Hello, Richard!
I agree that, properly speaking, prosodies should be descriptive. As Annie and I have both said in our different ways, experienced poets write by ear and use whatever analytical tools lie at hand only intermittently and as a check.
Unfortunately, I suspect that for those embarking on this great venture - and even for some who are already nearing the end of that voyage - prosodic theories, when over-complex, actually distort what the ear hears. Hence my suggestion that it might be worth considering the minimum technical requirements for accentual-syllabic verse.
You extend the question into accentual verse, and while the same arguments might well apply there too, my own interest in this trhead was specifically in accentual-syllabic metres.
In any case, Old English metres were themselves much more complex than is, I think, sometimes supposed - though again I am certain that practised scops had internalised their patterns just as securely as Milton and Herbert had internalised the patterns of accentual-syllabic.
So, an irreducible minimum for the achievement of accentual-syllabic metres?
Clive Watkins
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