View Single Post
  #15  
Unread 12-12-2011, 05:11 PM
Gregory Dowling Gregory Dowling is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Venice, Italy
Posts: 2,399
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wintaka View Post
One of the two most common errors in scansion is to mistake "Tyger, Tyger" for trochaic tetrameter. The poem has six lines of clearcut iambic tetrameter, 18 hypometrical/ambiguous lines and zero lines of trochee.
Colin, I can see the iambic lines and I can see a case for saying some lines are ambiguous. But I really don't see how it is possible to say it has zero lines of trochee. How do you scan the first line? And "What the hammer? what the chain?" I confess I'm not sure how you are using the term "hypometrical"; presumably it is alternative to "catalectic" but I still don't see how one read these lines other than with a marked trochaic beat.
Reply With Quote