> But ... Dictionary stress would reflect the way that it's simply the
> case
> that words have definite stress patterns -- so "account" has to be X /
> and
> "coming" / X. Whether or not this would be the way these figure in
> metre
> would be a matter of the context. I can imagine a situation where
> "account
> coming" would scan X / X X since while both the second syllable of
> "account"
> and the first of "coming" are stressed, the second syllable of
> "account" is
> more stressed than the first syllable of "coming". (To my ear, at
> least.)
Yes, I could hear "account coming" that way too. Especially when you
are working with triple meters, contrastive stress is a big
factor...really, I guess, contrastive stress adds a third level that
needs to be taken into account between speech stress and the ictus.
But a stronger stress from a neighboring word never cancels out
dictionary stress within any word, if you know what I mean--it just
kind of trumps it.
>
>
> (I found "A Carol for Caroline", but the abemuse.com link seems to be
> busted -- I had to peel it out of the google cache. First incredibly
> glib
> reaction is that I'm one of those who read amphibrachs as anapests.
This poem was discussed at a seminar on "noniambic meters" by leading
poets & prosodists from all over the country, & many of them scanned it
as anapests too--you're in good company. & many do the same with
Auden's "where are you going" in Wallace's Meter in English book. In
my essay I explain that I had to go to Russian poetry to find an
example of a strong amphibrachic tradition that is respected as a
separate meter from anapestic in its own right. Russian metrics so
strongly parallels English that this is encouraging for English
amphibrachs.
My own sense is a very subjective, gut sense: I would never have
written the line "I dreamed of a poet who gave me a whale" as
anapestic; it would sound melodramatic to me with the feet
ending/climaxing on the words "dreamed," "gave" and "whale." Reading
it amphibrachically, those stresses come in the middle of the foot, and
I hear it with a much lighter sound, with more distance and irony (more
fitting to the poet it is about). Amphibrachic lines in Russian often
end on an iamb, and following that tradition allows hearing "the
sea-weed" as an amphibrach, "-ed shale" as iamb, which I much enjoy the
sound of...
In the end I have to pull back and remind myself that metrical
explorations are for me finally just ways to inspire writing poems, and
that the real prosodists are going to have to classify them eventually
& decide what meters they "really" are. But I am enjoying writing what
feel to me like amphibrachic poems, because I like the sound of them, &
incidentally it gives them more material to work with. (at that
seminar, they emphasized that they take their guidance from what poets
write, and will write; ironic, since many of the poets (including me)
were wanting some metrical guidance/inspiration from them, in turn.)
Annie
you, I'm still bouncing backwards and forwards across the first line, "I
> dreamed of a poet who gave me a whale," which I read as a mix of
> iambic and
> anapestic -- X / X X / X / X X /. Then I feel a terrible pull to end
> the
> second line, "sea-weeded shale" which would *really* fix an anapestic
> pattern, just what you don't want. <g>)
>
> Robin
>
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