[Matt Q]

I've never written in Sapphic stanzas, but I'm now interested to try, and can't find much written on them beyond a basic description of the form, and this useful Sphere discussion on enjambment in Sapphics, hence the following question:

According to Finch and Olivier in Measure for Measure "unlike other metrical patterns [...] which can be changed by substitution or expressive varation without destroying the basic metre, this particular pattern of trochees and dactyls is the definition of a Sapphic stanza." (p.213, their italics). I initially took this to mean that substitutions are to be avoided. However, some of the poems they include as Sapphics clearly do make substitutions. For example, Marilyn Hacker's opening line to Dusk:July is:

Late afternoon rain of a postponed summer

which I'd say only contains one trochee, and in Muriel Rutkeyser's Effort at Speech, the position of the dactyl to varies between the first and fourth foot.

So perhaps I've misunderstood Finch and Olivier. But nonetheless, I'm interested to know if there are there any rules (if only of thumb), expectations, issues or opinions around the subject of substitutions with Sapphics. Or should one simply follow one's ear and go with whatever sounds right? Any thoughts, opinions or pointers to (ideally web-based) literature would be welcome.

Many thanks,

Matt

[Mary Meriam]

Hi Matt, I've written many very strict Sapphic stanzas but have lately loosened them up a little. Rick has written some great Sapphics - maybe he knows. I'd like to know too.

[R. Nemo Hill]

I think our contemporary ear does not pick up the Sapphic meter unless it is quite strict. Though I am a devotee metrical ambiguity, I think it least effective in Sapphics.

Nemo

[Julie Steiner]

I've used some quite legal anceps (wildcard) variants in sapphics that still caused pretty sophisticated readers to complain that they'd lost the meter at that point.

For me to argue that I was in the right is to be like my daughter a few days ago, arguing that she had a perfectly legal right to do something I (and her fellow drivers) didn't expect when she was practicing driving. If you freak people out, they will scream or honk no matter how righteous you feel.

I think the same applies here. If a substitution works, it works. If it doesn't, people will let you know.

[Michael Juster]

I concur with Nemo.

[Charlie Southerland]

Matt, I too, agree with Nemo. The strictness of the form is where all the glory lies. It is lyrically enchanting. The 2 keys to sapphics, (to me) is learning how to read them within each line, which took me a long time to learn, and the anceps at the end of each line. So many writers of sapphics phone it in with conjunctions and prepositions, that it weakens their poems to barely interesting. The third thing I would say is that your dactyls must be strong throughout the poem. I try to do it but miss the mark sometimes. Sometimes the dactyls make a stanza clunky sounding but it still scans OK.

When you are finished with a good sapphic stanza, it should read as effortlessly as really good free verse reads. Scanning sapphics is not for the weak. It's a requirement.

I hope Allen Tice weighs in on this. He likes abusing the anceps more that most. He throws out good reasons for it. Good luck with it.

[Mary McLean]

I agree with Nemo too -- Sapphics are so hard for us to hear that it's easy to lose the plot if they are irregular. But it can come out a bit monotonous. Lots of fun to write though. Give it a go!

[Matt Q]

Thanks everyone, this is really useful.

The mention of anceps made me think that maybe I should have given Finch & Olivier's definition of the accentual Sapphic stanza, which is thus:

{trochee, trochee, dactyl, trochee, trochee} x3
dactyl, trochee.

No mention of the anceps. I wasn't aware of them, so that's useful to know.

Charlie you says there's an anceps at the end of every line. So I can always substitute a spondee for the final trochee?

Looking at the quantitative meter, there also seems to be an anceps on the fourth syllable of the hendecasyllable lines. Assuming this also applies in the accentual case, then one could also substitute a spondee at the second foot also. Is that the case?

And oddly enough, it seems that not all sources give an anceps in the final syllable, just the fourth (see also here)

Interestingly I found this at poets.org; they offer the same definition as Finch & Oliver, but adds: "However, there is some flexibility with the form as when two stressed syllables replace both the second and last foot of each line." (my italics). This seems to suggest that if you substitute one spondee you should substitute both. Actually "each line" also seems to imply all lines rather than some. However, in the example they give Sappho’s “The Anactoria Poem" (trans. Richard Lattimore), spondee substitutions are not made in every line, however they do appear to always appear in pairs. Is this a constraint generally observed, or can the substitutions be made independently?

Julie, mention legal anceps subsitutions. Are these those?

Thanks again everyone,

Matt

[Julie Steiner]

Because I'm lazy, I'll just point to the Wikipedia page, and note that the quantitative scansion pattern shown there doesn't, in my experience, work when directly applied to English stresses. In English, the fourth-syllable anceps rarely works as a stressed syllable, and ending a line on a stressed syllable invariably draws complaints that people want that syllable to be unstressed.

The "(trochee, trochee, dactyl, trochee, trochee) x3 / dactyl, trochee" recipe is thus far more practical for English verse.

BTW, in most cases (but not the case of the adonian fourth line of a Sapphic stanza), the last syllable of a Latin or Greek line is reckoned "long by position," even if it is short according to all the other rules. So I suppose Charlie's right that the final syllable of the first three lines functions as another anceps, even if it's not marked as such. But again, I haven't had much success using stressed syllables there.

[Maryann Corbett]

I'm another vote in the with-Nemo category. I do know that lots of well-known poets have treated sapphics with greater freedom.

It seems to me that, as with any meter, the first lines of the poem need to be the most regular so that the meter is clearly established. If you don't open with clear trochees in the first stanza, your sapphics will probably be taken for loose iambics! And a clear shave-and-a-haircut meter in the first several adonics will also help. Once the meter is well laid down, you could loosen up a little.

There are other tricks poets use to telegraph that sapphics are being used--mostly Greek themes!--but that gets tiring, especially if you love the meter and want to use it for all sorts of subjects.