[VictoriaGaile]

Clive wrote something in a critique on the metrical board that surprised me. Rather than take over the poem's thread, I thought I'd quote it over here, and ask for elaboration from Clive, Alicia, and anyone else who cares to comment.

Clive wrote:
I wonder if you confuse stress with metrical beats. Accentual-syllabic and accentual metres depend on this distinction and on the related phenomena of demoted and promoted stress. Not every meaning-bearing word (what some linguists call "content words") in a line of verse will carry a metrical beat, even though it may be stressed. These four notions - stress, metrical beat, demotion and promotion - are fundamental.

While I knew this to be true for accentual-syllabic, I was very surprised at the statement that it holds true for accentual, as well.

My impression was that accentual verse used the stresses of natural speech as its metrical beats. That promotion and demotion may occur, as they do contextually in natural speech; but that the natural speech stress *was* the beat.

Is this really widely held not to be true? And if so, what would you call verse that does use the natural speech stress as the beat in this way? Would you lump it in with free verse?

I do note that Clive was contrasting the rhetorical stress with the metrical beat in his comment. I am not sure whether "rhetorical stress" and "natural speech stress" are actually the same thing.

Victoria Gaile

[A. E. Stallings]

Victoria,

I'm not sure about the context, but I agree with what Clive says.


Well, for instance, ANY one syllable word in English CAN take a beat, or ictus. Or it cannot. I think metricists call these "common" syllables, or anceps. And there are many "natural" ways to read a line with "natural" voice stress.

A sentence made up of monosyllables is metrically totally up in the air without some sort of metrical or narrative context. A monosyllabic line of IP can be a very beautiful and subtle instrument, but it usually comes in at the end of a sonnet, when the ip is fully established, for instance, rather than at the ambiguous get-go.

As for natural voice stress of a line--how often does one such way really exist? Without italics, would there be only one way to read this?

I told her what to do. (I could read as iambic trimeter)

I told her what to do. [It's my fault]

I told her what to do [already]

I told her what to do [not him]

I told her what to do [but not how to do it...]

I told her what to do [but not what to say...]

That is just natural emphatic stress, say. As for metrical beats/ictus, it is a common misconception that a word receives one because it is an important word. To scan by meaning. Rather, it is the scansion, likely as not, that will tell us which words are "meaningful." You cannot simply rely on the "importance" of a word--particularly if it is a MONOSYLLABIC word--to draw the beat like a lightening bolt. Many of the most subtle effects of meter are realized by having semantically important words stuffed into metrically "unstressed" positions--thus adding much weight and gravity to a line.

Especially if you are working in a looser sort of meter (a lot of times we say accentual for what might better be described as fast-and-loose accentual syllabics)--you need to have pretty firm metrical footing--which means judiciously placed disyllabic words, for instance. And setting expectations to take the looseness of extra syllables in stride.

It might be helpful if you posted some of the lines in question...

Some of what you are getting at, though, I think might be covered in the loose iambic thread. A lot of things go into how one reads a line. One is visual. If I see a long line in a loose pentameter poem, crowded with syllables, I am probably not going to promote stresses on little words (especially in little groupings like "of the") or eke secondary stresses out of long ones. Perhaps this is what you mean by natural speech.

One loose pentameter (I don't know that I would term it accentual--perhaps triple rhythmed with duple rhythm substituions or some such) that sort of works this way to me is Wilbur's "Shame". It also, however, has occasional perfect ip lines--and those emphatically so--as line 7.

just the beginning: "SHame"

It is a cramped little state with no foreign policy,
Save to be thought inoffensive. The grammar of the language
Has never been fathomed, owing to the national habit
Of allowing each sentence to trail off in confusion.
Those who have visited Scusi, the capital city,
Report that the railway-route from Schuldig passes
Through country best described as unrelieaved.

...

Maybe none of that is exactly what you are asking about... Please feel free to post a specific example.

And am sure others will have another view of this, and probably be able to be more articulate about it!

[VictoriaGaile]

Alicia,

Thanks for your reply. I think I culled too many specifics out of my question!

I do understand that one does not scan according to "important words", and that there are a variety of "natural speech stresses" depending on context.


A sentence made up of monosyllables is metrically totally up in
the air without some sort of metrical or narrative context.

