Alan, David, Robin, Alison, prosodic specialists everywhere,
I've often wondered about the following:
In accentual-syllabic verse, how does one accurately determine whether the
rhythm is rising or falling? For example, let's say that a given sonnet (in
"iambic pentameter," of course) has seven lines that are acephalous (thus
beginning with an accent). Why are these lines read (and scanned) as if they
were iambic rather than trochaic? Isn't it just as reasonable to read these
lines as trochaic with concluding catalexis as it is to insert a virgule
after the opening stress so as to render them iambic?
I suppose I'm asking if deviations from the acatalectic line (perfectly
common even with the Augustans!) "always/already" force the hand of the
prosodist toward a measure of arbitrariness, thus obviating any actual
objectivity in metrical analysis.
Kent
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