WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.342 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.342 --> 00:00:01.050 align:middle line:90% Another question? 00:00:01.050 --> 00:00:01.530 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:01.530 --> 00:00:03.030 align:middle line:84% Could you elaborate a little of that 00:00:03.030 --> 00:00:05.010 align:middle line:84% the sentence as a grammatical unit, 00:00:05.010 --> 00:00:08.490 align:middle line:84% and the line, and the relationship between these two? 00:00:08.490 --> 00:00:11.256 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.256 --> 00:00:11.756 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:11.756 --> 00:00:16.050 align:middle line:84% The sentence, it seems to me, that the neurolinguists 00:00:16.050 --> 00:00:20.490 align:middle line:84% say that the way we manage syntax in English 00:00:20.490 --> 00:00:24.270 align:middle line:84% is with these chunks, so that we divide up things 00:00:24.270 --> 00:00:26.610 align:middle line:90% that naturally go together. 00:00:26.610 --> 00:00:32.753 align:middle line:84% If I walk down the street under the trees, that's the way 00:00:32.753 --> 00:00:34.170 align:middle line:84% your brain is going to process it, 00:00:34.170 --> 00:00:36.510 align:middle line:90% even if I say it to you fast. 00:00:36.510 --> 00:00:38.400 align:middle line:84% I walked down the street under the trees. 00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:42.690 align:middle line:84% Your brain is going down under, OK, two little prepositions, 00:00:42.690 --> 00:00:45.337 align:middle line:84% down, and then it has its object, and under, 00:00:45.337 --> 00:00:47.170 align:middle line:84% and it has its object, and they're parallel. 00:00:47.170 --> 00:00:50.640 align:middle line:84% Your brain is-- you're sorting all that out. 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:51.890 align:middle line:90% So that those are chunks. 00:00:51.890 --> 00:00:54.570 align:middle line:84% Those are rhythmic chunks, and they exist in the language, 00:00:54.570 --> 00:00:55.862 align:middle line:90% and that's how we make meaning. 00:00:55.862 --> 00:00:58.770 align:middle line:84% Because if I take them away, or if I disturb them, 00:00:58.770 --> 00:01:01.170 align:middle line:84% then it'll be very confusing what I'm saying. 00:01:01.170 --> 00:01:05.546 align:middle line:84% I walk down the street under the. 00:01:05.546 --> 00:01:07.360 align:middle line:84% See, I mean that's harder, right? 00:01:07.360 --> 00:01:11.170 align:middle line:84% Because it's not the rhythm by which we process the image. 00:01:11.170 --> 00:01:12.670 align:middle line:84% OK, so that's a rhythmic system that 00:01:12.670 --> 00:01:14.230 align:middle line:90% exists within the sentence. 00:01:14.230 --> 00:01:16.330 align:middle line:90% We write in sentences. 00:01:16.330 --> 00:01:17.770 align:middle line:90% So that's ongoing. 00:01:17.770 --> 00:01:19.600 align:middle line:90% The line is always artificial. 00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:21.503 align:middle line:84% The line does not exist in nature. 00:01:21.503 --> 00:01:23.170 align:middle line:84% The line does not exist in the language. 00:01:23.170 --> 00:01:26.950 align:middle line:84% The line does not exist anywhere, except poets make it. 00:01:26.950 --> 00:01:30.100 align:middle line:84% We make it because we want another rhythmic system 00:01:30.100 --> 00:01:33.670 align:middle line:84% to either work with or against that phrasing. 00:01:33.670 --> 00:01:35.560 align:middle line:84% And what is very interesting to me 00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:37.690 align:middle line:84% is that this is the same relationship 00:01:37.690 --> 00:01:41.140 align:middle line:84% that as Jourdain says, exists in all great music. 00:01:41.140 --> 00:01:43.570 align:middle line:84% In all great music you have meter, 00:01:43.570 --> 00:01:47.860 align:middle line:84% which is a grid, which is 4/4 time, for 3/4 times, 00:01:47.860 --> 00:01:50.650 align:middle line:84% whatever the time signature is, that says all of these 00:01:50.650 --> 00:01:54.190 align:middle line:90% are units of similar duration. 00:01:54.190 --> 00:01:57.040 align:middle line:84% If that's all you have, that's boring. 00:01:57.040 --> 00:01:58.840 align:middle line:84% You also have this other thing, which 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:03.700 align:middle line:84% is the arc of the line, which is chunks put together and built 00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:07.480 align:middle line:84% into a larger chunk, and then that chunk into a larger chunk, 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:11.290 align:middle line:84% and so you have-- that's musical phrasing, and that's rhythmic. 00:02:11.290 --> 00:02:13.680 align:middle line:90% OK, and so it's overall-- 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:17.830 align:middle line:84% he uses terms that I like, which is small scale and large scale. 