More on the meter
By the way, I'm a bit confused by the ongoing discussion of the opening feet. My understanding of the Alcaic stanza is that each of the first three lines begins with a spondee (or, if you prefer, a headless iamb followed by a trochee)--in any event, with two stresses, making the meter particularly unwieldy in English. Thus you have Tennyson resorting to "O" to begin each of the first two lines of "Milton," and inversions like "Me rather" (appropriate though it is for Miltonic syntax). Tennyson does comment on the "freer & lighter" Greek Alcaic vs. the Horatian Alcaic, which taps into the earlier discussion.
Jay
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