Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbara Baig
Carl, three unstressed syllables between two stressed ones is permitted.
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Three unstressed syllables between two stresses is perfectly natural in speech, so I’ve always thought it should be doable in verse, but I’m usually told that the second of three non-stresses is always promoted. Accentual verse may escape this, though I wonder whether Gioia’s “implied fourth rule” might apply: “avoid metrical ambiguity by reducing or eliminating secondary stresses that might confuse where the beat falls.” Thanks for that article, btw; I’ll study it more closely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbara Baig
Carl, are you able to point to language in the poem that made you think Janet was keeping Tom a prisoner? Or was it something missing that made you think that way?
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There
are clues that “she” in S3 is a new character, but it wasn’t quite enough for me on first reading—or for Richard, apparently—so I had Tom stealing out of Janet’s house and then running into her out on the town. No wonder she was shocked! This version doesn’t make much sense to begin with and gets loonier with every line, so it may require a legendary misreader like myself to take it as far as I did.