Abstract/Summary

‘Bunting’s Monosyllables’ begins with praise the poet has received for the distinctive economy of presentation in his insistence on the use of simple, concrete Anglo-Saxon-based language in ‘Briggflatts’. Attending to the intonational tunes used in English to give a meaningful rhythmic contour to collocated monosyllables, the essay questions Bunting’s habitual and polemical insistence on the regionally distinct music of his poetry as sole source of its significance. The conclusion considers how these monosyllabic priorities fair towards his long poem’s close when it attempts to resolve into a life-and-art-justifying shape the loss of the childhood love narrated in its opening section.