 Lom., focusing especially on the correct interpretation of τεθνακοχαλκίδης, συοπλουτοσύνη and μεταμελλοδύνη. At the end of the paper, final considerations on the rhetorical function of neologism in Cercidas’ text are offered.

If Catullus' poems as we have them faithfully reproduce their order in the original roll or rolls, and if that order reflects a design of the poet's, then the last piece in our manuscripts naturally merits close attention. But even one who has vigorously upheld these hypotheses writes: ‘it is tempting to suppose that the poem is a spurious addition, attached after the publication of the collection; Catullus may indeed have written it, but not wanted to include so illepidus a (...) piece of versification in his published works’. Nor has the poem attracted much interest in its own right; it seems to be generally considered just another slice of biography, and as such hardly susceptible of a poetic meaning. The remarks which follow try to show that it has one, and perhaps also a significant position. (shrink)

A. A. Fet’s translation of J. W. Goethe’s Hermann und Dorothea is an important early example of Fet’s lifelong practice as a translator and attests to his well-known fidelity to his source texts. His strongest preference is to maintain the versification characteristics of his source, but the degree of his lexical-semantic fidelity is also very strong and far outranks fidelity on other levels (phonetic, grammatical). The poet evidently translated holistically within very small textual domains, within which he sometimes isolated (...) pivots of core semantic information (which he located in translation as they were in the original), around which less important material was fitted, insofar as space permitted. In Fet’s text, versification limitations sometimes led to lexical-semantic mismatches of semanticdenotation, and these mismatches are characterized in the paper: they typically involve repetitions, repeated mentions, or known information, and the mismatch may entail full or partial loss or enrichment of the semantics of the original. In addition, conflicts sometimes arise between denotative requirements within the local domain and the cumulative (usually connotative) associations generated across the larger domain of the whole text. When such conflicts arise, Fet resolves them in favour of small-domain accuracy, resulting in semantic changes (‘shifts’) in the domain of the poetic text, which thereby loses some rhetorical or poetic force, relative to the original. Dissonance between large- and smalldomain semantics is often inevitable, because of the language-specific nature of connotation. To the extent that the semantics of Fet’s translation are a consequence of his personal preferences, they may be viewed in the context of, first, his early school training (not far behind him when he translated Hermann und Dorothea) and, second, his status as both professional poet, writing in Russian, and educated native German-Russian bilingual. (shrink)

Nietzsche regarded 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as his most important work, and his story of the wandering Zarathustra has had enormous influence on subsequent culture. Nietzsche uses a mixture of homilies, parables, epigrams and dreams to introduce some of his most striking doctrines, including the Overman, nihilism, and the eternal return of the same. This edition offers a new translation by Adrian Del Caro which restores the original versification of Nietzsche's text and captures its poetic brilliance. Robert Pippin's introduction discusses (...) many of the most important interpretative issues raised by the work, including who is Zarathustra and what kind of 'hero' is he and what is the philosophical significance of the work's literary form? The volume will appeal to all readers interested in one of the most original and inventive works of modern philosophy. (shrink)

Eustache Deschamps writes in 1392 his Art de Dictier, an art of writing and, according to its added title, an art of “making songs, balads, virelais and rondeaux.” He introduces it, therefore, as a versification treatise that is exemplary for his generation of nonmusician poets, unlike Machaut, his most probable initiator into metrics. In so doing he introduces the concept of natural music, a genre proper to inspire poets for whom lyrical musicality is entirely produced by poetic language alone. (...) Without perceiving, perhaps, the novelty of this poetic aesthetics, he thus opens the avenue for a new poetry, freed from Rhetorics and from added music, more precisely for a poetic art. (shrink)

Eustache Deschamps writes in 1392 his Art de Dictier, an art of writing (ars dictandi) and, according to its added title, an art of “making songs, balads, virelais and rondeaux.” He introduces it, therefore, as a versification treatise that is exemplary for his generation of nonmusician poets, unlike Machaut, his most probable initiator into metrics. In so doing he introduces the concept of natural music, a genre proper to inspire poets for whom lyrical musicality is entirely produced by poetic (...) language alone. Without perceiving, perhaps, the novelty of this poetic aesthetics, he thus opens the avenue for a new poetry, freed from Rhetorics and from added music, more precisely for a poetic art. (shrink)

