[mandolin]

Wonderful to have you here! At breakfast at West Chester, I called you Tim, but I feel like I should say "Dr. Steele" --

I've got two questions related to other threads at Eratosphere, but I'll save the second for another thread. The first concerns the first line of Frost's "Death of the Hired Man": "Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table." Caleb Murdock said the line wasn't IP, and I gave a scansion which I wrongly claimed was regular IP: MAry | sat MUS | ing ON | the LAMP- | flame AT | the TABle. Initial trochee, feminine ending, and so far so good -- but, as Carol Taylor pointed out, 6 feet.

Other scansions have been suggested, all of which involve, ignoring the foot divisions, MUSing on the LAMP.

How would you scan the line? Is it preferable to understand the line as containing an extra foot or as containing multiple substitutions and three consecutive unstressed syllables?

More generally, is traditional scansion useful for a line like this one?

[Carol Taylor]

I'm also interested to know how you read this, Dr. Steele (or Timothy if I may). It is followed by a pentameter line, and I read it with five beats. But scanning it as pentameter produces a line made up almost entirely of substitutions. I can deal with three unaccented syllables together more easily than I can deal with an extra foot.

Carol

[ChrisW]

Don't we have to treat it as hexameter?
The only thing that could keep me from promoting 'on' would be the following argument:
1. This was written by Frost
2. Frost would never start pentameter with an alexandrine
3. This line will turn out to be an alexandrine if I promote 'on'.
Therefore I will not promote 'on', but will regard it as unstressed for the purposes of this line (though if it occurred in a shorter line or one by some unknown poet, I would promote it).

But can the scansion of a line be dependent on who wrote it?
And can the stress we place on a middle syllable depend upon how many feet we'll have by the end of the line?

I'd prefer to say that Frost begins with an alexandrine and look for reasons for that -- after all, we will still have to explain why he would write a line with three unstressed syllables in a row that consisted almost entirely of substitutions even if we save him from the charge of starting with an alexandrine.
Maybe the greater length of the line suggests the length or ponderousness of her musings?

--Chris

[Timothy Steele]

Dear Carol,

Your scansion is correct. The first line of the hired man poem is an iambic hexameter with an inverted first foot and a feminine ending.

Happily, Frost himself went on record on this matter, saying that, at some point after writing the poem, he was reading it and realized that line 1 had an extra foot.

I guess even the best lose count sometimes.

Best wishes,

Tim Steele

[Carol Taylor]

Tim, that clinches it that he didn't put in a hexameter line intentionally, so perhaps he actually heard five beats in his head when he wrote it, and only realized he had an extra foot when he later discovered the three consecutive unstressed syllables, which everybody knows are just not done. But are they ever done? Certainly we speak that way.

Carol

[robert mezey]

It's an odd thing, but some hexameters, a few,
sound like pentameters at first hearing. No
practiced poet who composed, say, a line like
"Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting
heaven" would fail to realize that it's a hex-
ameter, but if memory serves, I didn't immediately
catch Frost's opening line as one (although it
didn't take long). (I know I've written quite a
few which were meant to be pentameters.) Later on
in Frost's great poem, there's another hexameter
even less audible than the first line; I knew the
poem by heart for years before it hit me that
"Harold's associated in his mind with Latin" is
a hexameter. (I know that Frost consciously used
occasional six-beat and four-beat lines in his
blank verse, but I wonder if he heard that one.)



[This message has been edited by robert mezey (edited July 07, 2001).]

[Caleb Murdock]

"I know that Frost consciously used occasional six-beat and four-beat lines in his blank verse, but I wonder if he heard that one." Thank you for that remark, Robert!

I for one believe that poets should feel free to take such liberties without running into a ton of criticism and peer pressure. In the poem I posted about the tree, there was a 6-foot line which sounded more right to me than any of the 5-foot variants I came up with -- indeed, when I shortened the line to 5 feet, it sounded too short. I ended up posting the poem with a 5-foot line because the idea of a long line bothered me, and also because I wanted to avoid the inevitable criticism.

[Alan Sullivan]

Since this is my first visit to the "Lariat" board since Dr. Steele's arrival, first I must say "Welcome!" It's an honor to have you here.

You have stepped into a continuing debate that may get a bit testy at times. The participants (including me) often bring a surprising amount of passion to the discussion of these arcane matters.

I have a word for Caleb at this point. You appear to be saying that miscounting is a virtue to be cultivated. But Dr. Steele indicates that Frost felt startled when he realized what he had done. He had not intended it. Perhaps Frost would not have contrived the line in this fashion if he had thought more carefully at the outset. I continue to believe you are seeking excuses for laxity.

Alan Sullivan

[Caleb Murdock]

Alan, my post makes it clear that I wasn't talking about miscounting. In this particular instance, Frost miscounted, but that doesn't mean that all of his long and short lines were miscounts. Presumably, a good poet will not use a long or short line unless he is attempting to achieve an effect, or unless it sounds good to him.

[Patricia A. Marsh]

This is an interesting and enlightening discussion . . . and I'd like to put in my two-cents worth as a newbie, if nobody minds.

When Carol said that Frost "...discovered the three consecutive unstressed syllables, which everybody knows are just not done." and asked "But are they ever done?", I remembered another line by Frost, himself, wherein he used three consecutive unstressed syllables, viz:

and THAT/was my LONG/SCYTHE WHIS/-per-ing to/the GROUND

And, despite Mr. Frost going on record to say that he eventually realized he had an extra foot in that "Mary sat musing" line, I find myself agreeing with Carol when she says that "...perhaps he actually heard five beats in his head when he wrote it,..."

As I hear that "Mary" line--and see the image of that lamp-flame (perhaps with my own burnt-out lightbulb!)--I imagine that flame flickering, flaring up, dying down, and flaring up again in much the same way that the line does; and I still think that first line is pentameter, reading it as follows: trochee, spondee, tribrach [OR amphibrach], spondee, anapest [with hypermetrical syllable]:

MAR-y/SAT MUS/-ing on the/LAMP-FLAME/at the TA(-ble)

All best,

Patricia