 |
 |
Hendecasyllabics have a long tradition in the Mediterranean. From the Sapphic through the Romans (notably Catullus). Roger Collett Arrowhead Press http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality." Jules de Gaultier ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 9:59 AM Subject: Re: Bruce Andrews interview at The Argotist Online > Italian 'classic' sonnet line was hendecasyllabic. There's an amazing letter > of Hopkins on the quantitative difference between the sonnet in Italian and > English wherein he calculates that a 14 line sonnet in Italian is about a > third longer in real time than its English equivalent, hence the feeling of > coming up short in the English breed of the critter. Of course, the sonnet > didn't stabilise as 14 lines at birth in Italian, and there are famous > examples like the 'long sonnet' translated by Rossetti, with that wonderful > last line. > > On 4 April 2010 06:47, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> >>> And pursuing that line, I'm not even sure if it makes sense to speak of >>> "the iambic pentameter line" outside the context of English language poetry >>> written in one of the syllable-accent metres. Though I don't know enough >>> about Romance prosody to be categorical here. >>> >>> (Is Mark around this thread? He'd be the one to give a reasoned >>> elucidation in this area.) >>> >>> >> >> Reporting for duty. French and Spanish simply syllable count, in French the >> alexandrine (12 syllables), in Spanish endecasyllable (11). Not sure about >> Italian. >> >> >> Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University of >> California Press). >> http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland >> >> "Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book of >> Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so effectively >> broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United States and also >> created a superb collection of foreign poems in English. There is nothing >> else like it." John Palattella in The Nation >> > > > > -- > David Bircumshaw > "A window./Big enough to hold screams/ > You say are poems" - DMeltzer > Website and A Chide's Alphabet > http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html > Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw > twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave > blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/ >