undersong
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]undersong (plural undersongs)
- An accompanying sound or strain; an accompaniment.
- 1702, Sam[uel] Woodford, “In Sacred Memory of the Very Reverend Author of the Following Work, Joseph Beaumont, S.T.P. &c. To Psyche.”, in Joseph Beaumont, edited by Charles Beaumont, Psyche, or Love’s Mystery, […], 2nd edition, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] University-Press, for Tho[mas] Bennet, […], →OCLC:
- Accept the Off'ring I at diſtance bring, / With Harp ill-tun'd, and long thro' Age unſtrung, / Fit only to fill up ſome Under-ſong!
- 1795, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Epistle IV: To the Author of Poems”, in Poems on Various Subjects[1], London: G.G. and J. Robinsons, published 1796, page 127:
- But th’ unceasing rill
To the soft Wren or Lark’s descending trill
Murmurs sweet undersong mid jasmin bowers.
- 1807, William Wordsworth, “[I Am Not One &c.]”, in Poems, in Two Volumes, volume II, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], →OCLC, page 119:
- To sit without emotion, hope, or aim, / By my half-kitchen my half-parlour fire, / And listen to the flapping of the flame, / Or kettle, whispering it's faint undersong.
- 1926, C. S. Lewis (as Clive Hamilton), Dymer, Canto 4, stanza 1,in Walter Hooper (ed.) Narrative Poems, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979, p. 36,[2]
- Then the rain;
- Twelve miles of downward water like one dart,
- And in one leap were launched along the plain,
- To break the budding flower and flood the grain,
- And keep with dripping sound an undersong
- Amid the wheeling thunder all night long.
- (figuratively) Subordinate and underlying idea, meaning or atmosphere; undertone.
- 1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Conversation VI. Æschines and Phocion.”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume I, London: […] Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 77:
- Defective however and faulty must be the composition in prose, which you and I with all our study and attention cannot understand. In poetry it is not exactly so: the greater part of it must be intelligible to all: but in the very best there is often an undersong of sense, which none beside the poetical mind, or one deeply versed in its mysteries, can comprehend.
- 1916, John Cowper Powys, “Oscar Wilde” in Suspended Judgments, New York: G. Arnold Shaw, p. 410,[3]
- The mad smouldering lust which gives a sort of under-song of surging passion to the sophisticated sensuality of “Salome” [...]
- 1986, Seamus Heaney, “The Government of the Tongue”, in The Government of the Tongue[4], New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 1989, page 101:
- Here we see this most reticent and mannerly of poets [i.e. Elizabeth Bishop] being compelled by the undeniable impetus of her art to break with her usual inclination to conciliate the social audience. [...] she usually limited herself to a note that would not have disturbed the discreet undersong of conversation between strangers breakfasting at a seaside hotel.
- 1994, Harold Bloom, chapter 8, in The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages[5], New York: Harcourt Brace, page 191:
- (obsolete) The burden of a song; the chorus; the refrain.
- 1625, Joseph Hall, “A Sermon of Publick Thanksgiving”, in The Contemplations upon the History of the New Testament[6], volume 2, London, page 252:
- It is not hard to observe that David’s Allelujahs are more then his Hosannas; his thanks more then his suits. Oft-times doth he praise God when be begs nothing: seldome ever doth he beg that favour for which he doth not raise up his Soul to an anticipation of Thanks: neither is this any other then the universal under-song of all his Heavenly Ditties [...]
- 1697, Virgil, “The Third Pastoral. Or, Palæmon, Menalclas, Damætas, Palæmon.”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 13, lines 85–88:
- The Challenge to Damætas ſhall belong / Menalcas ſhall ſuſtain his under Song: / Each in his turn your tuneful numbers bring; / In turns the tuneful Muſes love to ſing.