Fine, I can go along with that. I'm all for tension in the ear.
As for your last sentence, speaking as one who absorbed prosody largely from
the hymnbook (and before anyone assumes that's the kiss of death for
subtlety, I recommend looking up the second, third, etc, verses of many
well-known hymns -- start with 'O come, all ye faithful') I would agree with
that wholeheartedly. I'd just taken it for granted and not bothered
wondering about a term for it.
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Duemer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 1:24 PM
Subject: Re: is dipodic a no-no?
> No, I think some verse, like the first three lines of my little example,
> are
> truly iambic & should be scanned that way; the last line is dipodic &
> should
> be scanned that way. What I like about my trivial example is that the word
> "oblivion" creates a tension in the ear: should it be heard _ / _ / or
> should it be heard _ _ / /. Sung, it hovers somewhere between those two
> patterns. Dipodic poetry in English often makes use of this kind of
> tension.
> Anyway, metrical analysis always comes afterward; it is always "belated"
> as
> the deconstructionists say. Even if a poet is consciously using a
> particular
> meter, the analysis always comes after the composition. And most of the
> people who "wrote" dipodics have actually sung them: as ballads, in the
> nursery, in church. You can bet that these "folk" did not have a metrical
> handbook open while singing "Sir Patrick Spens" or "Barb'ry Allen." Still,
> the patterns are there. You can hear them & see them if you are using
> printed texts. So I don't think of them as straitjackets at all. I have no
> proof, but I'd guess that dipody in English folk meters developed out of
> interaction with melody & musical rhythm.
>
> jd
>
> On 1/23/07, Joanna Boulter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> So, let's see if I've got this straight.
>>
>> You are talking about poetry which can be / is to be scanned in two ways
>> at
>> once, each of them strict and without the little relaxations which give
>> the
>> poetic line its subtlety?
>>
>> What is the point, except to see if you can? You might as well wear two
>> straitjackets at the same time.
>>
>> That's not for me!
>>
>> joanna
>>
>> joanna
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Robin Hamilton" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 12:28 PM
>> Subject: Re: is dipodic a no-no?
>>
>>
>> >> OK so I'm wrong again!
>> >> At least I'm not alone.
>> >> Roger
>> >
>> > Ah, depends which dipodic you mean, but. The term does seem to drift
>> > around a bit, meaning something quite different (earlier) in classical
>> > quantitative scansion, for instance.
>> >
>> > I think Joe and I are both singing from the same hymn sheet (hm -- are
>> > hymns dipodic?), but I've been stressing the origins while his latest
>> neat
>> > post directs towards the way it occurs in non-folk poetry.
>> >
>> > [I'm unsure where to place the comment you forwarded from Joanna. If
>> > there were an equivalent here to Dana Gioa among the New Formalists, it
>> > might just be James Fenton. Except he's a bit too daring for
>> them. Does
>> > Gioia mention him anywhere, or stick to trying to rehabilitate Charles
>> > Causley?]
>> >
>> > R.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Joseph Duemer
> Professor of Humanities
> Clarkson University
> [sharpsand.net]
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