Right. I think that my question has to do with the relative importance of the metrical context, versus the narrative context, in accentual verse. Does the metrical context *always* "win", if the two are in conflict, in determining whether a syllable carries a beat?

Here is the example that confused me:

Clive wrote:

The first line of the eighth quatrain has only four beats: "But, dAmn art! POetry wIll hold swAy". You perhaps meant the line to go like this: "But, dAmn Art! POetry wIll hold swAy". But this is to rely on a rhetorical emphasis not inherent in the metre. Metrically,"art" is demoted and does not carry a beat.

This seems wrong to me.

Yes, by its placement between two strong stresses, "art" is demoted.

But the rhetorical stress is very strong. Why is the rhetorical stress (perhaps combined with the fact that it actually precedes a caesura, not a strong stress) not sufficient to keep the beat on "art", thus leaving the line with five stresses? (especially in the context of previous pentameter lines?)

It's not that I am particularly hung up on the scansion of this one line, btw - I am struggling lately to figure out how what I perceive as "primary stresses" and "secondary stresses" play together, and this seemed a good example.

[peter richards]

It is a CRAMPED little STATE with NO foreign POLicy,
[...]
Of alLOWing each SENtence to TRAIL off in conFUSion.

Seems to me like near enough's good enough with this sort of - er - meter.

I'd question the purpose of analysis, because although I don't perceive five stresses/beats or whatever in the lines above, I certainly wouldn't think about rewriting them to get an extra one in. In the interplay of text and voice that I get out of the lines quoted by Alicia, those two lines are right.

Maybe RW will come in and explain a method of BOOM counting, but I'd definitely excuse him the obligation.

p

[A. E. Stallings]

Dear Victoria,

Sorry to have misunderstood the question, and to have babbled on about things you already have a good grasp of.

I think I must see the context of the line quoted. I have tried looking through the metrical boards, but can't seem to find it. Would you quote a couple of stanzas? I should warn you that on metrical issues I agree with Clive something like 98% of the time...

The problem does seem to be, though, the issue of monosyllables being common, and relying mostly on position for determination (if following a stressed beat, will tend to be unstressed, and vice versa) There are plenty of subtle corollaries and exceptions (double iambs, for instance), but that is the basic "rule"--and it is very hard to break it successfully. It is, for instance, easier to break at the end of a line--the reader knows he or she has to eke another beat, and there is another potentially heavy syllable... But at the beginning of the line, it is harder. The reader doesn't know that a traditional scansion will pull him up short until the line is over and he only has a tetrameter to work with. One might go back and reread the line as the author intended, but by then the spell is lost. It isn't, of course, so much a matter of whether lines CAN be rationalized to scan correctly, but whether the reader will do so without too much confusion. And as I'm sure you'll agree, meter should help readers with their footing rather than trip them up.

And I think to get the effect you want, you would have to be working in a looser more accentual iambic pentameter (which perhaps you are--I think I need to see the context). Even so, as a rule, it is much, much easier to get away with too many syllables--I do it all the time--than too few.

Once you are in a pretty strict ip, it looks as though "art" will indeed be a heavy demoted syllable. One solution might be

But art, damn art! Poetry will hold sway.

(Where you start with two iambs--the second almost spondaic in its heaviness)

Another:

But in damn art! Poetry will hold sway.

(Here you have two initial (potentially) light syllables which will then allow for both damn and art receiving the ictus).

Anyway, don't know if this is any help at all. I would be intrigued to see the context, which might show me to be totally wrong on this example!

cheers,

Alicia

[Clive Watkins]

Dear Victoria

First, let me apologise for the delay in responding to the questions you raised. The past few days have been unexpectedly busy, and this is the first chance I have had of reflecting on them. In fact, I think Alicia has really answered for me, and I am happy to concur in her remarks; but let me add a few further comments.

The briefest but also, really, the fullest answer I can give is to recommend Derek Attridge’s fine book Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995). In my view, this is the best account of the way accentual metres (which he calls stress metres) and accentual-syllabic metres operate, including the way they are derived from the naturally occurring phonetic patterns of English. My own views on metre coincide almost entirely with Attridge’s. I have mentioned this book on a number of other occasions and posted a short description of it at http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtm...L/000259.html. In particular, chapter 4 deals with the issues you mention.

