The Function of the Form of Poetry

王春芳

上海政法学院 语言文化学院，上海 201701

The form of poetry includes sound, rhythm and rhyme. The three aspects together make up the external beauty of poems. This article intends to discuss the functions of the three aspects of form of poetry.

1. The Function of Sound

The expression of the content of poetry mainly depends upon the meaning of words. However, the use of phonetic material is also helpful to the effect of artistic expression of poetry. The phonetic material, including intonation, tone, rhyme, rhythm, the length and stress of sound and the effect of sound produced by these material is connected with the thought and feeling of poems. If a poem has clear rhythm and harmonious sound, it will read fluent and pleasant. Moreover, its artistic appeal will be greatly enhanced. Therefore, phonetic material undoubtedly has certain artistic expressivity. This section will discuss the aesthetic function of sound from the aspects of rhythm and rhyme because both rhythm and rhyme exist in Chinese poetry and English poetry.

1. The Function of Rhythm

Rhythm refers to regular succession of weak and strong stresses, accents sounds or movements in speech, music, dancing, etc. (from OALD). Almost everything in the world has rhythm and moves with its rhythm. To living things, rhythm is a natural need. The functions of all organs in human body, such as breathe, circulation, are continuously going on with certain rhythm. The rhythm of external environment can influence the internal rhythm of human body because the organic body of human can adapt to the environment he lives in.

The rhythm of poetry usually has a repeated pattern, namely, the regularity in the change of sound. When the pattern of rhythm is printed in readers hearts,   it produces a psychological pattern. The psychological pattern makes readers unconsciously prepare to adapt their attention and bodies to the pattern of rhythm. This kind of preparation is called expectation in psychology, Regular rhythm can infiltrate into readers physiological and psychological state and produce expectation. Whether the expectation is realized or not becomes the source of pleasant sensation or unpleasant sensation. For example, in the process of reading a Chinese metrical verse, when readers read “Ping”(平)tone, they must unconsciously expect the coming of “Ze”(仄)tone. And when they read “Ze" tone, they will unconsciously expect the return of “Ping" tone. The constant production and realization of expectation produce pleasant sensation for readers. However, if all expectation in readers" hearts are realized,they will feel monotonous. So a few surprises and deviations produced by the non-realization of expectation is necessary. It not only gets rid of monotonousness but also attracts readers" attention. Thereafter, in English poetry, the change of meter in poems is natural and essential. Clever English poets are like musicians. While sticking to one kind of meter, they usually try to create various counterpoints so as to bring their poems a beauty of music. Yet the number of the counterpoints should be limited, otherwise, it will substitute the main meter and destroy the aesthetic value of the poems.

Both the rhythm of Chinese metrical verse and that of English metrical verse have repeated patterns. They enhance the musical effect and the artistic appeal of poet ry. Yet the rhythm of free verse does not have repeated pattern. Though free verse can naturally express poets’ feelings, it cannot be regarded as a glorious revolution in poetry history. No poet who writes in free verse can compare with the great achievements and influence of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Byron, Browning and Yeats. Actually, most excellent English poets in the 20th century wrote more or less with traditional versifications. For example, T.s.Eliot “The Waste Land" is a typical free verse, but its rhythm changes from one pattern to another pattern. The American romantic poet Walt Whitman often employed the same structures and repetition of words and sentences to produce rhythm needed in his poem. Even if the following stanza of Whitman is written into a line, it is still a poem rather than a prose because it not only has poetic content but also has the rhythm of poetry:

Sing on there in the swamp,

O singer bashful and tender, l hear your

notes, I hear your call.

I hear ,I come presently ,I understand you,

But a moment I linger, for the lustrous

star has detain d me.

The star ,my departing comrade ,holds

and detains me.

2. The Function of Rhyme

Rhyme refers to the sameness of sound of the endings of two or more words at the ends of lines of verse (from OALD). Rhyme can link those seemingly irrelevant lines together, It is especially true in Chinese poetry. For example, in the Qu(曲): “枯滕老树昏鸦/古道西风瘦马/小桥流水人家/断肠人在天涯，"  only several scenes are put together and no conjunction is used. Yet those lines still form an entirety because the rhymed characters “鸦”, “马”, “家" and “涯" link the lines together.

Rhyme can bring pleasant sensation to readers. According to aesthetic principle, it is pleasant to discover distinction in identity, but it is more pleasant to discover identity in distinction. Therefore, readers must be pleased when they read the repeated sound “a" in the above poem.

Rhyme can strengthen the rhythm of poems. The rhythm of the above poem is realized not only by “dun”(顿) of each line but also by the rhymed characters. The regular succession of identical or similar sound in poems produces rhythm. 

