Geoffrey Russom
Brown University, English, Emeritus
- I do research on several closely related topics: theory of poetic form, theory of formulaic composition, historical ... moreI do research on several closely related topics: theory of poetic form, theory of formulaic composition, historical linguistics, pre-state culture, and the aesthetic excellence of pre-literate verse.edit
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Research Interests: Sociology and Scholarship
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In this fascinating study, Geoffrey Russom traces the evolution of the major English poetic traditions by reference to the evolution of the English language, and considers how verse forms are born, how they evolve, and why they die. Using... more
In this fascinating study, Geoffrey Russom traces the evolution of the major English poetic traditions by reference to the evolution of the English language, and considers how verse forms are born, how they evolve, and why they die. Using a general theory of poetic form employing universal principles rooted in the human language faculty, Russom argues that certain kinds of poetry tend to arise spontaneously in languages with identifiable characteristics. Language changes may require modification of metrical rules and may eventually lead to extinction of a meter. Russom's theory is applied to explain the development of English meters from the earliest alliterative poems in Old and Middle English and the transition to iambic meter in the Modern English period. This thorough yet accessible study provides detailed analyses of form in key poems, including Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and a glossary of technical terms.
Research Interests: Art, Middle English, Literature, Poetry, Metre, and 3 moreEnglish Studies, Knight, and Iambic Pentameter
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To refine the word-foot theory, I have worked to incorporate statistical studies of related meters and recent developments in linguistics. The theory now provides explanations for how the meter arose, how it developed within Old Norse,... more
To refine the word-foot theory, I have worked to incorporate statistical studies of related meters and recent developments in linguistics. The theory now provides explanations for how the meter arose, how it developed within Old Norse, Old English, Old Saxon, and Old High German, and how it evolved into the Middle English meter of poems like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.1 Here I return to the Old English (OE) period, this time with different emphases. Rather than showing how the theory explains observations in previous research, I present an updated theory on its own, with more attention to problems in alternative approaches. Rather than reviewing all available evidence for the theory, I focus on the clearest and most accessible evidence that shows why this kind of theory is required. The first task for a metrical theorist is to identify what Roman Jakobson called a metrical constant: something not required by ordinary grammar that holds true throughout a poem.2 The alliterative line consists of two verses, the first called the a-verse and the second called the b-verse. Eduard Sievers observed that most verses have four metrical positions if we assume that adjacent unstressed syllables share a single weak position called a Senkung, “dip.”3 This straightforward counting procedure would provide a metrical constant if it identified four positions in every verse, but it does not. To account for exceptions with three positions, rules have been proposed that “promote” an unstressed syllable to a stressed syllable
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Kuhn (1933) proposed that the evolution of Germanic syntax began with a need to restore acceptable sentence rhythm after a shift to fixed initial stress. Kuhn found support for his hypothesis in ‘laws’ for word placement that applied in... more
Kuhn (1933) proposed that the evolution of Germanic syntax began with a need to restore acceptable sentence rhythm after a shift to fixed initial stress. Kuhn found support for his hypothesis in ‘laws’ for word placement that applied in alliterative poetry but not in prose. Kuhn assumed that his laws were syntactic rules of Proto-Germanic maintained by conservative poets. Here I argue that Kuhn's Laws were rules of poetic meter that obscured basic word order. Adopting the universalist approach in Russom (2017), I integrate Kuhn's Laws with the metrical constraints observed by Sievers (1893) and explore the interaction between meter and syntax. When there are no adverse metrical consequences, subject-object-verb order is employed with remarkable consistency in Beowulf, our most valuable source of poetic evidence. My analysis receives independent support from Smith (1971), a study of the earliest Germanic texts that focuses primarily on prose.
