Randall Couch’s “Peal” and Other Literary Bells

This weekend, tower bells throughout the nation will ring to mark the coronation of King Charles III. Because the announcement of the coronation, there was a concerted effort, ‘the ‘ring for the king‘, geared toward recruiting new bell ringers to study the fascinating and interesting pastime of ringing change and becoming a member of within the celebrations.

The artwork of ringtone change – the ringing of tower bells in mathematical patterns referred to as strategies – originated in seventeenth century England and, though practiced in different international locations as we speak, stays a predominantly English phenomenon. As such, it’s maybe unusual that it’s so little mirrored in English literature. Whereas poets like Tennyson in ‘Ring, wild bells‘ or AE Housman in ‘On the hill of Bredon‘ undoubtedly had the sound of change in thoughts, their work doesn’t allude to or describe its particular patterns, though George Butterworth’s setting of ‘On the hill of Bredon‘ captures it to some extent. Bells are an everyday theme in John Betjeman’s poetry, which comes near particular excited about ringing change and in a single poem, “Bristol”, even speaks of the “mathematical mannequin of a easy course on bells”. In his full works, the motif is printed under the poem.

In all probability probably the most well-known literary bells in fiction are these in Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective story, The Nine Tailors . Thriller writers appear to have an affinity with ringing – it options in two of MC Beaton’s novels Agatha Grape books and a episode from the long-running tv collection Midsomer Murders – however Sayers’ novel captures it most (if not totally) precisely and ingeniously makes use of the mannequin of a ringing technique as the premise for a cipher that’s the key to the thriller.

A latest acquisition from the British Library makes use of ringing strategies in an equally ingenious and intriguing, if very totally different, manner. American writer, poet and critic Randall Sofa, like Sayers, was fascinated by this “algorithmic composition custom” and the end result was the bizarre and exquisite e-book chime (RF.2021.a.5), printed in an version of 300 by Tipperary-based Coracle Press in 2017.

Sofa makes use of the development of varied ringing strategies to play with the English syntax. The books start with a ‘Cento’, a poem composed from the traces of different writers. The traces utilized by Sofa, chosen from a variety of literary, philosophical, musicological, and scientific sources, almost all relate indirectly to bells, numbers, sample, syntax, or melody. . He then transforms every line right into a ringing technique by shifting the phrases because the bells transfer within the chosen technique, creating juxtapositions starting from the poetic to the absurd. In keeping with writing conventions ringing methodsthe trail of the final phrase of the unique line, similar to the heaviest working bell of the tactic, is printed in blue, and the primary phrase, similar to the lightest bell (the treble, which may observe a diagram totally different from the opposite bells) is printed in purple.

Right here is an easy instance, utilizing the road “Every textual content is a cento” by French linguist François Rastier That means and textuality. The tactic is Plain Hunt on 5 bells, the identical because the ‘single course’ quoted in Betjeman’s ‘Bristol’, though Sofa follows conference higher by writing the rows in horizontal rows fairly than vertical columns.

Plain Hunt on 5 Bells by Randall Sofa’s Peal, (RF.2021.a.5). Picture from PEAL by Randall Sofa, printed by Coracle Press, Copyright 2017 Randall Sofa

For work that performs with concepts of syntax and which means, an apparent line for Sofa’s cento is Noam Chomsky’s well-known instance of a grammatically appropriate however semantically nonsensical sentence, ‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously‘. Sofa turns this right into a easy course of Grandsire Doubles “Grandsire” is the identify of the tactic, and “Doubles” means it’s rung on 5 bells. (You possibly can learn extra about how strategies are named here.)

Grandsire Doubles of Randall Sofa’s Peal. Picture from PEAL by Randall Sofa, printed by Coracle Press, Copyright 2017 Randall Sofa

Whereas Plain Hunt and Grandsire are among the many best and first strategies ringers are inclined to study, Sofa additionally makes use of extra advanced ones which he says have been “chosen with consideration for the associations created by juxtaposing their names with corresponding opening traces”. Here is a line from a e-book by early change bell writers John Duckworth and Fabian Stedman on a course of London Delight Bob Triples.

Randall Sofa’s Peal’s London Delight. Picture from PEAL by Randall Sofa, printed by Coracle Press, Copyright 2017 Randall Sofa

Sofa additionally contains the tactic named after Stedman with a quote from Gertrude Stein, “Cash is what phrases are.” Among the many much less acquainted strategies he makes use of are Bobby Dazzler Little Alliance Main (within the phrases of Alan Turing “Machines take me without warning with nice frequency”), Titanic Triples (John Cage “All the things is an echo of nothing”) and a few with intentionally amusing intentions. names akin to Ursa Minor (the poet John Cleveland ‘I like not tears in tune’).

Sofa’s cento and its variations could not have the moment enchantment of poems by Tennyson, Housman or Betjeman, however they’re a novel and engaging reflection on the buildings of ring-changing strategies and the English language it -even, with lasting enchantment for anybody with an curiosity in both.