You can find it from the second edition of "English Romantic Poets" (edited by the eminent M. H. Abrams), page 217, in an essay "The Ancient Mariner" by Humphrey House.Omoksha wrote: had not heard or read of Coleridge saying this
Well, this sounds just fascinating! I have of course heard of The Language of the Birds, but this is the first I hear of Prosodia of the Birds. This whole topic reminds me of Gabriel d'Annunzios "panism", of which the perfect example is his "The rain in the Pinewood" from his best collection of poems, "Halcyon". According to "Facts on File Companion to World Poetry" panism is "the ability to experience the vinrant life of nature in one's body and soul". In the above mentioned poem, d'Annunzio uses onometopesia and mimetics from nature to the degree where he and his companion completely merge with nature. He introduces this state by adopting in his poetry the changing rythms from the droplets of water. I suppose the the full effect could best be experrienced from the original Italian poem, but I like the translation very much, as I am naturally very attuned to its rythm:I was studying the rhythm and metre of the ancient Greeks - in both their music and poetry, of which there was/is little, if any distinction between - and then its use in the much later compositional works of Olivier Messiaen.
Essentially, I came to think that it was within the compositions that Messiaen based around/made from bird song that his understanding and use of ancient Greek metre lay.
In short, ancient Greek metre (poetically and musically) was arranged in ‘feet’, which predominantly comprised of two rhythmic stresses; a long and a short syllable, arranged in different orders and amounts, depending on the poetic/musical type. Embellishments and specifics of how to relate these were used, but essentially one would interpret the metre of a poem or a piece of music by the rhythmic stresses identified by these long and short syllable markings.
Therefore, only rhythmic stress was suggested, rather than rigid form dictated by the note lengths, commas and many forms of grammatical and compositional instruction that tell us how to create, and to interpret creation, today.
Looking for the known use of such free metre within a composer working within the confines and instruction of modern Western classical music is therefore almost fanatical and certainly idealistic at times. One can almost interpret anything as one wishes, so to find the actual root of this free metre is almost impossible.
But it is within Messiaen’s compositions that derive from birdsong - which I feel are so much more like poetry than music - where I think the key to this is. He took something so metrically spontaneous and dynamic, and employed among the most free form of understanding metre that we as humans have developed, to express its beauty but not limit its form.
https://www.lifeinabruzzo.com/the-rain- ... el-pineto/