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RUSSOM, Geoffrey, "Metrical Complexity in Pessoa's 35 Sonnets" (2016). Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, No. 10, Fall, pp. 151-172. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.... more
RUSSOM, Geoffrey, "Metrical Complexity in Pessoa's 35 Sonnets" (2016). Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, No. 10, Fall, pp. 151-172. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0G73BV9 Is Part of: Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, Issue 10 Metrical Complexity in Pessoa’s 35 Sonnets [Complexidade Métrica nos 35 Sonnets de Pessoa] https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0G73BV9 ABSTRACT Though obviously inspired by Shakespeare's sonnets, Pessoa's English sonnets employ metrical patterns, enjambments, and grammatical constructions not used by Shakespeare. This mixture of effects has been criticized as somewhat awkward or even incompetent. The assumption seems to be that Pessoa tried, and failed, to create an authentic Shakespearean masquerade. Here I argue that Pessoa's sonnets are modernist poems that appropriate the past in the manner of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Like Pessoa, Hopkins was intensely interested in metrical variety, wrote innovative sonnets, and appropriated complex rhythms from English poets other than Shakespeare, notably Milton. Like Pessoa, Hopkins used archaic English and modernist grammatical constructions as well. Aspects of Pessoa's verse sometimes criticized as excessive are carried even farther by Hopkins, whose verse is now widely admired. The assumption that Pessoa is a modernist of a particular kind brings into focus his strengths as a scholarly poet. RESUMO Embora claramente inspirados nos sonetos de Shakespeare, os 35 Sonnets de Pessoa empregam esquemas métricos, cavalgamentos e construções gramaticais não utilizadas por Shakespeare. Esta mescla de efeitos tem sido criticada como estranha ou, até mesmo, como incompetente. A suposição é que Pessoa teria tentado, sem sucesso, criar uma imitação Shakespeariana. Aqui defendo que os sonetos de Pessoa são poemas modernistas, os quais se apropriam do passado à maneira de Gerard Manley Hopkins. Tal como Pessoa, Hopkins interessava-se profundamente pela variedade métrica, tendo escrito sonetos inovadores e se apropriado de ritmos complexos de poetas ingleses para além de Shakespeare, notavelmente Milton. Tal como Pessoa, Hopkins também usou inglês arcaico e construções gramaticais modernísticas. Alguns aspectos do verso pessoano, por vezes criticados como excessivos, são levados ainda mais longe por Hopkins, cuja poesia é hoje largamente admirada. A suposição de que Pessoa é um tipo especial de modernista traz à tona a sua erudição como poeta. BIBLIOGRAPHY DAUNT, Marjorie (1968). “Old English Verse and English Speech Rhythm.” Essential Articles for the Study of Old English Poetry. Edited by Jess B. Bessinger and Stanley J. Karhl. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books). [Reprint of the original 1947 article in Transactions of the Philological Society (for 1946), pp. 56-72]. DUFFELL, Martin (2008). A New History of English Metre. London: Legenda. ELIOT, Thomas Stearns (1921). Review of Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler, by Herbert J. C. Grierson, Times Literary Supplement, 20 October 1921, pp. 669-670. FERRARI, Patricio (2015). “Pessoa and Borges: In the Margins of Milton.” Variaciones Borges, Daniel Balderston, ed., nº 40, University of Pittsburgh, Fall, pp. 3-21. ____ (2012). Meter and Rhythm in the Poetry of Fernando Pessoa. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Linguistics. Lisbon: University of Lisbon. FERRARI, Patricio and Carlos PITTELLA (2014). “Four Unpublished English Sonnets (and the Editorial Status of Pessoa’s English Poetry).” Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies, Patricio Ferrari and Jerónimo Pizarro, guest editors, 28, UMass at Darmouth, Tagus Press, pp. 249-276. HALLE, Morris and Samuel Jay KEYSER (1971). English Stress: Its Form, Its Growth, and Its Role in Verse. New York: Harper & Row. HAYES, Bruce (1983). “A Grid-Based Theory of English Meter.” Linguistic Inquiry, 14, pp. 357-393. HOPKINS, Gerard Manley (1990). The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Edited by Norman H. MacKenzie. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ____ (1918). Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Edited by Robert Bridges. London: Humphrey Milford. JAKOBSON, Roman (1963). “On the So-Called Vowel Alliteration in Germanic Verse.” Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft, und Kommunikationsforschung, 16, pp. 85-92. KIPARSKY, Paul (1989). “Sprung Rhythm.” KIPARSKY and YOUMANS, 1989, pp. 305-340. ____ (1977). “The Rhythmic Structure of English Verse.” Linguistic Inquiry, 8, pp. 189-247. KIPARSKY, Paul and Gilbert YOUMANS (1989). Rhythm and Meter. Vol. 1: Phonetics and Phonology. San Diego: Academic Press. MURPHY, Gerard (1961). Early Irish Metrics. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. PESSOA, Fernando (2013). Apreciações Literárias de Fernando Pessoa. Edited by Pauly Ellen Bothe. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. ____ (2006). Escritos sobre Génio e Loucura. Edited by Jerónimo Pizarro. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Critical Edition…
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Many changes in the history of the English language give the appearance of a chaotic system, since they seem to resist the methods of analysis developed by historical linguists over the course of two centuries of modern research. In... more
Many changes in the history of the English language give the appearance of a chaotic system, since they seem to resist the methods of analysis developed by historical linguists over the course of two centuries of modern research. In studies on all periods, many of the world's leading scholars of the English language recommend specific strategies for accounting for the seeming disarray of changes.
