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Sounds Broken: a study of auto-reflexive rhythm in John Milton’s Samson Agonistes and Derek Walcott’s Omeros.

Erick Ramalho

“Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound”
(Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

This paper aims at analysing how, in John Milton’s Samson Agonistes and Derek Walcott’s Omeros, rhythm does not constitute, as traditionally accepted, a means of representing through metrics the theme conveyed by a poem or drama in verse. For doing so, I first proceed with an analysis of the rhythm in Samson Agonistes with the aim of demonstrating possible interpretations that differ from the usual privileging of the notion of representation of sense sound [1] . Secondly, I analyse Derek Walcott’s Omeros in order to demonstrate how a similar use of rhythm disrupting the binary representational relation between sound and sense occurs in the postmodern context. By describing the features of rhythm in both texts, I describe and explain what can be deemed their auto-reflexivity, which relates both and leads to the conclusion of this paper.

As regards rhythm, Samson Agonistes has always deserved close examination, a task that has always defied strict classification given the lack of a pattern of any nature, classical, Elizabethan or modern – Gerard Hopkins, famous for his metrical innovations, considers, for example, the verses of the chorus in Samson Agonistes as typical sprung rhythm, namely, the metrical sequence invented by Modernist Hopkins himself (Thorpe 371). As widely known, Samson is a “closet drama”– “whatever Milton’s early admiration for Shakespeare, he himself was not writing for the stage...” (Bush 196)– that favours the rhythmical experimentation through a more complex prosodic constitution, given that no actor is expected to speak its lines.

Yet, such assumption has not helped critics to determine a pattern that would fully explain, as it was their intention, the construction of rhythm in Samson. Traditionally, the most common attempt is to conceive the rhythm of the text in relation to variations in its theme, which ushers to a general structure with a manifold of exceptions that challenge the pattern conceived. Such attempts are embedded in the concept of representation that determines an adequate form to a particular sense, that is to say, the poetical text addresses its theme with a convenient form –“materia conveniente modis” in Ovid’s words. Perhaps the most relevant example of such trend of analysis is John Broadbent, who painstakingly describes and classifies the rhythm in Samson Agonistes.

For Broadbent, Samson is constructed upon a defined structure that, instead of repeating itself regularly as it occurs in other Miltonic poems, produces more or less unexpected variations according to the unfolding of the theme. This, according to the critic, leads to the existence of tensions between the rhythm and the theme in the text, which can be observed, for example, in the lines “Return the way thou cam’st: I will not come” and “My self? My conscience and internal peace!”, whose unusual rhythmical construction is assumed to “symbolise or complement the strain that Samson’s roused individuality is now putting on his captivity” (Broadbent 36).

Yet, the number of exceptions that defy Broadbent’s classification is such that he concludes that, in Samson, “apart from the context, the words are all along clashing against the metre, yet being contained tightly within it. Even when the lines go supple and idiomatic, a phrase will jut out to remind one that all is art” (37). The present study focuses on these particular parts that “jut out to remind one that all is art”, albeit the aim here is to shun the attribution of sequences as artistic as a means of leaving them unexplained, as it occurs when they are a conspicuous contradiction to models of representation. Yet, perhaps, they are not exceptions, but only parts of the text in which rhythm and sense are most conspicuously independent, though related. Thus, rather than the comprehensive (totalising) attempt by Broadbent, let us proceed with an analysis of the following excerpt from Samson, offering a new interpretation to it in terms of rhythm:

So fond are mortal men
Fall’n into wrath divine,
As thir own ruin on themselves to invite,
Insensate left, or to sense reprobate,
And with blindness internal struck
But he though blind of sight,
Despis’d and though extinguish’t quite,
With inward eyes illuminated... (quoted by Broadbent 37)

Broadbent judges that the variation of rhythm in these two stanzas is due to the conveyance of “actual sentiments” seldom “complicated” through an “expression” that is “packed, jostling and contorted” (37), a reasoning that becomes problematic when Broadbent faces that line “O dark, dark, dark” and deems it “almost surrealistic” (37).

Nonetheless, if the notion of representation is abandoned and rhythm and sense are considered independently and bearing no binary relation in which one should vary according to the other, rhythm in Samson has another significance. One should notice, in the excerpt above, that lines with variation in the number of syllables feature, like musical phrasing, punctual repetitions and evolutions that contribute to the rhythm as whole, though this whole is not a pre-conceived (in fact nor a “post-conceived”) pattern. Thus, for instance, sequences that are musical in themselves –“blind of sight”– are inserted in a line whose only other stressed word is “he”, thereby fixing the rhythm anticipated in the stanza before by “and with blindness internal struck”. The same excerpt appears as follows, now having its rhythmic construction emphasised by underlining its stressed syllables (a) followed by an a diagram (b)of the rhythm of the excerpt, in which “–” indicates a stressed and a “x” an unstressed syllable:

a) So fond are mortal men
Fall’n into wrath divine,
As thir own ruin on themselves to invite,
Insensate left, or to sense reprobate,
And with blindness internal struck
But he though blind of sight,
Despis’d and though extinguish’t quite,
With inward eyes illuminated...

b) – x – x – x
x – x – x – x
– – – x – – x– ­– – x
– x – x – – x – x –
– – x – – x – x
– x – x – x
– x – x – x – x
– x – x – – – x –

Obviously, the aim of this diagram is not to detach the rhythmical construction of the Miltonic text from its meaning, but rather to emphasise its existence on its own, that is to say, though being enabled by the same words that develop the theme and unfold the plot, rhythm is not conceived merely to sustain the sense, but produces significances of its own.

