/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19340068]

Help /lit/, I just found out that I'm deaf. When reading on a semi-related topic, I've come across an author giving some simple examples of different poetic tricks involving accents, rhythm, tones etc. He just straight up listed the verses and expected the reader to realize what's going on in them, auditory-wise. Well, this reader couldn't fucking do it.

Hit me with some resources so I can teach myself how to get more sensitive to this whole dimension of language I've been missing out on.

[Anonymous No.19340666]

>>19340068
stress if relative to the feet surrounding it, ie there are actually interpretations of scanison that exist that can change a poems meter. |The only thing to do is to discover in the poem the relative stresses and develop a pattern, for older poetry this is a lot easier, because its usually pretty limited in what its doing(iambics) but towards the 19th century and late 19th century prosody gets more complicated and systems of scansion start to become more subjective.

[Anonymous No.19341817]

>>19340666
Checked and bumped

[Anonymous No.19341827]

>>19340068
I unfortunately dont know anything about poetry, but how did you find out you are deaf? And also have a bump

[Anonymous No.19341844]

>>19341827
Not him but the first sign is misinterpreting what others say. When you start saying "uhh? what'd you say?" every other sentence, congrats your hearing is fucked.

[Anonymous No.19341881]

>>19341844
Well shit. Guess I'm deaf too.

[Anonymous No.19342022]

>>19340068
Meter in poetry is typically a stylistic choice. Shakespear, for instance, in mostly writtten in iambic pentamater i.e. each line is 10 syllables long and alternates stressed and unstressed syllables. More modern poetry played with this form more, if you read something thats mostly doing iambics (stressed syllable followed by unstressed) and you come across a spondee (two stressed syllables in a row like the phrase "take all").
This is assuming you weren't always deaf. If you're having trouble thinking about stressed and unstressed syllables consider how the word reject is pronounced differently when it's a verb compared to when it's a noun.

[Anonymous No.19342699]

I'm not literally deaf and the pic is something I
fetched off google images on the quick. I have some rudimentary sensitivity to things like rhythm, now when I think about it. But they have to be painfully obvious, like in limericks:

There once was a man from Nantucket,
whose dick was so long he could suck it ,
He said with a grin ,
licking cum off his chin,
If my ear was a cunt, I would fuck it !!

But anything more subtle than this I can't detect. How do I improve? Is there some systematic way, poetic-technique-for-dummies?

[Anonymous No.19342722]

>>19342699
I recorded a lesson for someone on here ages ago, I can find it for you if you would like. In my experience when people are struggling what they need is to actually hear this stuff for it to make sense.

[Anonymous No.19342779]

>>19341844
What if I say this reflexively even when I hear them just fine?

[Anonymous No.19342853]

>>19342722
Good point, you can't really read yourself into understanding auditory phenomena. Maybe I should look into youtube videos and not books. If you can easily find your thing I'd be much obliged too.

[Anonymous No.19343594]

>>19342853
Here you go, if you're still here. Fell asleep, sorry.
Its not a perfect lesson but it should help a bit for getting started.
https://voca.ro/1nULOccoHhEA

[Anonymous No.19345043]

>>19343594
I am now. Thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.19345092]

>>19340068
Did you just become deaf or not realize hearing was a thing for > 18 years?

[Anonymous No.19345130]

>>19342699
Words are composed of syllables. Each syllable follows a pattern of (C)V(C), with C being one or more consonants (in "struggle" you have the initial "str" and the final "gl"). Sometimes consonants can be vowels (the m in some pronunciations of "symptom" and the "ggle" in some pronunciations of "struggle"), but that's really just a technicality. There's two kinds of meter: quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative is how Greek and Latin poetry worked. You can't do this in English (well you can but it sounds terrible). Consider the name "Christopher". Ignoring the "pher" part, you can apportion out the middle consonants in between the "Chri" and the "o".
>chri-stopher
>chris-topher
>christ-opher
The more consonants attached to a vowel the "heavier" it is. You can do the same with the 2nd and 3rd syllable to a lesser degree ("oph-er" vs "o-pher").

Qualitative is how English (and all Germanic languages) work. In this system, you have stress. A syllable is stressed, or it isn't. Consider: To present a present. "to preZENT a PREzent". That's the tl;dr of stress. There ONCE was a MAN from nanTUCKet, whose DICK was so LONG he could SUCK it. Technically, you can have multiple stresses in really long words, but this is typically only a primary stress and a secondary stress (I say "dictionary" like "DICK-shun-AIR-ee", but the "DICK" is more stressed than the "AIR", which is more stressed than the "shun" or the "ee").

In Quantitative languages, poetry is done in such a manner that the arrangement of the consonant apportionment sounds pleasing. In Qualitative languages, you do the same but with stress. You can make some GODAWFUL sounding lines by playing with the stress. There are some other forms, like syllable counting (French), mora counting (Japanese), and tonality (Chinese), but these all vary language to language and are hard to take out of their language (you can't do tonal poetry in a non-tonal language, for example).

[Anonymous No.19345201]

>>19345130
So basically English is shit and unfit for poetry
Woooow surprise

[Anonymous No.19345234]

>>19345201
Not really. Qualitative meter is also found in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin. In fact, most of Europe's poetry was written in Qualitative Latin verse. Really, it seems that a particular poetic tradition kicked off in Ancient Greece, and the Romans loved it so much they abandoned their native poetic tradition (which seems to have been something other than quantitative). As I said, all Germanic languages work off of this system, as do most Celtic languages, and it can be done in Greek and Latin (into the Medieval period Greek poetry was also increasingly done qualitatively). All languages have stress for things like emphasis, the question is if they have stress patterns. It's actually rather rare for a language to be totally stress-pattern-less, and that usually is a result of a tendency towards monosyllabicy (such as with French and Chinese).

[Anonymous No.19345293]

Str*ss timed languages can't into poetry.
I just read English poems however I think it sounds cool

[Anonymous No.19345302]

>>19340068
I always struggled with finding reasons to give a shit about metre because sometimes the author expects you to pronounce or stress words retardedly, like, it's not clever of you to put the work on the reader to give words a rhythm that's unnatural. Some writers do it well, but it's rare. It's conceited of the author to expect the reader to spend hours studying their specific work to guess the rhythm, especially if there's not much to gain from doing this beyond a fun little jig. I think music has it right with their crotchets and quavers and all such symbols; if you can read music, you can deduce the rhythm. Poets should really put their poems over some sheet music showing the rhythm if they're going to do something retarded and nonstandard that they think is """clever""". Also the best poet is chaucer, rhyme>rhythm fuck homer fuck milton fuck tha haterz.

[Anonymous No.19345328]

>>19345302
>Also the best poet is chaucer, rhyme>rhythm fuck homer fuck milton fuck tha haterz.
You can have excellence in both, try the faerie queene.

[Anonymous No.19345774]

>>19341844
>>19342779
I often find myself immediately asking people to repeat themselves, then understanding what they said a split second later. I probably have some variant of https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/central-auditory-processing-disorder/#collapse_2

I've started trying to make a serious effort to avoid this- whenever I think I didn't understand someone, I make a point of waiting an extra second or two before asking. Often it turns out that my brain catches up with my ears quickly enough that I can still respond naturally. It comes across as slightly strange/rude if it turns out I really did mishear them (a noticeable pause before a "huh?" feels way worse than an immediate "huh?", because it suggests inattention), but it's worthwhile overall.