But counting syllables is meter. It's that way in French, too, isn't it?
Marcus
On 2 Aug 2005 at 14:35, Mark Weiss wrote:
> 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
>
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