00:02:17.830 --> 00:02:19.630 align:middle line:90% I like that. 00:02:19.630 --> 00:02:23.035 align:middle line:84% Small scale, is just when you pat your foot. 00:02:23.035 --> 00:02:25.160 align:middle line:84% That's the march that the fourth graders are doing. 00:02:25.160 --> 00:02:27.550 align:middle line:84% That's a small scale management of rhythm. 00:02:27.550 --> 00:02:33.980 align:middle line:84% But da da da da dum, da da da da dum, de de de de, 00:02:33.980 --> 00:02:36.590 align:middle line:90% that's a large-scale rhythm. 00:02:36.590 --> 00:02:41.870 align:middle line:84% So it seems to me that all poems that are written in lines 00:02:41.870 --> 00:02:44.750 align:middle line:84% have some need to pay attention to the relationship 00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:47.010 align:middle line:84% between those two rhythmic systems. 00:02:47.010 --> 00:02:48.080 align:middle line:90% And they can be anything. 00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:52.190 align:middle line:84% What I've tried to give you are examples that 00:02:52.190 --> 00:02:54.200 align:middle line:90% show you how you can shift. 00:02:54.200 --> 00:02:57.860 align:middle line:84% Larkin pretty much keeps it always consonant. 00:02:57.860 --> 00:02:59.930 align:middle line:84% I mean, you could put a comma even 00:02:59.930 --> 00:03:01.535 align:middle line:90% after the lines that are not-- 00:03:01.535 --> 00:03:03.617 align:middle line:84% you couldn't after long long the death. 00:03:03.617 --> 00:03:06.117 align:middle line:84% But most of them are consonant with the units of the syntax, 00:03:06.117 --> 00:03:07.160 align:middle line:90% right? 00:03:07.160 --> 00:03:08.060 align:middle line:90% Justice doesn't. 00:03:08.060 --> 00:03:11.130 align:middle line:84% He starts off that way, then when he gets in the middle, 00:03:11.130 --> 00:03:17.268 align:middle line:84% "the schoolteacher is waving in time to the music." 00:03:17.268 --> 00:03:17.810 align:middle line:90% What is this? 00:03:17.810 --> 00:03:20.300 align:middle line:84% In time to the music well we would say. 00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:23.400 align:middle line:84% In time to the music, you would never say, never in your life, 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:25.400 align:middle line:84% I don't care, you're lying on your hospital bed, 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:28.852 align:middle line:84% you're not going to ever say in [PAUSES] time to the music. 00:03:28.852 --> 00:03:30.560 align:middle line:84% They'll call in the people to examine you 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:31.685 align:middle line:90% because something is wrong. 00:03:31.685 --> 00:03:35.290 align:middle line:84% You've kind of developed a dyslexia if you do that, right? 00:03:35.290 --> 00:03:36.610 align:middle line:90% So he does that deliberately. 00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:38.560 align:middle line:84% Why does he do that deliberately? 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:40.720 align:middle line:84% That's a place where he wants the line 00:03:40.720 --> 00:03:45.400 align:middle line:84% to be resisted, in struggle, with this longer 00:03:45.400 --> 00:03:46.640 align:middle line:90% unit of the syntax. 00:03:46.640 --> 00:03:49.750 align:middle line:84% That's why Jourdain says, in music, the two systems are not 00:03:49.750 --> 00:03:51.880 align:middle line:84% always at peace with one another. 00:03:51.880 --> 00:03:53.560 align:middle line:90% This is a choice the poet makes. 00:03:53.560 --> 00:03:55.997 align:middle line:84% They can be absolutely opposed to one another 00:03:55.997 --> 00:03:56.830 align:middle line:90% all the way through. 00:03:56.830 --> 00:03:58.420 align:middle line:90% That's what Creeley does. 00:03:58.420 --> 00:04:01.240 align:middle line:84% They can be consonant almost all the way through. 00:04:01.240 --> 00:04:05.680 align:middle line:84% That D.H. Lawrence poem has only one enjambment in it, 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:09.100 align:middle line:84% and that's so he can set off "a life." 00:04:09.100 --> 00:04:10.840 align:middle line:84% That third line from the end, that's 00:04:10.840 --> 00:04:14.320 align:middle line:84% the only place, and everywhere else it's exactly-- 00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:18.160 align:middle line:84% seems to be playing along in concert with the syntax, 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:20.500 align:middle line:84% because he wants you to see these chunks that 00:04:20.500 --> 00:04:22.120 align:middle line:90% are made in this syntax. 00:04:22.120 --> 00:04:25.660 align:middle line:84% 5, 14, 20, 14, 5, and that's off of this list. 00:04:25.660 --> 00:04:29.860 align:middle line:84% Each one of those is a verb, verb, verb, verb, verb, verb, 00:04:29.860 --> 00:04:31.792 align:middle line:90% absolutely paratactic. 00:04:31.792 --> 00:04:33.500 align:middle line:84% These things are parallel to one another. 00:04:33.500 --> 00:04:34.900 align:middle line:90% They all have the same weight. 