If Catullus' poems as we have them faithfully reproduce their order in the original roll or rolls, and if that order reflects a design of the poet's, then the last piece in our manuscripts naturally merits close attention. But even one who has vigorously upheld these hypotheses writes: ‘it is tempting to suppose that the poem is a spurious addition, attached after the publication of the collection; Catullus may indeed have written it, but not wanted to include so illepidus a (...) piece of versification in his published works’ . Nor has the poem attracted much interest in its own right; it seems to be generally considered just another slice of biography, and as such hardly susceptible of a poetic meaning. The remarks which follow try to show that it has one, and perhaps also a significant position. (shrink)

The epigram is remarkable for its metre as well as for the amount of erudition it displays. Thoenias of Sicyon was already known as a later representative of the school of Lysippus; that Dionysodorus was a fellow-citizen of his has not emerged so far, but he is mentioned by Polybius as an admiral and an emissary of Attalus. ‘Frisky’ is known to us from an epigram by Dioscorides, where he guards the tomb of Sositheus, and from a passage of Nonnus; (...) Cornutus, N.D. 30 classified Scirti along with Satyrs and Silens. But the poet remains unnamed: Dionysodorus, a military man, can hardly be credited with such a piece of refined Hellenistic versification. (shrink)

Equimetrical translation of verse, which conveys the metre of the source text, should be distinguished from equiprosodic translation of verse, which conveys theversification system of the source text. Equiprosodic translation of verse can rely on the possibilities of natural language (for instance, when presumably Publius Baebius Italicus created the Ilias Latina, he made use of the quantitative structure in Latin), but it can also employ an artificial system (cf., for example, the quantitative verse in Church Slavonic or English). The Estonian (...) language makes it possible to convey the syllabic (based on the number of syllables), accentual (based on the number and configuration of accents) and quantitative (based on the configuration of durations) versification systems. In practice, combined types are most frequent, for instance, the ones in which both the syllable count and the configuration of accents is relevant; in Estonian, versification systems with theparticipation of all three principles are possible as well. Despite the contrast of quantity in Estonian, the transmission of the quantitative structure of ancient metrics still involves a number of difficulties which result from differences in the prosodic structures. The transmission of purely syllabic versification system has also been problematic: it is hard to perceive such structure as verse in Estonian and therefore it has often been conveyed with the help of different syllabic-accentual or accentual-syllabic verse metres. Although equiprosodic translation is not necessarily equimetrical, in actual translation practice it usually is so. (shrink)

Ce décret de Colophon fut trouvé à Claros en deux campagnes de fouilles différentes : la stèle elle-même en 1961, en 1953 le couronnement en deux fragments orné d'une couronne entre deux trépieds. Il honore un chresmologue de Smyrne, un interprète des oracles, versé assurément dans la phraséologie des oracles et la versification, que la cité avait invité à présider l'oracle de Claros. On lui accorde une couronne d'or, le droit de cité à égalité avec les citoyens. Les deux (...) mille citoyens de l'assemblée ont voté oui à l'unanimité. (shrink)

The article discusses the features of the love-passionate plot in the stories of Ivan Bunin. The question is raised why Bunin, describing the strange or immoral acts of the heroes, does not condemn them, and in general draws a bright, sometimes sad atmosphere. Analysis of L. S. Vygotsky’s short story “Easy Breathing” by Bunin allows us to express an idea about a certain strategy for building Bunin’s works. Based on this consideration, the methods by which Bunin achieves the effect of (...) perception of the characters he needs are analyzed. There are three such techniques: the convergence of the actions and behavior of the characters with the life and breath of nature, the depiction of the life of the characters from the point of view that Bunin needs, and the endowment of the characters with personality traits that exclude ethical characteristics and problems. The scientific explanation of Bunin's artistic constructions is based on the analysis of mental trauma (caused by the departure of the first wife and the horrors of the revolution), artistic understanding of the events that interest the writer, and the peculiarities of the conceptualization of these events. In addition, it is proposed to take into account that Bunin began and became famous as a poet, and as a poet he composed his prose partly according to the laws of versification. (shrink)

In examining what Horace says about the style of Lucilius I would like to leave aside for a moment the controversial question regarding poetae in v. 1, and go straight to vv. 8–13. Here everything is clear and explicit: Lucilius was witty and keen-scented, but he was harsh in his versification, partly out of carelessness, partly owing to his enormous productivity. It has been suggested that these lines were simply ‘a chance remark’ which Horace ‘happened to make in the (...) course of his argument’. (shrink)

In examining what Horace says about the style of Lucilius I would like to leave aside for a moment the controversial question regarding poetae in v. 1, and go straight to vv. 8–13. Here everything is clear and explicit: Lucilius was witty and keen-scented, but he was harsh in his versification, partly out of carelessness, partly owing to his enormous productivity. It has been suggested that these lines were simply ‘a chance remark’ which Horace ‘happened to make in the (...) course of his argument’. (shrink)

