Poetry, Evolution, Structuralism

I am taking another class this quarter on poetry across cultures and languages and found these readings very relevant to a number of poetic questions. The existence of stress in English, for example, is the foundation of English versification.  In languages without such obvious stress, other factors, such as the number of syllables, determine form.

         I was also interested in the evolutionary development of speech. The Gussenhoven reading explained that speech came about as a secondary function of existing organs. It’s strange to think of different environmental conditions leading to other types of advanced communication.

         Kenstowicz struck me mainly by his retelling of Chomsky’s ideological splitting from American structuralism. I wanted to know more about what happened from the proposal of a psychologically ideal form to “if we accept this general point of view as true.”