Other Definitions
sprung rhythm (dict)
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Sprung RhythmSprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables. The British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins claimed to have discovered this previously-unnamed poetic rhythm in the natural patterns of English in folk songs, spoken poetry, Shakespeare, Milton, et al. He used diacritical marks on syllables to indicate which should be drawn out (acute e.g. ) and which uttered quickly (grave e.g. ). Some critics believe he merely coined a name for poems with mixed, irregular feet, like free verse. Example Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brindled cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And ll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckld (who knows how?)
With swft, slw; sweet, sur; adzzle, dm;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pst change:
Prise hm.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
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