The fifteenth‐century Augustinian canon and alchemist George Ripley is one of the most important figures in early English alchemy. As the chief popularizer of the alchemical principles of the pseudo‐Lull, he initiated an influential school of English alchemy that remained resilient to the end of the seventeenth century. John Dee, George Starkey, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton all read Ripley carefully, and Michael Maier is said to have learned English just so that he could read Ripley in the original tongue.But (...) Ripley has encountered the fate of many alchemical writers: reliable biographical data about him is scarce and nearly overwhelmed by the accumulation of rumors and legends, and his corpus is a farrago of genuine, adulterated, and spurious works springing from several periods and places. Naturally, this messy situation renders solid historical inquiry difficult, and so one of the first tasks must be to produce more reliable biographical and bibliographical foundations for studies of Ripley and his influence.The current volume, although published by Ashgate, greatly resembles a further installment in the Garland English Renaissance Hermeticism Series, of which Stanton Linden was the general editor. The bulk of the book is a reprint of the 1591 London edition of Ripley's Compound of Alchymy—his longest and most influential work—a versification in rhyme royal on the making of the philosophers' stone. The reprinted text is preceded by an introduction and followed by explanatory notes, many of them making use of Eirenaeus Philalethes' Ripley Reviv'd, a lengthy commentary on the Compound published in 1678, and of Elias Ashmole's Theatrum chemicum britannicum, in which the Compound was published with annotations in 1652.The historian of science might well question why the 1591 printed edition was chosen as the primary text when there are at least nine fifteenth‐century manuscripts of the Compound in existence. Linden expresses his belief in the superiority of Rabbard's 1591 edition over Ashmole's 1652 edition—though he bases this preference, somewhat curiously, on the modernity of the former's spelling and punctuation—but he does not note explicitly why Rabbard's text should be preferable to manuscripts written during Ripley's lifetime. This decision is presumably due, however, to the apparent connection of this book to the English Renaissance Hermeticism Series, and Linden's greater interest in the late sixteenth‐century scene is clear in the detailed account he provides of the production of the 1591 edition. This treatment contrasts with the relatively less critical interest shown toward details on Ripley himself, for the biographical section simply lists items about Ripley's life as summarized around 1900 and includes some points that must be incorrect . Given Linden's fine researches published previously, this comes as a bit of a disappointment, although it must be recalled that even Ashmole had trouble getting details on Ripley three hundred years ago.Students of alchemy should welcome the appearance of a reprint of a primary source. Those who are interested in Renaissance publications of alchemical works and who approach Ripley primarily as an English poet and literary figure will benefit from the book. Questions of course remain, and it is to be hoped that this volume will attract more attention to further aspects of the famous Canon of Bridlington and his work. (shrink)

Analyser une chanson de tradition orale française dans le cadre d’une thèse de littérature et dans une perspective mythique nécessite une démarche atypique d’autant que cette complainte se décline en plus d’une vingtaine de versions. Ce sujet étant peu traité, il a fallu tout d’abord définir l’objet « chanson de tradition orale », ce qui a eu comme mérite de mettre en relief les différents acteurs ayant présidé à la création de cette notion : folkloristes et médiévistes ont montré les (...) pistes à suivre et jalonné les investigations menées dans le cadre de cette thèse. Grâce à leurs analyses, il a été possible de rendre visibles des critères poétiques spécifiques à la tradition orale et de constituer un corpus représentatif de l’oralité. Il est rapidement apparu qu’une analyse formelle était indissociable d’une quête du sens, de même que croiser les disciplines et pratiquer l’art du comparatisme afin de débusquer à travers contes, légendes et tradition orale un éventuel scénario mythique originel. Face à l’originalité de la complainte, celui‑ci est vite apparu comme réducteur et ce n’est qu’à travers l’étymologie, l’hagiographie et l’onomastique qu’il a été possible d’affiner les analyses et de proposer une interprétation herméneutique. (shrink)

This essay considers some problems in philosophical approaches to poetry. Philosophers’ accounts of what poetry is are often ill informed. They tend to select, as essential, features that can also characterize prose works: conspicuous metaphoricity, imagination, fictionality, and so on. This essay considers instead a humbler term: verse. It argues that the constraints on language implied by composing in verse are not only a handicap but can also be an engine for thinking. Even philosophy has sometimes been thought in verse, (...) rather than thought first in prose and versified later. This argument is explored through a brief consideration of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man. The essay concludes by questioning a further way of distinguishing between poetry and philosophy, Peter Lamarque's claim that paraphrasability is essential to philosophy but fatal to poetry. (shrink)