As to what I called "rhetorical" stress, here, once again, are my remarks about Kevin’s line: "The first line of the eighth quatrain has only four beats: "But, damn art! Poetry will hold sway". You perhaps meant the line to go like this: "But, damn art! Poetry will hold sway". But this is to rely on a rhetorical emphasis not inherent in the metre. Metrically, "art" is demoted and does not carry a beat."

I am sorry if this is unclearly expressed. As Alicia says, there is a powerful and, as it were, a natural tendency in ordinary non-metrical speech to downplay the stress on the middle of three syllables which would, in other contexts, attract stress. In the case of Kevin’s line, it is possible to overcome this natural tendency by forcing an emphasis on to "art", and it is this kind of forced emphasis I am referring to as "rhetorical emphasis" - "rhetorical" because it is an emphasis which one might in delivery choose to add in order to bring out a particular nuance. Such an emphasis is not, however, part of the metrical structure and is not required by the metrical structure. One of the beauties of metre is that the pattern of beats, the metrical pulse, partly subdues and partly draws out the naturally occurring stresses of the language. I think Alicia is making rather the same point when she remarks that "meter should help readers with their footing rather than trip them up".

Accentual metres are arguably harder to bring off successfully than accentual-syllabic metres. The reason lies in the fact that one may admit more unstressed syllables and require the accommodation of more stressed syllables in positions which do not demand a metrical beat than is usual in accentual-syllabic meters, where the line is additionally constrained by the need to keep quite close to a particular number of syllables per line (between nine and about twelve, for instance, in IP). If the line is stretched too often or in a careless way, the regular pulse, the regular pattern of metrical beats, on which both metres depend may be endangered. It is at such points that a special difficulty arises for the poet. As writers, we hear the words we are working with in a certain way. This can exercise such a mesmeric power over our ear that it is easy to become wedded to that one way of hearing them and fail to notice that another reader, who cannot hear how we choose to read the words, might well detect a different pattern. In such cases, one might say that the control exercised by the metre over the shape of the language has become too lax, leaving the independent reader metrically adrift, something which the stricter demands of accentual-syllabic metres make less likely. In such cases, if the reader could only hear the poet read the lines out loud, the intended pattern would become apparent; but to the extent that the intended pattern was not made inevitable by the management of the metre, one might want to call such lines defective.

Best wishes!

[VictoriaGaile]

Dear Alicia,

Here are a few stanzas, quoted from "Diminished", recently posted by Wordpress:

My life, of course! What fool would disagree?”
He has to feed his family before all else,
and so he leaves, to seek his fortune elsewhere.
Nothing escapes the market’s invisible hand,

not even the life of art. La vie boheme,
as a poet said, is squalid poverty.
Does poetry, like prayer, demand a vow
of poverty? At last, he sees it does.

But, damn art! Poetry will hold sway
on him, even if he has to earn
his bread through work that only feeds the body,
which has to eat before the spirit’s fed.


Thank you for your further reflections on meter, which I will go and reflect upon. But I think something that you said more precisely isolates the question I'm trying to ask:

But art, damn art! Poetry will hold sway.

(Where you start with two iambs-- the second almost spondaic in its heaviness)

I think what I'm trying to ask is this:

- if one is clearly in the context of accentual verse, not accentual-syllabic
- if one uses a word or phrase that would be classed as spondaic if one were in accentual syllabic
- may not the two stresses in that spondee "count" as two beats in the line,
- even if the following syllable is unstressed,
- especially if the rhetorical or narrative context reinforces the spondaic stress?

Clive,

Thank you - I think it's definitely time for me to get Attridge's book.

Such an emphasis is not, however, part of the metrical
structure and is not required by the metrical structure.
I agree. In this case, however, my perception is that it is *required* by the *rhetorical* structure. If this is not your perception, perhaps that explains my confusion.

As writers, we hear the words we are working with in a certain way. This can exercise such a mesmeric power over our ear that it is easy to become wedded to that one way of hearing them and fail to notice that another reader, who cannot hear how we choose to read the words, might well detect a different pattern.
Indeed! and haven't I learned that since coming here!

Peter,

"Boom-counting" - I like that.

cheers, all,

Victoria Gaile

[A. E. Stallings]

Ah me, the spondee. I was hoping to get around that one... But I see you caught me trying to sneak the adjective past to avoid the noun!

The issue, for me, is one of terminology rather than meter itself. (And it is why the Greek terms can leave me a bit leary.)

