Rhythm and Form in the Poem

VCCS Litonline Introduction to Literature
English 112 (English Composition II)

page 7 of 14

Rhythm and Form in the Poem

The student wrote--

CONSIDERATIONS OF CRAFT

Rhythm and Form

"Birches" consists mainly of blank verse: unrimed iambic pentameter, as in the lines below.

............./.........../............../............/............../

When I see birches bend to left and right

......../.............../............../.............../............./

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

However, Frost deviates from this pattern to emphasize certain lines that give clues to the theme. Lines 3, 5, 23, and 30 each contain the word "them," meaning the birches. Lines 14 and 15 rime and also deviate from the pattern of iambic pentameter:

........................./......................../............../............./............/

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load

............../........./...................../......................./........................../

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

The meaning reflected in the lines scanned above plus the next line: "So low for long, they never right themselves:" add up to dramatize what life's "downs" will do to a person.

Lines 42, 50, and 54 contain the rimes be, me, and tree, which emphasize that the narrator wishes to be in his imagination, that he identifies with the imaginary boy who was "a swinger of birches."

Your turn to respond--

Are the Explanations of Rhythm and Rhyme Plausible (Consistent with the Theme)?

typehand.gif (8738 bytes) How clear and plausible are her explanations of the patterns of
rhythm and rhyme that the student sees? If you were the editor for this essay, what praise would you give for this analysis of sound in connection with the theme while leaving this section as is, or what changes would you suggest to the author?

(Click here for a hint on re-opening a word processor.)

Commentary--

Scanning lines of poetry is a tricky business; finding variations and suggesting reasons for them takes some subtlety, a good ear, and practice. This student did notice Frost's use of "them" but didn't explain the ambiguity of these pronoun uses. She does point to some variations in the lines she quotes, but she doesn't really how these variations emphatically portray ruined lives. In the final portion of this excerpt, the student points out an unusual rhyme and does see the equation they imply, but she doesn't acknowledge what else helps to link these widely spaced rhymes. So this is the most cryptic section of the essay because it doesn't fully develop the issues it raises.

The URL for this page is: http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/birches/rhythm.htm