undersong
English
Etymology
Noun
undersong (plural undersongs)
- Accompanying strain or sound; accompaniment.
- 1795, Samuel Taylor Coleridge “Epistle IV: To the Author of Poems” in Poems on Various Subjects, London: G.G. and J. Robinsons, 1796, p. 127,[1]
- But th’ unceasing rill
- To the soft Wren or Lark’s descending trill
- Murmurs sweet undersong mid jasmin bowers.
- 1815, William Wordsworth, untitled sonnet in Poems, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Volume 2, “Poems Proceeding from Sentiment and Reflection,” p. 139,[2]
- To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
- In the lov’d presence of my cottage-fire,
- And listen to the flapping of the flame,
- Or kettle, whispering its 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,[3]
- 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.
- 1795, Samuel Taylor Coleridge “Epistle IV: To the Author of Poems” in Poems on Various Subjects, London: G.G. and J. Robinsons, 1796, p. 127,[1]
- (figuratively) Subordinate and underlying idea, meaning or atmosphere; undertone.
- 1824, Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations, London: Taylor and Hessey, Volume 1, “Æschines and Phocion,” p. 77,[4]
- Defective […] 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,[5]
- 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, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989, p. 101,[6]
- 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, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, New York: Harcourt Brace, Chapter 8, p. 191,[7]
- 1824, Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations, London: Taylor and Hessey, Volume 1, “Æschines and Phocion,” p. 77,[4]
- (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, London, Volume 2, p. 252,[8]
- 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, John Dryden (translator), “The Third Pastoral” in The works of Virgil, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 14,[9]
- The Challenge to Damaetas shall belong
- Menalcas shall sustain his under Song:
- Each in his turn your tuneful numbers bring;
- In turns the tuneful Muses love to sing.
- 1625, Joseph Hall, “A Sermon of Publick Thanksgiving” in The Contemplations upon the History of the New Testament, London, Volume 2, p. 252,[8]