I don't find the notion of feet all that useful to the working poet. Rather, I'm a "boom counter" if you will. Five beats to the pentameter. Five "feet" leaves you open to all sorts of problems. Can you count two unstressed syllables--or even three--in a row as a foot? Can you count three stressed syllables in a row as one foot? Well, as far as I'm concerned, no. (Or rather, I don't find it practical.) But as far as some scholars are concerned, yes. There are names for such animals--the molossus, for example!--to prove it.

I think the concept of pyrrhic as a "meter" in English, for instance, is pretty obviously suspect if you sit down and try to imagine such a thing as pyrrhic tetrameter. You can't, because there ain't. English just won't allow it.

But the confusion about all this is from transfering wily-nily terminology for a quantitative system to an accentual syllabic system. In Greek (or Latin), a spondee is two long syllables. A pyrrhic is three short syllables. But "ictus"--the metrical beat (actually the point where the foot was put down in dancing--the downbeat)--ALSO played a role. (Some people forget this when discussing quantitative meters.)

Actually, often the Greek terminology translates just fine. Iamb is as good a name for dah DUM as any. And trochee works fine for DUM dah. Or anapest for dah dah DUM. I use these terms myself.

But--the spondee. I think the confusion arrises because in English, folks use it to describe what I would consider TWO DIFFERENT effects. I would maintain that one of these effects is rhythmic rather than metrical. Two heavy (long, if you will) syllables that still count as one foot--or that, for me, still get one downbeat--even though they almost feel equivalent in weight. I consider this spondaic in rhythm. As far as I am concerned, they are spondaic iambs (oxymoronic as that may sound at first). And it is a wonderful, rich effect. But I still give it one "beat." And the foot counters still consider it one foot. This is what your "damn art" is in my book, though it is in a way trying to be the other kind of "spondee" at the same time.

The other effect is sometimes called a double iamb. Two unstressed syllables followed by two stressed syllables. This sort of spondee cannot really exist on its own, as far as I know. It seems to need the pyrrhic. (Again, the idea--and this was discussed at greater length in the loose iamb thread--that in a duple meter in English you can't have three unstressed beats in a row.) But either way you slice it--as a pyrrhic and spondee, say (which for me feels like an artifical intellectual division, however useful it may be to scholars), or as an anapest and perhaps the start of a trochee--it is TWO FEET. And it gets TWO BEATS. This is the only thing I would actually call a spondee. And again, it is really part of a composite foot. If one went by feet. Which I don't.

Your poem flows in very accomplished, smooth, standard accentual syllabic pentameter up to the line in question. You just about carry it off, actually--I can see a reader persuaded to read it as you intend--but it is as if you are suddenly jolting into another system of scansion. I think you could get away with it in a much looser and less traditional pentameter. But as you are working so much in the traditional iambic line (eking secondary stresses out, for instance, puts you VERY much in that tradition rather than an accentual one), the anomoly comes off as---an anomoly. One could argue that it also comes in at an emphatically emotional point in the poem, and that the anomoly is earned. I guess that is another issue.

In an accentual meter, all bets are off, though. (But as you know, your poem is not accentual.) The idea of feet goes totally out of the window, and, yes, stressed syllables can rub shoulders much more easily. Take:

Three blind mice (beat, beat, beat)
See how they run (beat, beat, off, beat)

The truth is, though, even in nursery rimes, there is often a combination of the accentual with something more like accentual syllabic:

they all ran after the farmer's wife
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife.

I think in the other thread, these sorts of strong-rhythmic song-like poems were referred to as logoaedic rather than accentual. I'm not sure my grasp of the definition of "logoaedic" is terribly firm, though.

And I love the Gwendolyn Brooks "We Real Cool", which may be unique in English verse for having EVERY syllable a stressed beat. (THough to call it molossian monometer, or some such, would be laughable. I'd just call it a trimeter.)

And, to be honest, I think the longer a line in English, the more it is going to lean toward the accentual syllabic rather than the purely accentual. Or the accentual gets harder to maintain.

Anyway, sorry to ramble. And I know some folks disagree with me on this one. (I think in some ways my concept of meter is idiosyncratic, or at least heterodox.) And it may be all stuff you already knew/have heard before.

[Robert J. Clawson]

I think in some ways my concept of meter is idiosyncratic

'sokay, your ear's a boomer.