Chapter Six: The Musicality of Modern Poetry (Part 2)

— Abstract —

Modern poetry, as an emerging literary genre, is no longer bound by formal constraints, and is currently developing toward prose poetry and unrhymed poetry.

After stepping out of the shadow of metrical verse, can modern poetry discover a form of musicality that keeps pace with the new era and thereby open up new aesthetic horizons?

This is a question worthy of our deep reflection.

For modern poetry that is free from formal restrictions, how should we perceive and simultaneously experience its musicality?

The author attempts to reexamine the musicality of modern poetry from the perspective of Western music theory, offering a relatively comprehensive explanation of rhyme, melody, and rhythm, while at the same time clarifying the relationships among these three elements.

— Keywords —
free verse, melody, rhythm, syllable

Section One: The Constituent Elements of Musicality

I. The Poet’s Sense of Sound

Each poet differs in sensitivity toward language.

What is meant by sensitivity refers to one’s degree of reception, comprehension, and ability to apply both the meaning of language (a meaning) and its sonic feel (sonic feel), which varies in depth and refinement.

If a poet is adept at understanding musical principles and possesses a certain level of musical cultivation (that is, a considerable knowledge of music theory), this will inevitably assist in word selection and arrangement, enabling the construction of appropriate melody (melody) and rhythm (rhythm; cadence).

From the perspective of music theory, “melody” refers to syllables (syllable) formed by notes rising and falling in wave-like motion within a specific vocal range (the gamut; the range of one’s voice), producing band-like tones (banding tone) shaped by pitch variation and duration.

“Rhythm,” on the other hand, refers to the speed (fast or slow), intensity (strong or weak), and the dynamic rise and fall of the melody.

In other words, “melody” is the substance of the banded tone itself, whereas “rhythm” is the manner in which the banded tone is actually performed.

The Northern Song lyricist Zhou Meicheng (Bangyan) is described in the History of the Song Dynasty as follows:

“Bangyan loved music, could compose his own tunes, created long and short lyric forms for musical performance; his diction was pure and resonant, and his works were transmitted to later generations.”

The Complete Library of the Four Treasuries: Summary of Fang Qianli’s Harmonized Lyrics on Qingzhen further states:

“Bangyan had exquisite mastery of tonal regulations and stood foremost among lyricists. In the lyrics he composed, not only were level and oblique tones properly observed, but even among the oblique tones—the rising, departing, and entering tones—there was no confusion permitted.”

Therefore, Zhou Meicheng’s poetry displays the stylistic features of “rigorous musical regulation and exquisitely crafted diction.”

II. Musicality in Modern Poetry

In the field of music, percussion instruments such as drums, cymbals, gongs, and chime bells, as well as plucked instruments such as the bass (bass, such as the bass guitar), play the role of constructing rhythm.

Other brass and woodwind instruments are responsible for performing the main melody and accompaniment, thereby forming melody.

Rhythm and melody combine with each other to create a complete musical composition (harmony).

The musicality (musicality) of modern poetry is indeed determined by each poet’s degree of sonic sensitivity to language, yet concrete analysis must ultimately return to the poetic text (text) itself.

If we define modern poetry as an “emerging form of free verse,” then the musicality of free verse texts is jointly constituted by melody and rhythm (rhythm; cadence).

Melody further contains two sub-dimensions: rhyme (assonance and end rhyme) and tonal movement.

More precisely, “tone (melody; melody)” refers to “the rise and fall of pitch and the variation of syllabic duration within the banded lines of text (each poetic line), forming a line of intonation.”

End rhyme refers to “the regularity of pronunciation of the final characters across lines,” with periodic repetition (periodicity) as a necessary condition.

The poetry theorist Huang Yongwu states:

“End rhyme refers to the repeated appearance of characters sharing the same rhyme at the ends of lines, thereby producing harmony. The function of rhyme goes far beyond facilitating chanting or pleasing the ear; its musical function can assist in shaping atmosphere, allowing it to emerge in full.”

Rhythm refers to “the speed, strength, and dynamic rise and fall of textual syllables (tone units).”

Each written character simultaneously contains both a phonetic component and a semantic component.

