[New-Poetry] Questions on form

[jfq at myuw.net]

I agree that this is the traditional view of meter in classical prosody, and laid out more eloquently than i have done so, so thanks. But i don't think I'm wrong to call it shoehorning because it doesn't emerge from the rhythms of natural speech. That's pretty central to the point i'm trying to make: that the rhythm of poetry ought to emerge from the rhythm of natural speech. I recognize it as a prescriptive position, certainly, but I think a good case can be made for it on several good grounds. Not the least, but certainly not the only one either, is that a view of meter based on modern scientific prosody gives the poet a richer palette not just as regards rhythm but with all prosodic devices which rely on their timing in relation to eachother to have their effect. Allowing for greater subtlety in composition is a good thing, because it doesn't eliminate the more plodding sorts of meter if 
one wants to use them. Although with the options available to contemporary lyric poets i fail to see why one would want to remain shackled to received forms and meters.

On Wed, 2 Jan 2008, Michael Snider wrote:

>
> On Jan 2, 2008, at 4:12 PM, jfq at myuw.net wrote:
>
>> well, not wanting to overstate the case, obviously they matter. but i think 
>> only as a tertiary concern when compared to the relative pattern of weights 
>> and stresses and also the fact of various forms of silence and pauses that 
>> are generally unaccounted for, but hugely influential in the rhythm of 
>> verse. account for that, and if there are no irregularities there, then 
>> sure, you might turn to syllable count to smooth wrinkles.
>
>
> All that goes on--silences, dipthongs, rhetorical stress, and much more--but 
> the rhthm of a metrical poem is neither those things it inherits from natural 
> speech nor its meter, but is instead a product of the interaction of meter and 
> speech. It's not shoe-horning, though Bob G is correct that meter results in 
> what you miight call "nudges" either up or down on the natural speech stress of 
> a phrase. Those nudges come from a more-or-less strict pattern of stressed and 
> unstressed syllables within the feet of the poem--and only contrasting stress 
> within a foot, not between feet, counts for the meter.
>
> BTW, the terms of traditional English prosody are Greek in origin but they 
> don't even pretend to refer to the same phenomena, though Sidney and a few 
> others were a might confused early on.
>
> And hiya, folks. Been mostly off-net for a while, and the several thousand 
> unread New Poetry emails were a little intimidating.  I finally decided to just 
> jump over the lot.
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