Just a quick fly-by, Clive.
It took me awhile to see...though I have seen for some time now that, yes, if we are to have the terms "metrical" and "non-metrical," your type definition works well. There is still the unresolved (for/by me) issue of systematized rhetoric(s), but I am no longer asserting that "free" verse has its own kind of meters!
I should like to add, though maybe I've missed or forgotten its mention in your post, that "unmetered" should not be taken to mean "unstructured." [I just wanted to clarify the point, here.]
I'm not at all satisfied with the designation "free" verse, nor with the designation "open form." I'd rather say that what we are calling non-metrical poetry often relies quite much on the emergence of form more than metrical poetry relies on it—emergence of a or a multiplicity of forms.
The problem with such a declaration, for me at least, is that metrical poetry ought pay special attention to such emergence, too. IMO. I.e., great or good metrical poetry requires the emergence of form(s) beyond the expected audible forms of the two major metrical patterns you've mentioned. (--skipping for now the issue of syllabics--)
As you may see, I'm still unsettled by the nearly empty meaning of the distinction you would use in your dualist terminology—though just as obviously, the distinction has some use.
[This message has been edited by Curtis Gale Weeks (edited June 11, 2004).]
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