Chinese is monosyllabic, with sounds composed of initials and finals.

European and American languages are fundamentally multisyllabic, with each word consisting of consonants, vowels, and syllables (syllable).

When a word contains two or more vowels, it forms a multisyllabic unit (a multisyllable).

Notes combine to form syllables, and syllables simultaneously generate tonal movement and rhythmic variation.

Generally speaking, the number of syllables depends on the length of the poetic line.

Long lines are often composed of several syllables; the greater the number of syllables, the more the rhythm tends toward slowness and relaxation.

Short lines, by contrast, produce quicker and sharper rhythms.

When repetition of finals or vowels appears at the beginnings or ends of lines, rhyme is formed.

The repeated finals or vowels, when contrasted across lines, create what is known as rhyme (rhythm), or what may also be termed assonance.

For ease of understanding, the author provides the following schematic representation:

The Musicality of Poetry: Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

Melody

• Rhyme — final sounds at the ends of lines
• Assonance — periodic repetition of vowels
• Melody (tonal movement) — rise and fall of syllables and duration of sounds

Harmony

• Harmony — regular patterned tonal variation

Rhythm

• Syllables (tone units) — variation of speed, intensity, and length in progression

Professor Chen Zhengzhi, a domestic scholar of children’s poetry, states:

“The three major elements of music are melody, rhythm, and harmony. Melody refers to a combination of tones differing in pitch, duration, and intensity; rhythm refers to the speed and strength of sound; harmony refers to the vertical combination of several tones occurring simultaneously.”

(“Studies on Children’s Poetry Writing,” Chapter Four “The Language of Children’s Poetry,” Section Three “The Language of Music”)

His classificatory approach differs slightly from that adopted by the author.

III. Musicality in Classical Chinese Poetry

In classical Chinese regulated verse and quatrains, in terms of syllabic structure, seven-character lines generally consist of four syllables, while five-character lines consist of three syllables, also referred to as tone units or rhythmic feet.

The poet Liu Dabai argued in A Detailed Explanation of External Formal Metrics in Chinese Poetry:

“Five-character poetry has three syllables, and seven-character poetry has four syllables. The ratios five to three and seven to four closely approximate the Golden Section in formal aesthetics (Golden Section).”

For example, Li Shangyin’s line from Late Clearing,

“Heaven pities the secluded grass; the human world cherishes the late sunshine,”

follows a “two–one–two” structure;

while He Zhizhang’s line from Homecoming,

“I left home young and returned old; my accent unchanged though my hair has thinned,”

follows a “two–two–two–one” structure.

The verbs in poetic lines are often short, rapid monosyllables and frequently constitute the points of rhythmic variation.

Mr. Li Yuanluo held that the musicality of classical Chinese poetry is mainly constituted by several aspects: “rhyme continuity (rhyme selection and rhyme modulation), tonal coordination, alliteration and vowel harmony, and repetitive phrasing,” through which musical beauty is expressed.

The Book of Songs, Yuefu ballads, Tang poetry, and Song lyrics were all intended to be sung with musical accompaniment, precisely using tonal alternation within poetic lines to express melodic rise and fall, and using repeated rhyme to express harmonic resonance between stanzas.

The Qing critic Shen Deqian wrote in Brief Discourses on Poetry:

“Poetry takes sound as its essential function; its marvel lies between the rising and falling of tones. When readers quietly follow the beat and chant attentively, they perceive the subtle beauty transmitted beyond written sound all emerging together.”

The alternation of level and oblique tones within poetic lines is precisely the source of melodic dynamism in poetry.

From the development of Song lyrics and Yuan drama, the existence of countless tune patterns reminds us that metrical form can detach from poetic text and independently become a complete domain.

Yet it cannot be denied that once detached from verse, these tune patterns are already musical works rather than purely poetic texts.

Each lyric tune or dramatic song allows diverse themes and emotions, as long as the requirements of word count, line count, tonal pattern, and rhyme conform to the formal structure of the tune.

This results in poetic creation occupying a passive, subordinate position, hence being termed “filling in lyrics.”