00:04:34.900 --> 00:04:36.610 align:middle line:90% So why is that not boring? 00:04:36.610 --> 00:04:42.100 align:middle line:84% It's not boring because it goes duh, duh, duh, and then 00:04:42.100 --> 00:04:45.740 align:middle line:84% it comes back, and then he comes back, like that. 00:04:45.740 --> 00:04:46.870 align:middle line:90% It makes a shape. 00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:48.910 align:middle line:90% This is pleasing to us. 00:04:48.910 --> 00:04:52.690 align:middle line:84% That's what form is, it's a pleasing arrangement, 00:04:52.690 --> 00:04:55.220 align:middle line:90% and it keeps variation in it. 00:04:55.220 --> 00:04:57.430 align:middle line:84% So it seems to me whether you write an open form, 00:04:57.430 --> 00:05:02.080 align:middle line:84% or if you decide to write in meter, then all you're doing 00:05:02.080 --> 00:05:05.950 align:middle line:84% is you're saying I want to [INAUDIBLE] that everybody 00:05:05.950 --> 00:05:07.330 align:middle line:90% can get a hold of. 00:05:07.330 --> 00:05:09.670 align:middle line:84% I'm going to grid it up there like Justice has it. 00:05:09.670 --> 00:05:12.680 align:middle line:84% Five syllables in every line, or I 00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:14.560 align:middle line:84% want iambic pentameter, whatever it is, 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:16.330 align:middle line:90% you can put the grid up there. 00:05:16.330 --> 00:05:17.440 align:middle line:90% That's fine to do that. 00:05:17.440 --> 00:05:19.180 align:middle line:84% But to put the grid up there and not 00:05:19.180 --> 00:05:21.040 align:middle line:84% pay any attention to its relationship 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:23.500 align:middle line:84% to syntax is really kind of dumb, 00:05:23.500 --> 00:05:25.750 align:middle line:84% isn't it, because it's not paying attention 00:05:25.750 --> 00:05:29.210 align:middle line:84% to this other huge rhythmic system that's going on. 00:05:29.210 --> 00:05:33.430 align:middle line:84% So very often I think we kind of get so caught up in the line, 00:05:33.430 --> 00:05:35.130 align:middle line:84% we're going, oh wow, I just did another, 00:05:35.130 --> 00:05:37.360 align:middle line:90% you know, blank verse, great. 00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:40.388 align:middle line:84% Clop, clop, clop, I'll go along, and then, there 00:05:40.388 --> 00:05:42.430 align:middle line:84% are all the sentences that are absolutely boring, 00:05:42.430 --> 00:05:45.760 align:middle line:84% that are made the same way, that are usually simple declarative 00:05:45.760 --> 00:05:48.340 align:middle line:84% sentences that last about three line, all of them, 00:05:48.340 --> 00:05:52.700 align:middle line:84% the same, the same, the same, the same. 00:05:52.700 --> 00:05:55.933 align:middle line:84% So mainly what I'm trying to say is, pay attention 00:05:55.933 --> 00:05:57.350 align:middle line:84% to your sentences, even if you had 00:05:57.350 --> 00:06:00.200 align:middle line:84% to take them out of lineation in order to see them. 00:06:00.200 --> 00:06:03.320 align:middle line:84% And read them out loud, and see if you do anything close 00:06:03.320 --> 00:06:05.120 align:middle line:90% to what Mr. Lawrence does. 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:08.180 align:middle line:84% See if there are chunks in there, if they are varied, 00:06:08.180 --> 00:06:09.825 align:middle line:90% or if they're varied in length. 00:06:09.825 --> 00:06:12.200 align:middle line:84% If they're not varied in length, hey, remember that thing 00:06:12.200 --> 00:06:14.090 align:middle line:84% from eighth grade where you had to rewrite three sentences 00:06:14.090 --> 00:06:15.800 align:middle line:84% and put them together using and, or using 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:17.330 align:middle line:90% a subordinating conjunction? 00:06:17.330 --> 00:06:23.180 align:middle line:84% Try it so that again, you have some sort of variation 00:06:23.180 --> 00:06:26.480 align:middle line:84% and energy that comes out of the large-scale, rhythmic pattern 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:28.770 align:middle line:90% of the poem. 00:06:28.770 --> 00:06:29.960 align:middle line:90% So that's the main thing. 00:06:29.960 --> 00:06:32.240 align:middle line:84% If you do that, see what the sentences are, 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:35.120 align:middle line:84% because you are writing in sentences, then you go back 00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:37.682 align:middle line:84% and say, OK, what relationship between the line 00:06:37.682 --> 00:06:38.390 align:middle line:90% and the sentence? 00:06:38.390 --> 00:06:39.680 align:middle line:90% And it can change. 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:41.663 align:middle line:90% It changes in Justice. 00:06:41.663 --> 00:06:44.080 align:middle line:84% Right in the middle, that's where has all that enjambment, 00:06:44.080 --> 00:06:47.440 align:middle line:84% and then he goes back to those, you know, his stop lines.