Basil Bunting's Briggflatts : a case study in intonational prosody

Abstract

In this article I wish to contribute to the analysis of prosody in poetry by looking at free or 'unmetred' verse. In particular I focus on the way in which the tools for analysing intonation may be used for analysing the performance of poetry in order to examine the way lineation is formed in unmetred verse. I look at the way tone-unit boundaries are often co-extensive with line endings in unmetred verse. The article follows work in this kind of analysis by Crystal (1975) and concentrates on the poem Briggflatts by Basil Bunting. Syntactic features such as ellipsis and pre- and post-modification effect the placement of tone-unit boundaries. Line endings may also be effected by the poet's use of marked emphases, and by the influence of other prosodies which a sophisticated poet may bring to bear on his material.