ABSTRACT
In asking why English verse is characterised by particular rhythmic properties, and in looking for ways o f talking precisely about those properties, I have constantly implied, but given no specific attention to, possible answers to a different question: what is the function of rhythmic organisation as an aspect of poetic language? Since the most obvious distinction between prose and verse is a rhythmic one, it is a question that confronts the function of poetry itself as a form of language and art, and to discuss it in detail, without taking anything for granted, would demand another book. Let us merely remind ourselves what such a study would entail: it would be an attempt to explain why the practice of organising a very small selection of the features of the spoken language into a strictly limited set of patterns has manifested itself over a range of verbal activity from the most infantile to the most sophisticated, in a variety of cultural contexts from the most elite to the most popular, and in a historical continuum that shows no signs of coming to an end; and why specimens of language ordered in this way have been almost universally acknowledged to possess a power and an appeal not shared by any other linguistic productions. By contrast, all I shall be doing in this chapter is bringing under brief scrutiny some widespread views of the functions of rhythm in verse, in order to relate more fully the foregoing theoretical account to the actual practice of poetry, before I turn to an even more pragmatic approach in Chapter 10.
