Colleagues,
I regret to contribute to the list in a field that I once taught but for which I have all my library packed away to make space for the books I still need in retirement.
My memory is that Puttenham was well aware of the long epic tradition of breaking the cadence of the basic rhythm to make a given word jump out of the line. We are all familiar with "To be or not to be, THAT is the question." Such rhythmic underlining is familiar in Vergil, and probably already in Homer, and is a stock in trade of all epic poets. But my memory totally fails me on whether it was in fact Puttenham or someone else who describes it.
Such are the punishments of retirement and its accompanying tendencies.
I have always found that bad rhymes in long English poems break a certain monotony and wake us up to wondering whether they are legitimate or not. Much the same principle.
Robert R. Dyer
Paris
> Message du 15/06/04 14:21
> De : "Frank Whigham" <[log in to unmask]>
> A : [log in to unmask]
> Copie à :
> Objet : Puttenham query: false accent/orthography
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> For a new edition of Puttenham's Art of English Poesy, I seek the
> list's aid on the following point: I believe that in FQ, Spenser (about
> whom P is pretty generally silent) sometimes is guilty of the behavior
> (perhaps both of them) that Puttenham specifies in 2.10:
> Now there cannot be in a maker a fouler fault than to falsify his accent to
> serve his cadence, or by untrue orthography to wrench his words to help his
> rhyme, for it is a sign that such a maker is not copious in his own
> language, or (as they are wont to say) not half his craft’s master.
> This would not be unlikely in such a complex stanza as the one Spenser uses
> in FQ, nor do I mean to suggest that he would regard the lines as failures.
> (Puttenham's judgment is slightly comic when applied to Spenser.)
> Nonetheless, I'd like to cite examples of each if they exist. Can you
> suggest any? I have tickles of memory of these (both, actually), but can't
> find the passages.
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Frank Whigham
>
> =========================
> Frank Whigham
> Arthur J. Thaman and Wilhelmina Doré Thaman Professor of English
> University of Texas at Austin
> Department of English B5000
> Austin TX 78712
> 512-471-8794
> [log in to unmask]
> =========================
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