That's very interesting, about the Spanish decima line. But where did the
idea come from, that the 10 syllable line not only counts as metre but is
the *correct, indeed the only permissible, metre for English blank verse and
for all places where an iambic pentameter is required? I mean, for pete's
sake, don't these people ever *listen? To Shakespeare, for instance?
I got myself involved with a writing group some time ago, led by a woman who
regards herself as a formalist. She wanted us to try sonnet form -- you
know -- here's the rhyme scheme, and it's iambic pentameter, off you go. So
I come back with one that gets me my knuckles severely rapped, because out
of my 14 lines one has 11 syllables and one has 9. Never mind that the two
extra are both so light as to count as two halves; never mind that the
'short' line conatins a syllable which is so long and weighty that it needs
an entire foot to itself. She rewrote the thing so as to 'correct' the
metre, and ended up with most of the stresses on weak syllables, while I sat
and growled. But I refused to alter it.
I don't mean that 10 syllables ought not to be done, but I do think the
stresses ought to be handled with awareness. Otherwise you're writing
syllabics, and that's a whole nother animal.
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 7:35 PM
Subject: Re: FW: any formalists in the crowd? -- thanks to Annie Finch!
> Right you are. And there is no meter in this sense in Spanish--it's simply
> not a consideration. The decima--the classic line--is 10 syllables, and
> nothing else.
>
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Jeffrey Newman <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Aug 2, 2005 11:08 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: FW: any formalists in the crowd? -- thanks to Annie Finch!
>
> Marcus, you wrote:
>
>>>Meter comes in many forms. Is there really no meter in Spanish?
> Someone said there's no meter in Hebrew.<<
>
> This depends, does it not, on what you mean by meter? In music,
> traditionally anyway, and unless a piece has no time signature, the meter
> is
> set at the beginning of a piece, and it is either 4/4, 2/4, 3/8 or
> whatever.
> The composer may play with the boundaries of that meter in any number of
> ways by varying rhythm and phrasing, but the meter remains the same. And
> so,
> if by meter in poetry we mean the same kind of formal framework--i.e.,
> iambic pentameter, five iambic feet to a line--then, while I cannot speak
> for Spanish, I think it is safe to say that there is no meter in Biblical
> Hebrew poetry--I will not speak Hebrew poetry of other eras because I am
> not
> sure; but I am pretty sure I remember this about the poetry of the Hebrew
> Bible--just as there is no meter in Walt Whitman. This does not mean there
> is no rhythm and it does not mean that Whitman was not consciously using
> rhythm and playing with the ghost of meter in some of his poems, but if
> his
> poems were musical scores, my own sense is that they would have to be
> written without a time signature at the beginning.
>
> Richard
>
|