about Frost's idea of "the sound of sense" and vernacular speech

forms, his wish to put these in tension or, as he put it,

"strained relation" with metrical pattern.

The primary metrical pattern in Frost is the primary metrical

pattern in English poetry, which is to say blank verse or

unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Well, meter: what is meter?

Meter is--it's a scheme for organizing verse,

for organizing lines of verse.

It's a scheme that in English counts accents or stresses per

line and then arranges them in a pattern.

Ordinarily, in accentual syllabic verse,

which is what we're reading more often than not in English

poetry, the accents are arranged in

relation to unaccented syllables, creating a kind of

limited array of standard units.

The most standard of these is the iamb.

The iamb is a simple pattern of an unstressed syllable followed

by a stressed one.

A boat, about,

a dress, a coat:

these are all simple iambic phrases that you hear in our

language all the time.

If you repeat a boat three times--a boat,

a boat, a boat--you have

trimeter, iambic trimester – three iambs in a row.

If you do it four times, you've got tetrameter,

a more common meter in English.

And if you repeat them five times, you have pentameter.

Accent: what is an accent?

For some of you, this will seem self-evident;

for others, it'll seem like a great puzzle.

What constitutes an accent when you--what is an accent in a

given English word?

In fact, linguists often argue about this subject,

and it's a complicated one.

Accent is something somewhat difficult to define and

categorize. Don't worry about that.

Poetry is not interested in expert debate at all,

and it converts the big spectrum of possible degrees of

accent into those two simple categories: stressed and

unstressed syllables.

So, if you're unsure about the metrical definition of a line,

because it's hard to discriminate between levels of

stress, as will almost certainly be the

case, remember that more often than not, the context takes over

and the regular beat of a meter rules and perhaps promotes an

accent in a phrase that might not otherwise seem to have one

to you. Let's illustrate these general

points by just reading together and trying to hear the beginning

of Robert Frost's poem "Birches,"

on page 211 in The Norton.

This is an example of blank verse, and that is always to

be--blank verse always, perhaps confusingly,

to be distinguished from free verse.

Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Free verse is non-metrical poetry, another thing

altogether. This is blank verse;

it's the language of Shakespeare;

it's the language of Milton.

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

Well, for me, when I try to make sense of the

meter of given lines, I think it's useful to try to

settle, to start, those syllables that

seem most clearly stressed, to, you know,

identify where there isn't question;

and use that then as a structure from which to

interpret the rest of the lines.

So, why don't we do that together?

Just looking at this first line: "When I see birches bend

to left and right."

"When I see birches bend to left and right."

"When I see birches bend to left and right."

And sometimes it's not good to repeat it too often;

then you start to become unhinged.

Let's see if we can't identify those syllables that we all are

going to agree on.

Where's the first accent that you really want to say,

"that's an accent"?

"I." "Birches."

"Bend." "Left."

"Right." Debate there?

Anybody want to propose another stress in that line?

Yes? There's a stress on "when" and

"see." But what if I had the phrase,

"I see"? What would be stressed in that

phrase, "I see"? "See."

That's true. "When I see birches bend to

left and right." I think I would want to scan

that line as a bit of an odd beginning.

I think that word "see" deserves the accent there,

and so it's--the first unit of sound isn't quite normative.

It takes Frost a little sweep to get going.

"When I see birches bend to left and right."

But by the time we finish the end of that line,

we are really right in the middle of very regular iambic

pentameter. When I see birches bend

to left and right Across the lines of straighter

darker trees, I like to think some boy's been

swinging them. "Across the lines of straighter

darker trees." Let's do "the lines of

straighter darker trees."

Let's do that line.

Accents here? "Cross."

"Lines." "Straight."

"Trees." Yes, that one's pretty simple.

Thank you Frost, you have delivered this to us.

And as is not often the case – excuse me,

as is not seldom the case in Frost – there is almost a kind

of metaphorical play between what he's describing and the

sounds with which he is doing the describing.

Here, this image of the lines of trees and the metrical

regularity of that verse that describes them.

"I like to think some boy's been swinging them."

"I like to think some boy's been swinging them."

Yes, what about this line?

"I like to think some boy's been swinging them."

Student: [inaudible] Professor Langdon

Hammer: The point is that "swing" has some interesting

swinging effect. Yes, I'm not sure how to

describe that exactly.

Yes, we want to put a stress on "swing."

What other words in that line?

I'm sorry, "think"? Good.

"Like," yes. "I like" is like "I see."

"I like to think some boy's," "swing," "them."

Yes, this, too, is an utterly regular iambic

pentameter line: unstressed syllable followed by

a stressed syllable, five in a row.

And, yet, think about the qualities of sound that are so

different between "across the lines of straighter darker

trees" and "I like to think some boy's been swinging them."

What Frost is interested in is what, really,

ultimate variety of sounds he is able to produce as that

metrical pattern comes into some kind of tension with English

sentence sounds, as he calls them,

with the effect that each of Frost's lines of iambic

pentameter has different qualities,

even when they're utterly regular.

And there are, in Frost, often some

variations. This is something I'd like you

to practice, I'd like you to think about, be conscious of,

and it's something we can return to.

It's not something I expect you to necessarily master or become

advanced in your expertise, but it is a dimension of the

poetry that's absolutely essential to what it is and to

what you're doing when you read and you hear that voice

speaking. And so, I'd like you to work on

attuning yourselves to it.

What can you do with sound as interpreters?

How do we start to make a connection between what we hear

and what things mean?

Well, in Frost's case, as I'm suggesting,

there's often very skillful and complex imitation going on

between Frost's sounds and what he's imaging or describing or

the actions and events in the poem.

That's the case marvelously in this poem, and I'd be happy to

talk about particular examples with any of you who'd like to

work through it. But the point I want to make

about it is much more general and we don't have to look at

particular cases to make it.

This is a poem about bending and breaking,

or not breaking, forms – forms,

the material givens of the world.

It's a poem, in fact, about strained

relation in a kind of play that Frost is exploring,

and that strained relation that the boy achieves as he learns

how to play with these trees.

Well, that's a version of what we hear in the poem when we hear

the forms of strained relation between Frost's dynamic speech

sounds and the metrical pattern of his writing.

The kinetic activity of the form of the poem,

in other words, is something that's like,

but it's also itself for Frost, an instance of the relations of

force and counter-force, desire and gravity,

that the poem is describing.

The meter has, in other words,

in relation to his individual sentence sounds,

some of the flexibility and also resistance that those trees

have in relation to the boy using them to swing;

to swing, to go up and down; to come and go safely.

These are primal forms of play, if you like,

that suggest forms of poetic activity;

also, spiritual activity.

Frost's ways of using language in short are like--are versions

of the boy's way of using the trees.

Let's look at the poem together.

I'll read it. I like to think some

boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do.

[Frost is going to counter-pose the boy's swinging to

the natural forces imaged in the ice storm.]

Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter

morning After a rain.

They click upon themselves As the breeze rises,

and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes

their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes

them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on

the snow crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to

sweep away You'd think the inner dome of

heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the

ground Like girls on hands and knees

that throw their hair Before them over their heads to

dry in the sun. But I was going to say when

Truth broke in With all her matter of fact

about the ice storm, I should prefer to have some

boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch

the cows-- Some boy too far from town to

learn baseball, Whose only play was what he

found himself, Summer or winter,

and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer.

He learned all there was To learn about not launching

out too soon And so not carrying the tree

away Clear to the ground.

He always kept his poise To the top branches,

climbing carefully With the same pains you use to

fill a cup Up to the brim,

and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile,

And then come back to it and begin over.