On Aug 27, 2005, at 1:42 PM, Mark Weiss wrote:
> Of course I'm aware of this. But you seem not to be aware that to read
> a line or phrase as a variant on a regular meter in an environment in
> which there is no overall regular meter is a matter of choice--need I
> say prejudice.
This objection has been made before, of course. It's addressed in the
preface to the second printing of the book, and throughout. It's a
matter of seeing patterns in poems written over hundreds of years, so
that a particular line is the just a tip of a glacier.. Isn't reading
any kind of pattern into a poem is to some extent a matter of
prejudice?
> As to your code, which of your fellow travellers opined that iambic is
> the natural meter because it mimics the heartbeat?
None of mine. In fact, I am known, pigeonholed in fact, for many
arguments to the contrary (most notably in the essay "Metrical
Diversity")--against the idea that iambic is natural or privileged over
any other meter in any way. However, since you posted about how
steeped you had been in iambic pentameter and how deeply you had read
Dryden, no imagination was needed to posit that perhaps the number of
scannable pentameters in your free verse has some relation to that
background.
Or perhaps not. But they are still scannable.
The metrical code applies to all meters. Dactyls figure prominently in
the Ghost of Meter.
Annie
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