Rhyme is helpful to the expression of feeling. Rhyme can create a special atmosphere to stimulate readers' imagination. This may explain why what a poem gives readers is usually more than the sum of all the words of the poem put together. For example, in Chinese poetry, the rhyme of “Ping" tone is often used to express a happy and relaxed feeling, and the rhyme of “Ze" tone is used to express a depressed feeling. The following example can further explain the argument:

男儿事长征，少小幽燕客。

赌胜马蹄下，由来轻七尺。

杀人莫敢前，须如猬生磔。

黄云陇底白云飞，未得报恩不思归。

辽东小妇年十五,惯弹琵琶善歌舞。

今为羌笛出塞声，使我三军泪如雨。

(唐·李东川)

The above poem is not very long ,but its rhymes are changed for several times and its rhythm is changed either. This arrangement can better express the hero's undulation of feeling and change of thought. The rhymes in the first six lines are in “Ze" tone. It fully shows the hero's heroic bearing and ambition(少小幽燕客).The rhyme in the seventh and the eighth lines is in “Ping” tone. This kind of rhyme implies the characteristics of excitement, profundity and sternness. It hints the determination of the hero (未得报恩不思归). The rhymes of the last four lines are in “Ze" tone again. It sounds sad and dreary, since it successfully conveys the homesick feeling of the soldiers.

Compared with meaning rhyme is only a slave because meaning is the major part of a poem and rhyme is only phonetic art for poets to express their feelings. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust the relationship be- tween “meaning "and “rhyme" and avoid the damage of meaning because of rhyming. A partial pursuit of rhyme can hinder the expression of thoughts and feelings of poets. It is a taboo for all poets.

2. The Function of the pision of Each Stanza into Lines

The form of the stanza-pattern of poetry is called the texture of poetry. The main external characteristic of the texture is the pision of each stanza into lines , which is also the chief feature in the aesthetically qualitative analysis of the form of the poetry in the English language. In Chinese each stanza of “New Poetry" has been pided into lines since the May Fourth Movement in1919, and most classic poems in modern editions have been pided into lines either. Therefore, in the views of Chinese poets and Chinese poetry critics, the pision of each stanza into lines is also the chief feature of the texture of Chinese poetry.

Poetry writing is a kind of linguistic behavior. In poetry there is a unique pattern of line arrangement, namely, linguistic material is pided into lines. This form of the texture of poetry is chosen by addressor (poets ) to addressee (readers).It is in order to endow poetry with special appeal that poets choose this form.

When the same expression is arranged in different pattern, it can give readers different impressions. For example, if the following stanza of a poem         

   The golden sea its mirror spreads

Beneath the golden skies,

And but a narrow strip between

of land and shadow lies.

is reformed as follows: The golden sea spreads its mirror beneath the skies ,and but a narrow strip of land and shadow lies between. It is no longer a poem.

The above example shows that the texture of poetry really promotes the artistic appeal of poems.

The pision of each stanza into lines temporarily separates an entirety into relatively independent inpiduals. The relatively independent inpiduals weaken the system of cohesion and coordination. In the texture of poetry, lines which can be combined into a coherent sentence are few. Most lines run as follows:

Sweet day, so cooly, so calm, so bright,

The brid all of the earth and skie:

The dew shall sweep thy fall to might;

For thou must die.

(G. Herbert: Vertue)

Superficially, the first three lines in the above stanza lack cohesion and coordination. Yet actually, they are connected with each other in neighboring lines. This is a common case in classic Chinese poetry. In the line“黄河远上白云间，一片孤城万仞山", why are the two irrelevant scenes put together? It turns out that the “blank space created by the superficial lack of cohesion and coordination produces a kind of tension. This kind of tension can tug back the lost coordination. Thus it becomes a kind of “call mechanism" which urges readers to find back the contents the “blank space" should contain. In this case readers are recreating poems and obtaining various impression and interest. Therefore, if the convention of cohesion and coordination which is emphasized in the text is destroyed, it will produce more artistic appeal. If the destruction is obvious and skillful, the effect will be more easily produced. If the poet used a lot of words to explain why“黄河远上白云间" can be placed with“一片孤城万仞山" ,there would be no more room left for readers’ imagination and recreation, and, as a result, the special artistic appeal would be dissolved.

Moreover, the pision of each stanza into lines can mold a plane form on paper and cast a beautiful picture towards readers’ visual sense. In other words, the horizontal space, the vertical space and the intricacy of lines are textured into a beautiful picture for poetry. This kind of visual art is the “plastic arts" of the space of lines. It is a beauty of painting. This beauty of painting acts on aesthetic subject and echoes with the beauty of music in aesthetic psychology. The beauty of horizontality, of verticalness and of intricacy make up a three-dimensional frame of art, which is an aesthetic sign to transfer the poetic flavor of poems. In a word, the pision of each stanza into lines weakens the convention of the structure of text and strengthens the expressivity of poetry. It endows poetry with a special artistic appeal which other ordinary compositions hardly offer. Therefore, the pision of each stanza into lines is very important in poetry, the elimination of which will result in the loss of the poetic flavor.

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