Non-spatial shape and pattern have been important in the literature of the
past, and will surely become even more important in the literature of the
future. Henry James 'felt so strongly about formal structure that he was prepared
to make major sacrifices in other ways... in order to achieve a balanced and
harmonious pattern.' E. M. Forster pointed out that The Ambassadors 'has a
pattern so definite, and so consciously contrived by the author, that it can
be summed up in a familiar pictorial image: the hour glass. Two chief characters,
Strether and Chad Newsome, change places both morally and physically, crossing
at a central point: Paris.' (J. A. Sutherland, in 'Novels and Novelists, edited
by Martin Seymour-Smith.)
Samuel Beckett provides unexpected support for the importance of shape in literature. Martin Esslin, in The Theatre of the Absurd, writes,
'When Beckett is asked about the theme of Waiting for Godot, he sometimes refers to a passage in the writings of St Augustine: 'There is a wonderful sentence in Augustine. I wish I could remember the Latin. It is even finer in Latin than in English. "Do not despair: one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume: one of the thieves was damned."' And Beckett sometimes adds, 'I am interested in the shape of ideas even if I do not believe in them...That sentence has a wonderful shape. It is the shape that matters.'
The theme of the two thieves on the cross, the theme of the uncertainty of
the hope of salvation and the fortuitousness of the bestowal of grace, does
indeed pervade the whole play. Vladimir states it right at the beginning:
'One of the thieves was saved....It's a reasonable percentage.'
Variable line poetry
When a poet writes in iambic pentameters, the length of the lines is determined by the form chosen to a significant extent. In free verse, the length of the lines is not determined by the form but by other considerations, which may be complex. In some free verse, the length of the lines seems arbitrary. The use of lines of different length is obviously a well established technique in poetry, past and present, but variable line poetry introduces some new features, which make the use of a new name justifiable.
Variable line poetry, then, is yet another technique which produces contrast, the contrast between shorter and longer. In variable line poetry, the intention is to produce this contrast consciously and to produce a rhythm of shorter and longer lines, like the rhythm of shorter and longer paragraphs. The length of the lines is not ordered precisely, as in the concrete poems discussed earlier, but it is still important. The lines may not vary markedly in length. The differences may be subtle.
This poem is an example:
Softly falling snow,
settling and unsettling snow,
snow resting like mortar on the stone
of the cold, unroofed, unfinished home
we call the world,
snow drifting far, and wide.
But we drift, then fall.
Suddenly small,
finding nothing to grasp,
we suddenly gasp
weakly, weakly,
The sixth line, 'snow drifting far, and wide' is one of the wider lines, for an obvious reason. The eighth line, 'Suddenly small' is one of the shortest lines, for an equally obvious reason. The eleventh line, 'deeply, deeply' is short and concentrated. The twelfth line, 'soon silenced, and sleepy' is expansive.
This poem, short as it is, gives a number of basic techniques for use in variable line poetry, 'rules' for making lines longer or shorter, and the list can easily be expanded.
When the poem is read, we have to consider not only the length of the lines on the page but also their spoken values, as the voice slows and quickens - in other words, we have to consider the nature of the linkage between the poem on the page and the spoken poem. In many cases, the difference between shorter and longer lines will be more marked. The line 'snow drifting far, and wide' will naturally be given great length, almost as if the listener were being given the chance to imagine the snowdrifts in the winter landscape, and will be followed by a significant pause. The line 'Suddenly small' will naturally be spoken very rapidly. As the final line is spoken, 'soon silenced, and sleepy' there will be a slowing down - a rallentando - which is particularly marked after the comma.
There are various devices for making the sound value of lines appreciably longer than the 'page' value of lines: (1) caesuras (2) long vowels (3) rallentando.
I regard the use of long vowels as very important. Consonants and short vowels are like the notes produced by a percussive instrument, such as the piano. Long vowels can be sustained, like the long, sustained notes which most orchestral instruments can produce. The long vowels in 'far' and 'wide' in the line 'snow drifting far, and wide' give this line a particularly long sound value.
Poetry in English is accentual not quantitative, of course, but I attach great importance to the difference between short and long values - as a way of giving length to lines, not to establish quantitative metre.
Proportion and disproportion are important considerations in the discussion of variable line poetry, as they are in the discussion of architecture. Alec Clifton-Taylor, an architectural critic, can make the point (in 'The Cathedrals of England') that 'York nave is yet another English Gothic building which is too broad for its height.' A literary critic may make the point that the short lines in a poem of lines of variable length are too short in proportion to the long lines, or that there is a disproportion in the number of shorter lines compared to the number of longer lines. If, for example, the number of shorter lines is insignificant, the contrast may be muted and ineffective. Proportion is important in poetry as in architecture but this is not to say that poems should always be well-proportioned. The deliberate use of disproportion is a valuable technique. It can produce extreme, very modern effects.
In any systematic treatment of variable line poetry, one important distinction is that between lines which vary in length according to a regular scheme, and lines where the variation is free and irregular: pattern by line length may be either formal or non-formal. George Herbert is an example of a poet who often used lines of markedly different length in a regular scheme - examples are 'Discipline,' 'Virtue' and 'Love (III).'
For analysis of poetry where there are different line lengths (this poetry may or may not have the distinctive features of 'variable line poetry') a simple notation is needed. When the lines vary markedly in length, they can be described as L (long) and S (short) Herbert's 'Discipline' follows the scheme LLSL, 'Virtue' is LLS and 'Love (III)' is LS.
I have devised another notation which is useful for poems where the lines are not markedly dissimilar in length. The number of feet in each line can be listed. For example, a poem whose first line is a pentameter, whose second line is a trimeter and whose third line is a pentameter would be described as 5, 3, 5. A length diagram would show this by lines 5 units long, 3 units long and 5 units long.
A different notation is needed for the analysis of the spoken poem. The second line of a poem may contain long vowels and be longer than the first and third line when spoken. This could be shown by using timings for each line.
As I have already mentioned, it may be necessary in contemporary poetry patterned by sound to create rhymes and then to deflect attention away from them. Contrast of line length provides another way of doing this. A poem may follow the length scheme LSLS and be rhymed according to the sound scheme abba, so that long lines are rhymed with short lines and lines of similar length do not rhyme with each other. Sound linkage and length linkage can be shown together by using a length-sound notation. In this notation, this particular poem is La Sb Lb Sa.
A very short line, one consisting of a single word, can be rhymed with a much longer line, to emphasize contrast and reduce the obviousness of a linkage. This technique may convey finality. An example comes from the end of Poem 3:
are fading, distant. In the grey dawn, the pleasure of feeling
nothing.
Another example comes from the end of a poem of mine which is not given here:
they felt different -
indifferent.
In the poetry of the past, it is more common for length linkage to reinforce sound linkage. To give just one example, Hardy's poem 'Drummer Hodge' follows the composite scheme La Sb La Sb La Sb.
If the lines do not vary markedly in length, then notation will give the number of feet in a line, followed by a lower case letter to describe the sound scheme: for example, 5a 5b 4a 4b.
