Abstract
Poetry consists of words and words are made up of sounds. It cannot be emphasised strongly enough that the primary material of poetry is the spoken language. As Hopkins says, ‘Poetry, the darling child of speech, of lips and spoken utterance, till it is spoken it is not performed, it does not perform, it is not itself.’
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Notes
From ‘Intelligence’ by Steve Duffy in Balloon (London: Mattock Press, 1989).
For more detailed technical information on the sounds of English see Longman Pronunciation Dictionary by J. C. Wells (Harlow, Longman 1990),
An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English by A. C. Gimson, 4th edition revised by Susan Ramsaran (London: Edward Arnold, 1989),
J. D. O’Connor Phonetics (London: Penguin, 1973).
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© 1993 Dinah Livingstone
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Livingstone, D. (1993). The Sounds of English. In: Poetry Handbook. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22398-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22398-5_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-54207-1
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