Thursday, July 20, 2006

"on musicality in verse"

"In sum: n moves into d and t; and d and t move respectively into voiced and unvoiced th...Similarly, the m family could be designated as [m--b--v, m--p--f]...
J is cognate with ch (as voiced and unvoiced members of the same family). Hard g is cognate with k. And z is cognate with s, from which we could move to a corresponding aspirate pair, zh (as in "seizure") and sh...
We may next note an acrostic structure for getting consistency with variation...Perhaps the most beautiful example of the consonantal acrostic in Coleridge is..."A damsel with a dulcimer," where you match d-m-z-l with d-l-s-m-plus r...
In the consonantal usage, the chiasmus is usually to be discovered by using the theory of cognates. Thus, in "beneath the ruined tower," the last two words are chiastic is their consonantal reversal, r--nd t--r (with t as a variant of nd)....In "green light that lingers," the
g-r-n-l of "green light" is acrostically reordered as l-ng-r in lingers... "

--Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form

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