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RUSSOM, Geoffrey, "Metrical Complexity in Pessoa's 35 Sonnets" (2016). Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, No. 10, Fall, pp. 151-172. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0G73BV9... more
RUSSOM, Geoffrey, "Metrical Complexity in Pessoa's 35 Sonnets" (2016). Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, No. 10, Fall, pp. 151-172. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0G73BV9
Is Part of:
Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, Issue 10
Metrical Complexity in Pessoa’s 35 Sonnets
[Complexidade Métrica nos 35 Sonnets de Pessoa]
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0G73BV9
ABSTRACT
Though obviously inspired by Shakespeare's sonnets, Pessoa's English sonnets employ metrical patterns, enjambments, and grammatical constructions not used by Shakespeare. This mixture of effects has been criticized as somewhat awkward or even incompetent. The assumption seems to be that Pessoa tried, and failed, to create an authentic Shakespearean masquerade. Here I argue that Pessoa's sonnets are modernist poems that appropriate the past in the manner of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Like Pessoa, Hopkins was intensely interested in metrical variety, wrote innovative sonnets, and appropriated complex rhythms from English poets other than Shakespeare, notably Milton. Like Pessoa, Hopkins used archaic English and modernist grammatical constructions as well. Aspects of Pessoa's verse sometimes criticized as excessive are carried even farther by Hopkins, whose verse is now widely admired. The assumption that Pessoa is a modernist of a particular kind brings into focus his strengths as a scholarly poet.
RESUMO
Embora claramente inspirados nos sonetos de Shakespeare, os 35 Sonnets de Pessoa empregam esquemas métricos, cavalgamentos e construções gramaticais não utilizadas por Shakespeare. Esta mescla de efeitos tem sido criticada como estranha ou, até mesmo, como incompetente. A suposição é que Pessoa teria tentado, sem sucesso, criar uma imitação Shakespeariana. Aqui defendo que os sonetos de Pessoa são poemas modernistas, os quais se apropriam do passado à maneira de Gerard Manley Hopkins. Tal como Pessoa, Hopkins interessava-se profundamente pela variedade métrica, tendo escrito sonetos inovadores e se apropriado de ritmos complexos de poetas ingleses para além de Shakespeare, notavelmente Milton. Tal como Pessoa, Hopkins também usou inglês arcaico e construções gramaticais modernísticas. Alguns aspectos do verso pessoano, por vezes criticados como excessivos, são levados ainda mais longe por Hopkins, cuja poesia é hoje largamente admirada. A suposição de que Pessoa é um tipo especial de modernista traz à tona a sua erudição como poeta.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DAUNT, Marjorie (1968). “Old English Verse and English Speech Rhythm.” Essential Articles for the
Study of Old English Poetry. Edited by Jess B. Bessinger and Stanley J. Karhl. Hamden,
Connecticut: Archon Books). [Reprint of the original 1947 article in Transactions of the
Philological Society (for 1946), pp. 56-72].
DUFFELL, Martin (2008). A New History of English Metre. London: Legenda.
ELIOT, Thomas Stearns (1921). Review of Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century:
Donne to Butler, by Herbert J. C. Grierson, Times Literary Supplement, 20 October 1921, pp.
669-670.
FERRARI, Patricio (2015). “Pessoa and Borges: In the Margins of Milton.” Variaciones Borges,
Daniel Balderston, ed., nº 40, University of Pittsburgh, Fall, pp. 3-21.
____ (2012). Meter and Rhythm in the Poetry of Fernando Pessoa. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of
Linguistics. Lisbon: University of Lisbon.
FERRARI, Patricio and Carlos PITTELLA (2014). “Four Unpublished English Sonnets (and the Editorial
Status of Pessoa’s English Poetry).” Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies, Patricio Ferrari
and Jerónimo Pizarro, guest editors, 28, UMass at Darmouth, Tagus Press, pp. 249-276.
HALLE, Morris and Samuel Jay KEYSER (1971). English Stress: Its Form, Its Growth, and Its Role in
Verse. New York: Harper & Row.
HAYES, Bruce (1983). “A Grid-Based Theory of English Meter.” Linguistic Inquiry, 14, pp. 357-393.
HOPKINS, Gerard Manley (1990). The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Edited by Norman H.
