Emotion produced phonetic expression—an expression that, itself, imitates external phenomena through graphic form and color (consonants and vowels). Memory preserved, reproduced, and traditionalized that phonetic expression by constantly modulating it. This complex sensory vibration, representative of the universal phenomenon and its relation to the Being it stirs, when transformed in consciousness into feeling and thought, becomes simplified and abstracted into the schematic images of the Idea. Language thus became both phonetic and ideographic, the ideogram being simultaneously a simplification of phonetic complexity—which nonetheless retains its emotive potential within. Thus, in return, every moved thought, every idea evoked to resonate suggestively in the self (and there should be no other kind in poetry), will necessarily release around it the entire vibratory atmosphere it holds in potential, and will awaken—through movement—the full emotive sequence from which it arose. Participating in the gesture of emotion, traditionally and through repetition rendered rhythmic, and in the primordial cry of the same nature as that gesture, the Word-ideogram that expresses this thought and its emotion must also necessarily reclaim its phonetic value—that is, its diverse and emotive durations of vibration. Immediately, it will be completed by its other expressive dimension: graphic form and intensities of color. Thus, the Idea (for there is nothing in the mind that is not first in sensation), and the Word, originally a gesture and cry of emotivity, are indissolubly linked by a shared instinctive origin. Both are expressions of vibratory waves, and the Word externalizes this under the influence of consciousness. They are a sequence of movements measured by various emotive durations—and through this, they produce Rhythm. Part II It would be too long to summarize here the full complexity of my technique for verse and evolving rhythm, nor all that is encompassed in “Verbal Instrumentation”: harmonic construction of the sentence (replacing the traditional stanza), of the poem, of the book, of the whole work; the succession and recurrence of motifs, and so forth. For this, one must necessarily refer to En Méthode. Still, a few essential points should be shared… Originally a series of emotive cries, language possesses as its fundamental expressive values the vowels—vibratory durations of varying pitch and intensity—of which the consonants are merely modifications. The work of Helmholtz and Krazenstein on harmonics has demonstrated that vowels should be considered vocal timbres. Thus, words appear as multiple, supple, and modifiable elements, capable of composing a vast verbal symphony, under the evolving influence of the moved Idea. The poet must therefore embrace poetic language in its double—and yet unified—aspect: both phonetic and ideographic, so that both the usual meaning and the emotive value of the sound of words are required, and must resonate in concordance with the guiding Ideas of the poem. (“The passions have with sounds a powerful and secret link,” wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau. “Thought, which belongs to light, expresses itself through speech, which belongs to sound,” Balzac observed incidentally.) Therefore, through spontaneous selection by the poet possessed by Emotion—selection of words that best express both ideographic and phonetic correspondence—the vocal timbres (vowel-sounds, completed or modified by consonants) will either resonate in their pure and distinct value, or interact with one another to generate every nuance of tonality. And all this, while a general tonal atmosphere for the poem will prevail. If the thought demands it, these timbres may even sustain a phrase monotonously—slow or fast—repeating the same sound at the same pitch and intensity. Or, through repeated passages, harmonically or inharmonically spaced and inverted, these sounding points will express an ideal undulation of thought and speech, echoing the waves of the universe. Thought and its speech, one and the same principle and destination of Rhythm, become a conscious and emotional unity, fulfilling our fundamental concept that “a poetic work has value only insofar as it extends as a suggestion of the laws that govern and unite the total Being of the world.” Poetically, every idea must be moved, that is, it must return—within an emotive atmosphere—the expressive presence of the three original elements. Thus I have determined the most general and consistent correspondences between the various emotional and critical faculties of the human spirit, and the different groups of timbres or vocal instruments (vowels and consonants), through which words—considered as sounds—are diversely characterized. Part III Now, sound, the cry of emotion, is originally equivalent to a gesture, as we have said—a vibratory release of more or less intensity and duration. Under the expansive power of the Idea—expressing itself emotionally through the dramatic succession of vocal timbres—Rhythm is thus marked and measured essentially by their vibratory values, in a continuous and variable drawing of sound-waves, of all lengths and intensities. (Recent experiments by Dr. Marage and M. Marichelle on the photography of speech offer valuable new support for this idea.) At each of its phases, or within their nuances, the Idea marks its tonic accent through various heights and intensities of emotional sound. The evolving Idea expresses itself by creating its own evolving Rhythm—a rhythm that is essentially the externalization of emotion, which reactivates the sensory causes that first gave rise to it. (We now understand why verses with identical metric measures may nonetheless differ in speed. Beyond the syllabic count, it is the varied and nuanced vibratory duration of the vocal timbres—and nothing else—from which derive those accelerations and delays of which Becq de Fouquières speaks, without realizing that the poet, even if he fractures numerical meters at will, will still be betrayed by the inherent slowness or speed of the verbal sounds themselves.) This scientific rhythm, evolving from the very evolution of thought, is nevertheless still measurable metrically. That is to say, within the verse, the various rhythmic divisions, propelled by the Idea, are both marked and sustained by sounds of specific vibratory quantities, and are also measurable syllabically. These are eurythmic or dissonant measures, depending on whether the metric combinations derive from the multiplication or addition of the numbers two and three. The twelve-syllable alexandrine is retained as a continuous unit of measurement… For we hold that the twelve-foot measure is necessary, organic: it has its equivalent in all primary metrical systems, both ancient and modern. The reason is evidently physiological: this meter corresponds to the duration of a full breath. Its divisions also hold organic value, because in the time of full expiration, emotion, feeling, and idea inscribe accented intervals. However, it was not previously recognized that two reasons stand against equal divisions or equidistant intervals such as classical caesuras. First, as we have seen, thought generates its own unique and varied rhythm, without any preconception. Second, the properties of pitch, intensity, and duration of sounds or vocal timbres, which are integral parts of this rhythm—through their unequal durations—determine, along with the Idea and through it, the placement of accented beats throughout the total expiration. Part IV Now, Verbal Instrumentation gives to poetic speech its full and necessary meaning by restoring to it its primordial element of phonic reality. It becomes graphic and plastic through the morphological determination of Rhythm, and through the harmonious unity of the poem within the book, and the books within the composed and singular Work. It becomes pictorial, since it admits a coloration of vocal timbres and determines it as well. Through its Rhythm—measured in vibrations sparked by the Idea—it communicates with the molecular movements of the world. It thus synthesizes all forms of art, in order to express, with dramatic energy—in the sense of passionate and moving action—“the movement of conscious Thought representative of natural and harmonious Forces.”