From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 12:47 AM
Subject: Re: amphibrachs
>> > 50/50 iambic pentameter lines and four-stress lines. Difficult to know
>> > quite what to do with something like that.)
>>
>> Read it aloud, dear boy, read it aloud.
>>
>> joanna
>
> Would that it were so simple. That works with the Egerton version, which
> is
> a great poem, but the Devonshire version is simply a mess.
>
> .....
>
> Robin
Okay. I'll admit that was naive of me.
But part of me can't quite see the point of worrying about metrical rules
etc, provided the thing *sounds right. Though I admit, too, that the ear has
to be properly trained to be reliable. Are scansion exercises the best way
of accomplishing that? And that's a serious question, not a sarcastic
comment.
This is beginning to remind me of that branch of early counterpoint whose
composer didn't write down the 'rules' he was going by, but just got on and
wrote the music. Long after, these 'rules' were extrapolated and codified,
to no other purpose, as far as I could ever tell, than to provide exercises
for undergraduates.
Do I detect a slight whiff of that here? (Am I going to get jumped on from
all directions?!)
joanna
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