MacKenzie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
____ (1918). Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Edited by Robert Bridges. London: Humphrey
Milford.
JAKOBSON, Roman (1963). “On the So-Called Vowel Alliteration in Germanic Verse.” Zeitschrift für
Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft, und Kommunikationsforschung, 16, pp. 85-92.
KIPARSKY, Paul (1989). “Sprung Rhythm.” KIPARSKY and YOUMANS, 1989, pp. 305-340.
____ (1977). “The Rhythmic Structure of English Verse.” Linguistic Inquiry, 8, pp. 189-247.
KIPARSKY, Paul and Gilbert YOUMANS (1989). Rhythm and Meter. Vol. 1: Phonetics and Phonology. San
Diego: Academic Press.
MURPHY, Gerard (1961). Early Irish Metrics. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.
PESSOA, Fernando (2013). Apreciações Literárias de Fernando Pessoa. Edited by Pauly Ellen Bothe.
Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda.
____ (2006). Escritos sobre Génio e Loucura. Edited by Jerónimo Pizarro. Lisbon: Imprensa
Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Critical Edition of Fernando Pessoa. Major Series, Volume VII. 2
volumes.
____ (1993). Poemas Ingleses. Antinous, Inscriptions, Epitalamium, 35 Sonnets. Edited by João
Dionísio. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Critical Edition of Fernando Pessoa.
Major Series, Volume V, tome I.
_____ (1966). Páginas Íntimas e de Auto-Interpretação. Texts established and prefaced by Georg
Rudolf Lind and Jacinto do Prado Coelho. Lisbon: Ática.
_____ (1918). 35 Sonnets. Lisbon: Monteiro and Company.
PIZARRO, Jerónimo, Patricio FERRARI, and Antonio CARDIELLO (2010). A Biblioteca Particular de
Fernando Pessoa. Collection of the Fernando Pessoa House. Bilingual edition. Lisbon: D.
Quixote.
RUSSOM, Geoffrey (2011). “Word Patterns and Phrase Patterns in Universalist Metrics,” in Frontiers
in Comparative Prosody. Edited by Mihhail Lotman and Maria-Kristiina Lotman. Bern: Peter
Lang, pp. 337-371.
SCHMIDT, Alexander (1971). Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary. 3rd edition revised and
enlarged by Gregor Sarrazin. New York: Dover. Unabridged republication of the 1902
edition entitled Shakespeare-Lexicon.
YOUMANS, Gilbert (1989). “Milton’s Meter.”KIPARSKY and YOUMANS, 1989, pp. 341-379.
Is Part of:
Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, Issue 10
Metrical Complexity in Pessoa’s 35 Sonnets
[Complexidade Métrica nos 35 Sonnets de Pessoa]
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0G73BV9
ABSTRACT
Though obviously inspired by Shakespeare's sonnets, Pessoa's English sonnets employ metrical patterns, enjambments, and grammatical constructions not used by Shakespeare. This mixture of effects has been criticized as somewhat awkward or even incompetent. The assumption seems to be that Pessoa tried, and failed, to create an authentic Shakespearean masquerade. Here I argue that Pessoa's sonnets are modernist poems that appropriate the past in the manner of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Like Pessoa, Hopkins was intensely interested in metrical variety, wrote innovative sonnets, and appropriated complex rhythms from English poets other than Shakespeare, notably Milton. Like Pessoa, Hopkins used archaic English and modernist grammatical constructions as well. Aspects of Pessoa's verse sometimes criticized as excessive are carried even farther by Hopkins, whose verse is now widely admired. The assumption that Pessoa is a modernist of a particular kind brings into focus his strengths as a scholarly poet.
RESUMO
Embora claramente inspirados nos sonetos de Shakespeare, os 35 Sonnets de Pessoa empregam esquemas métricos, cavalgamentos e construções gramaticais não utilizadas por Shakespeare. Esta mescla de efeitos tem sido criticada como estranha ou, até mesmo, como incompetente. A suposição é que Pessoa teria tentado, sem sucesso, criar uma imitação Shakespeariana. Aqui defendo que os sonetos de Pessoa são poemas modernistas, os quais se apropriam do passado à maneira de Gerard Manley Hopkins. Tal como Pessoa, Hopkins interessava-se profundamente pela variedade métrica, tendo escrito sonetos inovadores e se apropriado de ritmos complexos de poetas ingleses para além de Shakespeare, notavelmente Milton. Tal como Pessoa, Hopkins também usou inglês arcaico e construções gramaticais modernísticas. Alguns aspectos do verso pessoano, por vezes criticados como excessivos, são levados ainda mais longe por Hopkins, cuja poesia é hoje largamente admirada. A suposição de que Pessoa é um tipo especial de modernista traz à tona a sua erudição como poeta.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DAUNT, Marjorie (1968). “Old English Verse and English Speech Rhythm.” Essential Articles for the
Study of Old English Poetry. Edited by Jess B. Bessinger and Stanley J. Karhl. Hamden,
Connecticut: Archon Books). [Reprint of the original 1947 article in Transactions of the
Philological Society (for 1946), pp. 56-72].
