Use the vocabulary practiced in tasks 1 and 2 to make up situations of your own

Find the Russian equivalents for the following words and expressions. Make up sentences with some of them (5-10)

Tasks

RHYTHM

Text 2

THE LANGUAGE OF LITERATURE:

Every language has rhythm as a result of its prosodic features. These features, especially stress and pauses, are used not only to emphasize, express emotion, and signal grammatical units but also to make a pattern of strong and weak beats—a rhythm. The most precise rhythmic patterns are found in poetry, but they occur also in literary prose and in everyday language. For example, English speakers will normally talk about "a pen and pencil" rather than "a pencil and pen." The first way <pf ordering the phrase is more balanced in its alternation of strong and weak stresses and is thus more rhythmical. Other compounds that are ordered rhythmically are cream and sugar, rough and ready, coat and trousers, brush and palette, fire and water. To be sure, rhythmic patterns are not the only thing that influences the order of compounded words; semantics also plays a part. Thus, we usually say "table and chairs" rather than "chairs and table," perhaps because chairs, as subordinate to a table, seem to belong in second position. When meaning does not determine the order of compounds, how­ever, rhythm usually puts the shorter word first.

The rhythm of carefully written prose is easy to hear, as in the following sentence from a 1941 speech by Sir Winston Churchill: "We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire." ⁽In Blood, Sweat, and Tears (New York, 1941), p. 462).

The first compound, fail or falter, has the rhythmical order typical of such expressions; but the second, weaken or tire, reverses the pattern, to get the strongly stressed syllable at the end. In view of the meaning being stated, a final unstressed syllable would have been wrong. "We shall not tire or weaken" would have lacked the determina­tion and forcefulness of sound that the stressed last syllable gives. As Churchill wrote the sentence, it expresses the resolution of the English people to see the fight through. Moreover, the beat of the whole line" is as regular and as distinct as any found in poetry. The difference between prose and verse is not that prose lacks rhythm, but that it does not sustain a single rhythm as long as poetry does.

The systematic rhythm of poetry, called meter, is traditionally said to be of several kinds. Iambic meter is a two-beat rhythm in which weak and strong syllables alternate. (Strong syllables are marked with the acute accent (') and weak syllables with the breve (ˇ).

Ă Bóok ǒf Vérsěs únděrnéath thě Bóugh,

Ă Júg ǒf Wíne, a Lóaf ǒf Bréad—ǎnd Thóu

Běsíde mě síngĭng ín thě Wílděrnéss—

Óh, Wílděrnéss wěre Párǎdíse ěnów!

The meter of poetry specifies only two degrees of stress, but in English we can pick out several degrees. If we were to read the above lines aloud, distinguishing only the two metrical levels, the result would be a singsong of such monotony that it would submerge the sense of the lines in a rhythmic tom-tom:

a BOOK of VER ses UN der NEATH the BOUGH,

a JUG of WINE, a LOAF of BREAD—and THOU

be SIDE me SING ing IN the WIL der NESS—

oh, WIL der NESS were PAR a DISE e NOW!

Variety is introduced into poetic meter by fitting the greater number of stresses of normal English into a metrical pattern of only two levels. The tension between freer prose rhythm and fixed poetic meter makes verse forms interesting and saves them from a monotonous thump-thumping. Thus one way of reading the above lines from Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is with stresses and pauses as follows, with the breve used for unstressed vowels:

Ă Bôok of Vêrsěs ùnděrnêath thě Bóugh, |

Ă Jûg ǒf Wíne, | â Lôaf ǒf Bréad - ↑ ǎnd Thôu

Běsîde mè sîngĭng ìn thě Wílděrnèss—, ↑

Ôh, Wílděrnèss | wěre Pärǎdìse ěnôw! ↓

The requirements of the poetic meter are met as long as there is an alternation of relatively weak and relatively strong syllables. In line three, me and in have about the same degree of absolute stress, but the secondary stress on me is flanked by reduced primaries, so it is metrically weak, whereas the same stress on in is flanked by unstressed syllables, which by contrast make it metrically strong.

However great the variety of stress may be in these lines, they preserve the iambic meter by alternating relatively weak and strong syllables.

Pauses, or pitch terminals as they are also called, serve two special functions in poetry. They may mark the end of a verse line, as the level pause does after Bough in line one above, and they may come within a line to provide momentary breaks in the rhythm, like the pauses after Wine and Bread in line two. When a terminal pause coincides with the end of a verse line, the line is said to be end-stopped. Lines one, three, and four above are end-stopped. Line two, on the other hand, has no pause at its end, but leads directly into the following line: "... and Thou Beside me...." Such lines are said to be run-on. A pause within a line, like that after Wilderness in line four, is called a caesura.

Although iambic meter is the most common poetic rhythm, there are several others. Trochaic meter is, like iambic, a two-beat rhythm, but it begins with the strong syllable, as in the following lines by Leigh Hunt:

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,

Say I'm growing old, but add,

Jenny kiss'd me.

The anapestic and dactylic meters are both three-beat rhythms. In anapestic, two weak syllables are followed by a strong, as in the lines by Lewis Carroll:

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,

"And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head—

Do you think, at your age, It is right?"

Dactylic meter begins.with the strong syllable, as in Thomas Hood's "The Bridge of Sighs":

Touch her not scornfully;

Think of her mournfully,

Gently and humanly;

Not of the stains of her,

All that remains of her

Now is pure womanly.

Occasionally poets use the spondaic meter, in which strongly stressed syl­lables predominate, as in these lines by Tennyson:

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a poem called "Metrical Feet," in which he describes and illustrates the five meters just discussed. Using an older terminology, Coleridge speaks of "long" and "short" syllables, instead of "strong" and "weak":

Trochee trips from long to short;

From long to long in solemn sort

Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able

Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable.

Iambics march from short to long;

With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.

To be sure; to emphasize; to express emotions; precise rhythmic patterns; to occur; typical of such expressions; in view of; to alternate; to be of several kinds; determina­tion and forcefulness of sound; to specify; to read aloud; the above lines; to submerge the sense; variety; the same degree of; to serve special functions; to mark the end of a verse line; to come within a line; to provide momentary breaks in the rhythm; to coincide with.

2. Explain the meaning of the following words and word-combinations:

rhythm; prosodic features; stress; pauses; to make a pattern of strong and weak beats; poetry; literary prose; everyday language; more balanced in its alternation of strong and weak stresses; iambic meter; monotony; secondary stress; reduced primaries; pitch terminals; end-stopped lines; run-on lines; caesura.

3. Find the Russian equivalents for the following sentences:

1) The difference between prose and verse is not that prose lacks rhythm, but that it does not sustain a single rhythm as long as poetry does.

2) The systematic rhythm of poetry, called meter, is traditionally said to be of several kinds. Iambic meter is a two-beat rhythm in which weak and strong syllables alternate.

3) The meter of poetry specifies only two degrees of stress, but in English we can pick out several degrees.

4) Although iambic meter is the most common poetic rhythm, there are several others. Trochaic meter is, like iambic, a two-beat rhythm, but it begins with the strong syllable.

5) Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a poem called "Metrical Feet," in which he describes and illustrates the five meters just discussed. Using an older terminology, Coleridge speaks of "long" and "short" syllables, instead of "strong" and "weak":

5. Make your own list of key–units and topical vocabulary

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