This can be observed in the repetition of the sequence (– – – x), which firstly appears in the second line of the first stanza and is repeated nearly in the end of the last line of the second stanza. Such repetition constitutes, in terms of sound, a rhythmical phrasing that does not depend on the sense of the words that enables such rhythm to exist, but is, in itself, a musical sequence. Even its graphical reproduction has an aesthetics of its own, resembling, particularly if the “–” and “x” were exchanged by musical notes, a musical notation. Their existence is of course related to words, which, in this case, are chosen both to develop the theme of the text, but also to allow the repetition of such rhythmical construction. Therefore, the words that enable such repetition are, in the first occurrence, “As thir own ruin” and, in the second, and “illuminated”. In terms of rhythm, any other sequence of words could replace them, since they fulfilled the condition of constituting a sequence of three unstressed followed by a stressed syllable (– – – x). This proves the attempt to justify such rhythmical sequence in terms of its relation to the theme of the text unprofitable, given that no tension between rhythm and sense can be theoretically expected in a construction that can be conveyed by any words that build such rhythmical sequence.

The independence of such rhythmical sequence in relation to particular words is not intended to shatter its relation with the meaning of the words, what is shattered indeed is the illusion of representation between sound and sense. This process can be compared, in terms of aesthetic techniques, to J. S. Bach’s arrangement for the harpsichord (organ being more indicated in the case of Milton) of Vivaldi’s Opus 3 (n. 9, 3rd movement, ) [2]. The few and sparse notes in the F key (left hand) supposed to function by sustaining the melody played by the right hand in Vivaldi (See the first notation at the APPENDIX) has its relevance and complexity increased in Bach’s arrangement (See the second notation at the APPENDIX), which considers of equal importance both hands, diminishing the privileged existence of melody, thereby leading to the simultaneity in which both F and C key (right hand) have an independent existence, producing meanings of their own, albeit related to one another in some kind of musical dialogue. Similarly, rhythm in Samson does not merely sustain the development of the plot (comparable to melody in music), but co-exists to it, given that Milton himself considers music in “its larger Platonic meaning which includes poetry” (Frye 49). The words chosen develop the theme, unfold the plot and constitute rhythmical sequences independently, though at the same time. This is to say that a word or sequence of words has, at the same time, to fulfil the rhythm and sense independently, not to construct, as likely to be expected, rhythm according to a theme, which is in partial agreement to what Douglas Bush maintains:

[the] short lines [in Samson Agonistes] are not free verse of the modern kind; they can be scanned as irregular combinations of regular metrical feet, although Milton doubtlessly composed them in accordance with the free syllabic principles that governed his verse, and they are commonly parts of larger rhythmical and syntactic units. (195)

Rather than “surrealistic” as Broadbent wishes to classify what defies his classification, rhythm in Samson Agonistes is constituted of such “irregular combinations of regular metrical feet” enabled by words that simultaneously unfold the drama (“a colloquial irregularity more massive, rugged, and sinewy than the ‘prosaic’ plainness of Paradise Regained”, Bush 194). This aspect of rhythm shatters the illusion of representation, for sounds and sense exist in a relation of simultaneity rather than intrinsic determination. Rhyme, in turn, contributes to shatter the illusion of a pattern, remarking points in which rhythm has a peculiar cadence –as the pairs divine/invite and sight/quite in the excerpt above.

Such use of rhyme differs, for example, from its ordinary use in Elizabethan drama, in which, upon the stage, rhyme works mostly to indicate the closing of a particular scene or act in a sense attributed to the representation of drawing curtains. The condition of closet drama also allows Samson to be composed in a rhythm other than the iambic pentameters – which “fall out so naturally in our toong, that if we examine our owne writers, we shall find they vnawares hit oftentimes vpon the true Iambick numbers” (Campion) (CF Ramalho, 2002)– and are typical of Elizabethan drama.

Samson also differs from metrical experimentation, particularly from the notion of representation illustrated in Thomas Campion’s Observations in the Art of English Poetry (1602), which features the poem “Rose-Cheeked Laura” as an example of English verse constructed according to the Classical pattern of quantity rather than stress. The first stanza of poem, Rose-cheekt Lawra come/Sing thou smoothly with thy beawties/Silent musick, either other/Sweetely are explained by Campion thus:

[it] consists of Dimeter, whose first foote may either be a Sponde or a Trochy [a spondee in this case]: The two verses following are both of them Trochaical, and consist of foure feete, the first of either of them being a Spondee or Trochy [spondee the second, trochaic the third in the example], the other three only Trochyes [since “thy” is considered short by Campion]. The fourth and last verse is made of two Trochyes.