DUFFELL, Martin (2008). A New History of English Metre. London: Legenda.
ELIOT, Thomas Stearns (1921). Review of Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century:
Donne to Butler, by Herbert J. C. Grierson, Times Literary Supplement, 20 October 1921, pp.
669-670.
FERRARI, Patricio (2015). “Pessoa and Borges: In the Margins of Milton.” Variaciones Borges,
Daniel Balderston, ed., nº 40, University of Pittsburgh, Fall, pp. 3-21.
____ (2012). Meter and Rhythm in the Poetry of Fernando Pessoa. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of
Linguistics. Lisbon: University of Lisbon.
FERRARI, Patricio and Carlos PITTELLA (2014). “Four Unpublished English Sonnets (and the Editorial
Status of Pessoa’s English Poetry).” Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies, Patricio Ferrari
and Jerónimo Pizarro, guest editors, 28, UMass at Darmouth, Tagus Press, pp. 249-276.
HALLE, Morris and Samuel Jay KEYSER (1971). English Stress: Its Form, Its Growth, and Its Role in
Verse. New York: Harper & Row.
HAYES, Bruce (1983). “A Grid-Based Theory of English Meter.” Linguistic Inquiry, 14, pp. 357-393.
HOPKINS, Gerard Manley (1990). The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Edited by Norman H.
MacKenzie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
____ (1918). Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Edited by Robert Bridges. London: Humphrey
Milford.
JAKOBSON, Roman (1963). “On the So-Called Vowel Alliteration in Germanic Verse.” Zeitschrift für
Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft, und Kommunikationsforschung, 16, pp. 85-92.
KIPARSKY, Paul (1989). “Sprung Rhythm.” KIPARSKY and YOUMANS, 1989, pp. 305-340.
____ (1977). “The Rhythmic Structure of English Verse.” Linguistic Inquiry, 8, pp. 189-247.
KIPARSKY, Paul and Gilbert YOUMANS (1989). Rhythm and Meter. Vol. 1: Phonetics and Phonology. San
Diego: Academic Press.
MURPHY, Gerard (1961). Early Irish Metrics. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.
PESSOA, Fernando (2013). Apreciações Literárias de Fernando Pessoa. Edited by Pauly Ellen Bothe.
Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda.
____ (2006). Escritos sobre Génio e Loucura. Edited by Jerónimo Pizarro. Lisbon: Imprensa
Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Critical Edition of Fernando Pessoa. Major Series, Volume VII. 2
volumes.
____ (1993). Poemas Ingleses. Antinous, Inscriptions, Epitalamium, 35 Sonnets. Edited by João
Dionísio. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda. Critical Edition of Fernando Pessoa.
Major Series, Volume V, tome I.
_____ (1966). Páginas Íntimas e de Auto-Interpretação. Texts established and prefaced by Georg
Rudolf Lind and Jacinto do Prado Coelho. Lisbon: Ática.
_____ (1918). 35 Sonnets. Lisbon: Monteiro and Company.
PIZARRO, Jerónimo, Patricio FERRARI, and Antonio CARDIELLO (2010). A Biblioteca Particular de
Fernando Pessoa. Collection of the Fernando Pessoa House. Bilingual edition. Lisbon: D.
Quixote.
RUSSOM, Geoffrey (2011). “Word Patterns and Phrase Patterns in Universalist Metrics,” in Frontiers
in Comparative Prosody. Edited by Mihhail Lotman and Maria-Kristiina Lotman. Bern: Peter
Lang, pp. 337-371.
SCHMIDT, Alexander (1971). Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary. 3rd edition revised and
enlarged by Gregor Sarrazin. New York: Dover. Unabridged republication of the 1902
edition entitled Shakespeare-Lexicon.
YOUMANS, Gilbert (1989). “Milton’s Meter.”KIPARSKY and YOUMANS, 1989, pp. 341-379.