----- Original Message -----
From: "Max Richards" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 12:18 AM
Subject: vowel gradation?
> I'm no further forward with Colin L Dean and Gamahucher Press, folks, but
> having
> idly emailed (about James's Turn of the Screw) a certain Dr Clayton Burns
> whose
> email to the editor of the tls was posted on his weblog, Dr Clayton has
> emailed
> me mentioning in the same breath, this:
>
> I am working on consonant and vowel gradation in poetry (there will
> have to be a revision of practical critical terms since even the power of
> symbolic chiasmus in "Sailing to Byzantium," "The Sick Rose," and "Design"
> goes unnoticed). The /nt/ and /nd/ gradation in Cummings' "The Cambridge
> ladies" complements the long "a" and ash gradation ("Cambridge ladies" and
> "moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy"). "After Apple-Picking" is a
> good example of "e" gradation, "The Sick Rose" of "i," "Ode to a
> Nightingale" of "o," and "Daddy" of "u." Since vowel gradation is so
> common
> in irregular verbs, you would have thought that by now critics would have
> noticed it in poetry. Shakespeare's sonnet 97 is a fascinating case.
> Clayton.
>
> Hmm, I do seem to remember chancing on vowel gradation in poetry
> discussions a
> while back, without my getting involved. I should like to email back at
> least a
> half-informed response...if anyone on PoetryEtc has advice...
>
> Max at Cooee in Melbourne
Might have been me. A while ago now, but I do seem to remember mentioning to
someone (Andrew, was it?) that in my Young Days I used to play games of this
sort in my own early poetic efforts. Used to call it 'vowel-tipping'.
However, I got called on it, and was unable to dig up a single example,
which made me feel a right fool I can tell you! And of course none of it was
published, so wouldn't be of any interest to your correspondent, Max.
joanna
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