Roger:
There's a short article (with bibliography) in the _Princeton Encyclopaedia
of Poetry and Poetics_. Robert Bridges in the 1920s would seem to be the
earliest exponent, though the most prominent is Marianne Moore (see, in it's
three incarnations, "Poetry" -- 'I, too, dislike it ...", originally 1921.
The version in Moore's _Collected Poems_ is ... hm ... incomplete ...) Thom
Gunn used it much later (I think).
I'm not sure if it's natural to any language (certainly to none of the major
European ones). Breaking the tyranny of the iamb is probably Pound, but he
wasn't referring to syllabics specifically in the context in which that
remark was made. I've come across the argument that syllabics tend to work
best when there are an uneven number of syllables per line, which +would+
see it as specifically a counter-iambic exeperiment.
Robin Hamilton
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Collett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 6:37 PM
Subject: syllabics
> Has anyone got anything that discusses syllabic metre from the angle of
when
> it got into English prosody, and why, and at whose instigation? I've an
idea
> that it was deliberately introduced, from some language in which it's
> natural, in order to "break the tyranny of the iamb". Though who would
want
> to, and why, beats me. Trying to run it to earth for an article. Have
tried
> googling with little success - probably looking under wrong phraseology.
>
> Roger
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