Thanks for the interesting replies. When, in the face impending annihilation, we can calmly discuss our iambs and trochees, is there not hope for us yet?
David Bircumshaw wrote:
<<are you hinting the desirablity of a Germanic
systematizing of English?>>
But David, English IS Germanic. But no, I wasn't. Nor was I suggesting anything at all rigid in these "German" rhythms (quite the contrary).More the old chestnut about if anyone has studied a thing systematically, it's likely to be a German scholar.
Mark Weiss wrote:
<<This may be the first time in history that Lindsay and Holderlin have been mentioned in the same breath.>>
From the ridiculous to the sublime, eh? Though Old Lindsay was perhaps not without his own touch of sideshow-huckster sublimity, as Ives clearly must have felt.
Actually I made a similar connection in an article about 15 years ago in Michigan Quarterly, though I may not have actually mentioned Holderlin's name.
AS
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