However, we must not forget that the primary purpose of Song lyrics and Yuan songs was musical performance—just like modern songs—where melody and rhythm exist in fixed form prior to the lyrics.

The lyrics must accommodate melody, rhythm, word count, line count, tonal pattern, and rhyme.

Well-trained lyricists thoroughly mastered tune patterns, clearly understanding the rise and fall of pitch, syllabic duration, and rhythmic force in each segment of a tune.

They could appropriately select words to meet formal requirements while expressing emotion, thereby tightly integrating poetry and music.

Such verse inherently possesses structural musical advantages and is better able to express the dual aesthetic of poetry and music: imagistic beauty and musical beauty.

The form of poetic genre and musicality are inseparably related.

Although the formal constraints of regulated verse and quatrains produced refined musical elegance, they also functioned as external shackles.

When literary form reached its peak in the High Tang period, these constraints became rigid.

The emergence of lyric poetry in the late Tang and Five Dynasties represented a limited adjustment and relaxation of this rigidity.

The claim that “form determines content” is overly simplistic when applied to classical poetry; however, stating that “form determines the musicality of regulated poetry and lyrics” is a factual observation from the perspective of lyric composition.

While formal structure strongly constrains creative methods, it cannot determine the thematic content of poetic works.

IV. Musicality in English and European Metrical Poetry

Modern English and European free verse first liberated itself musically from the English sonnet (sonnet) and the French alexandrine (alexandrin).

The French phonologist Grammant analyzed French free verse and identified three major characteristics:

[1] The alexandrine typically contains twelve syllables per line. Classical poets divided it into four feet, Romantic poets into three feet, while free verse may contain three to six feet.

[2] Classical French poetry commonly uses aabb couplet rhyme, while free verse freely mixes abab alternating rhyme, abba enclosed rhyme, and others.

[3] Free verse does not adhere to the fixed alexandrine structure; within a single stanza, line lengths may vary.

English free verse, based on wavy cadence (wavy cadence), is even freer in form.

Line length follows no fixed pattern, nor is the number of lines in each stanza restricted.

Nevertheless, between lines and between stanzas one can still perceive tonal movement and repeated sound echoes, although they are less orderly and explicit than in metrical forms such as the sonnet.

The author now presents Shakespeare’s sonnet alongside the lyric poetry of W. Wordsworth for comparison:

(Original English text retained as requested)

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day？
Thou are more lovely and more temperate：
Rough winds to shake the darling buds of May。
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date：

Sometime too hot the eye oheaven shines，
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d，
And every fair from sometime declines，
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d；

But thy eternal summer shall not fade，
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st；
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade，
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st；
So long as men can dreathe，or eyes cansee，
So long lives，and this gives life to thee。

(Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)

The sonnet, also known as the Shakespearean form, is typically written in iambic pentameter, meaning that each line contains five rhythmic feet (tone units).

This poem is divided into three sections, adopting a “four–four–six” structural segmentation.

The first section (lines 1–4) uses the vowel “e” as the rhyme sound;

the second section (lines 5–8) uses “ai” as the rhyme sound;

the third section (lines 7–12) adopts abab alternating rhyme, using “ei” and “o” as rhyme vowels;

the final couplet ends with the long vowel “I:”.

Although rhyme shifts occur between the first and second sections, each section maintains a single vowel rhyme.

The alternating rhyme of the third section creates interwoven sound patterns, enriching the poem’s melodic texture.

Daffodils (W. Wordsworth)

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’ver vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the tree,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze,
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle in the Milk Way,
They stretched in never ending line
Along the margin of the day.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed——but little saw
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mod,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

Wordsworth’s poem Daffodils is divided into four stanzas, each consisting of six lines, and thus still belongs to metrical poetry.

The rhyme scheme of each stanza follows a regular pattern, and the syllabic structure is likewise controlled.

In terms of rhyme, each stanza adopts the end-rhyme pattern ababcc, and each line contains between two and four rhythmic units.

This poem has not yet entered the stage of free verse (vers lib’er’ves, unrhymed poetry), in which form is entirely unrestricted.

Metrical form still constituted the principal creative orientation of Wordsworth as a poet of the Romantic period.