This and the next page provide the sound files for my paper on the problems and possible solutions involved in the rhythmical performance of Milton's "On his Blindness", and electronic experimentations with them. It is focused on readings by Sean Barrett, an anonymous reader who describes himself as follows: "Who I am is not important. The point is the poetry", and Leon Mire.

                       On His Blindness

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
  Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
  And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present                         5
  My true account, lest He returning chide,—
  Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask:‹But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need
  Either man's work, or His own gifts, who best              10
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
  And post o'er land and ocean without rest:‹
They also serve who only stand and wait.

Listen to the three readings of the sonnet "On his Blindess".


Sean Barrett

Anonymus

Leon Mire

Listen to the first two lines of the sonnet, read by Sean Barrett and "Anonymus". Both reciters observe a considerable pause between the two lines. Intuitively, the pause does not violate syntactic continuity. This corroborates my observation that when a long syntactic unit is stretched over a line boundary, it is rarely felt as an enjambment.

Sean Barrett

Anonymus

The two readings substantially differ, however, regarding the last two words of the first line (is spent). Barrett performs them as an unstressed copula and a stressed content word, resulting in an ordinary iambic foot. Anonymus, by contrast, overstresses and overarticulates the copula is, presumably for rhetorical reasons (or sheer mannerism). Surprisingly enough, this does not subvert the rhythmic character of the whole line, nor even invert the last foot. Listen to the two readings of the first line only.

Sean Barrett

Anonymus

In Anonymus' reading, the stress on is is cued by a higher than expected pitch and a complex intonation contour. On spent too there is the same complex intonation contour, while also suggesting a falling terminal contour with a barely-audible rising end (on /n/). This is supplemented by an enormous difference in duration. The duration of spent is 644 msec; that of is is 252 msec. As a result of the trade-off between pitch and duration, the stress on spent breaks even with (even surpasses) the stress on is. Notice the 81-msec pause preceding the /p/, and the huge 150-msec pause following the /n/, before the minute stop release. Such pauses in mid-word are not perceived as periods of silence, but as closure of the vocal track in overarticulating the consonants /p/ and /n/.

Figure 1        Wave plot and pitch contour of "how my light is spent" read by Anonymus. The lower window presents the wave plot display which shows a plot of the wave amplitude (in volts) on the vertical axis, as a function of time (in milliseconds) on the horizontal axis. The upper window presents a fundamental frequency plot, which displays time on the horizontal axis and the estimated glottal frequency (F0 = pitch) in Hz on the vertical axis.

In the first line of this sonnet caesura occurs after position 5, after consider. Indeed, in Barrett's reading there is a feeling that the line is clearly articulated at that point. The nature of this will be better understood when listening to the first line in Anonymus' reading too, where how is perceived as unduly close to consider, and the integrity of the line is jeopardized. There is, however, no measurable pause in either of these readings after consider. A few measurements, however, may solve the mystery. The duration of the whole first line in Anonymus' reading is 3.060 msec; in Barret's reading only 2.602 msec; that is, the former is almost 1.2 times longer than the latter, or 458 msec longer. Measurements regarding the word consider, by contrast, indicate inverted proportions. The duration of consider is 738 msec long in Barrett's reading, whereas in Anonymus' reading it is only 503 msec. In other words, the former is 1.7 times longer than the latter, or 235 msec longer. These proportions become even more extreme in the last syllable, The duration of this syllable is 298 msec in Barrett's reading, 145 msec in Anonymus's reading; that is, the former is over twice as long as the latter. This is a typical example of the principle that discontinuity can be indicated by prolonging the duration of a word, a syllable, or a phoneme, as in fermata in music. Listen again to the two readings of the first line.

Listen to the verse lines "though my soul more bent / To serve therewith my Maker, and present / My true account" excized from Sean Barrett's and Anonymus' readings.

Sean Barrett

Anonymus

Again, Barrett clearly articulates the line ending but, at the same time he takes care of continuity.
Listen to two tokens of bent, excised from Barrett's and Anonymus's readings .

Figure 2        Wave plot and pitch contour of two tokens of bent, excised from Barrett's and Anonymus's readings

Listen to the enjambment "more bent / to serve" read by Barrett. Note the articulation of bent. Note also the transition from bent to to.

Figure 3         Wave plot and pitch contour of "more bent / to serve" read by Sean Barrett. There is no measurable pause between the word-final and word-initial /t/s. Notice the right-pointing and left-pointing vertices of the triangles in the wave plot, indicating the different pronunciations of the [t]s.

Listen to the enjambment "more bent / to serve" read by Anonymus. Note the overstress on more (in a weak position) and the sustained high pitch on bent (but lower than that on more). Note also the transition from bent to to.

Figure 4         Wave plot and pitch contour of "more bent / to serve" read by Anonymus. The markers indicate a 100-msec pause between the word-final and word-initial /t/s.

Listen to the enjambment "and present / my true account" read by Barrett.

Figure 5         Wave plot and pitch contour of the enjambment "and present / my true account" read by Sean Barrett. The markers indicate a pause before the stop release of present. There is some unidentifiable faint phonation during this "pause".

Listen to the enjambment "and present / my true account" read by Anonymus.

Figure 6         Wave plot and pitch contour of the enjambment "and present / my true account" read by Anonymus. The markers indicate a pause between present and my.

Listen to the enjambment "but Patience to prevent / That murmur" read by Barrett.

Figure 7 Wave plot and pitch contour of the enjambment "but Patience to prevent / That murmur" read by Sean Barrett. The first pair of markers indicates vowel boundaries, to foreground the late peak; the second indicates a pause after the stop release of prevent.

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