Mark
I'm sorry if my comment about muddying the waters came out harsher than I intended.
I can see what you're doing, and I appreciate the time you've taken to explain it to me.
Yes, I can read the strongest stresses in the de la Mare poem as you have indicated. But that's not the way the way I would read the poem aloud: I would include the lesser stresses, also.
'Is there Anybody THERE?' said the TRAVeller,
I think you've mis-scanned 'anybody'. I hear a primary stress on -bod- and a secondary on an-. No stress on the -y-.
KNOCK/ing on/ the MOON/lit DOOR;
And his HORSE /in the SIL/ence champed/ the GRASSes
Of/ the FOR/est's FER/ny FLOOR:
And a /BIRD flew /up OUT /of the TURRet,
AbOVE /the TRAVel/ler's HEAD
I concede a point that this looks more consistent calling it accentual trimeter - more polished also - but that's not the only way it could be scanned.
The test of the pudding is still to read it aloud *groan*, and I still wouldn't read it differently were we to call it accentual or accentual-syllabic. I mean, if you were reading this aloud, would you intentionally fail to add the stresses I italicised, as well as some I didn't?
So, we conced the author's intent was accentual, but as Carol stated, it comes out awkward and verbose. I say let's clean it up into good ol' acc-syl *grin*
I will, however, concede the accentual intent of the author.
[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited August 21, 2005).]
|