The book ''Notes on Prosody'' by

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eu ...

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...

compares differences in iambic verse in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and Russian languages, and highlights the effect of relative word length in the two languages on

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...

. Nabokov also proposes an approach for scanning patterns of accent which interact with syllabic stress in iambic verse. Originally Appendix 2 to his Commentary accompanying his translation of Aleksandr Pushkin's ''

Eugene Onegin ''Eugene Onegin, A Novel in Verse'' (Reforms of Russian orthography, pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Евгений Оне́гин, ромáн в стихáх, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐˈnʲeɡʲɪn, r=Yevgeniy Onegin, roman v stikhakh) is ...

'', ''Notes on Prosody'' was released separately in book form. Pantheon Books, Number LXXIIa (1964) in the Bollingen Series, Library of Congress catalogue card: 64-23672. ''Notes on Prosody'' and Nabokov's translation of ''Eugene Onegin'' sparked considerable academic debate.

Bely's influence

Nabokov in large part follows the system described by

Andrei Bely Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev ( rus, Бори́с Никола́евич Буга́ев, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ bʊˈɡajɪf, a=Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev.ru.vorb.oga), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely ( rus, Андр� ...

in his paper "Description of the Russian iambic tetrameter" ("Опыт характеристики русского четырехстопного ямба") published in the collection of essays ''Symbolism'' (''Символизм'') (Moscow, 1910).

Terminology

The word stress is reserved for the underlying unvarying pattern of the iambic rhythm, and the word accent is used to describe where the accent falls in speaking a line. He introduces the notion of a scud, which he defines to be an unaccented stress (page 9). He uses U shaped symbol and / to illustrate. He describes a number of types of scuds (page 18): *tilted scud — an inversion, where the accent falls on the first syllable of an iambic foot, of which there are various types: **split tilt — an accented monosyllable followed by an unaccented one **short tilt — an accented monosyllable followed by an unaccented first syllable of a polysyllabic word **duplex tilt — a disyllabic word where the accent falls on the first syllable in ordinary speech **long tilt — the first two syllables of a trisyllabic word, where the first syllable is accented in ordinary speech *reverse tilt — an unaccented stress followed by an accented depression (non-stress) (thereby falling across two iambic feet) the main variety of which is the: **split reverse tilt — two monosyllables the first not accented and the second accented (i.e. the fairly common xx// ending to line) **duplex reverse tilt — a disyllabic word accented on the second syllable 'against the grain' of stress-unstress; Nabokov somewhat misinterprets

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

discussion of "Recession of accent" in his book ''Milton's Prosody'', claiming that Bridges 'designates' the duplex reverse tilt as 'recession of accent', whereas Bridges starts from the ''phenomenon'' of 'recession of accent' as analysed by Alexander Schmidt and proceeds to analyse possible occurrences of it in Milton's verse.

Differences between Russian and English verse

The primary source of the differences between Russian and English verse is that English has many one syllable nouns, verbs, and adjectives, where Russian words typically have many syllables, and carry only a single invariable stress. The iambic rhythm of alternating accented and unaccented syllables is relatively natural in English, whereas in Russian speech many unaccented syllables may quite naturally occur in sequence.

English iambic tetrameters

#Scudless lines are more common than scudded lines. #Sequences of scudded lines are short. #Scuds are frequently associated with weak monosyllables, duplex tilts, and scudded rhymes (in the final foot) #Scuds in feet 1 and 2 occur about as frequently as in foot 3; scuds in foot 4 are rare. The line is weighted accentually towards its end. #Feminine rhymes are "scarce, insipid, or burlesque" #Elisions are relatively common.

Russian iambic tetrameters

#Scudded lines are much more common than scudless lines. #Scuds often form linked patterns from line to line, often in sequences of twenty or more lines. Sequences of scudless lines rarely occur in sequences longer than two or three lines. #Scuds are frequently associated with the unaccented syllables of long words; there are almost no duplex tilts. Rhymes are not scudded (that is, there is no scud in the final foot). #Scuds in foot 3 are by far the most common. The line is weighted accentually towards its beginning. #Feminine rhymes are as frequent as masculine ones. #There are strictly speaking no elisions of any kind.

Notes