Notwithstanding its unique metrical experimentation, the poem conveys no simultaneity as seen in Milton, since words here are chosen mostly, if not solely, because of their sound, given that this is an illustrative poem.

Therefore, Samson Agonistes can be considered as having an auto-reflexive rhythm [3] that is constituted by the sounds of words (the phonetic chain of signifiers) which constitutes significances of its own, not merely corroborating or diverging from the sense (signified) of the same words that enable their rhythmical existence, but exist simultaneously to them, both words and rhythm enabled by words producing independent significance. Tensions and conflicts, therefore, do not exist in the rhythm itself, but in the notion of representation, located in the critic rather than on the poem, that cannot establish a relation between sound and sense, in which one should vary according to the other, in Samson Agonistes.

In terms of conflicts and tensions, the manner through which such process occurs in Samson Agonistes is unlike, in erms of the conflicts and tensions that Allen identifies in a line from the Aeneid, namely:

In the last two feet of a dactylic hexameter Latin poets increasingly succeeded in achieving agreement between the normal spoken accent and the rhythm of the verse. But elsewhere there were frequent clashes between these two requirements: thus in a line such as índe tóro páter Aenéas síc órsus ab álto

where the acute accents indicate the normal spoken stresses and the underlines indicate the beat of the verse-hythm, there will be seen to be considerable conflict in the first part of the verse (in fact in Vergil conflict is more than one-and-a-half times as frequent as agreement). (Allen 92)

In this case, conflict does not obliterate harmony, but reinforces it in an idiosyncratic manner that is not easily apprehended by the untrained contemporary ear, though clear enough to the educated native speaker of Latin to be aesthetically agreeable, which leads to a situation in which “the reader is then faced with the problem of deciding whether, in case of conflict, to allow the natural (prose) rhythm or the metrical rhythm to predominate” (Allen 93). Yet, even when there is conflict in classical metrics (See Halporn, J., Ostwald, M. & Rosenmeyer) it favours, rather than thwart, the harmonic concept of poetry, which, out of its context, causes displacement where harmony is expected, thereby complying with the notion of representation.

Notes

[1] The aim of this paper is not to replace the notion or theories regarding representation with any other theory, but to demonstrate, by showing the problems in the traditional studies of Miltonic poetry, that no theory on its own suffices to the proposed analysis.

[2] This comparisson is not intended to analyse Milton’s own musical writing (as for the songs in his plays), but perhaps it makes tself feasible precisely by considering Milton’s musical awareness.

[3] I use the term “auto-reflexive rhythm” alongside with the notion of “auto-reflexivity” to describe the process of constructing rhythm through signifiers whose correspondent signified is not representative of the rhythm. In other words, the rhythm constructed by the phonetic construction of the words (their stressed or unstressed nature, the alternation of length of its syllables, etc) constitutes a rhythm that exists independently, though related, to the sense conveyed by the words that enable their existence. This process differs from the traditional representation of senses in sound, in which one makes use of a particular sequence, for example, – – x, a dactyl, to convey a particular theme or mood (solemn, in the case of the dactyl), which is bespoken by words that comply with the theme (for example “my grave heart”, an expression whose sense is represented in its sound –“my” and “grave” are unstressed, “heart”, stressed, therefore, – – x). Traditionally, it may occur that a rhythmical construction contradicts its sense, which is also a planned representation of a conflict or tension, as when one uses a solemn dactyl constructed through words of bliss or joy. In the case of auto-reflexive rhythm, such relationship, either by sounds complying with or contradicting the theme, is not privileged, and the words at the same time construct a meaning that unfolds the plot and a rhythm that has an existence of its own, thereby not representing the sense, but co-existing to it. Yet, the words in this sequence when it appears first are utterly different, and bear no relation of dependence, corroboration or negation, with the words that construct the same sequence when it appears the second time. Therefore, what is intended in the excerpt explained above is the sequence – – – x, the intention being of a rhythmical nature, the words to develop the plot having been chosen, therefore, in a manner to enable such sequence, independently from the fact that this segment “represents” the sense of the words. An auto-reflexive rhythm –the repetition and alternation of segments in accordance to a nearly non-verbal rhythm, except for the fact that it is constructed through signifiers– exists at the same time that the signified develops the plot and constitute the theme of the poem. In rhythmical terms, the same segment (– – – x, for example) is repeated in order to construct the rhythm of the poem. Such repetition, however, does not assemble a pattern, that is, “auto” does not mean “automatism” or “automatic reproduction” of a model, being, therefore, dissimilar to the master rhythmical structures in Classical poetry, which, pre-defined, determined how the words are supposed to, automatically, fulfil the rhythm established.

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