Ralph: I shouldn't have implied that I think Shakespeare or any other accomplished poet could ever work entirely by intuition. There had to be plenty of tuition. But it needn't have been learned in a methodical way. Every poet, as far back as we can find 'em, has written in a tradition -- even those writing against a tradition. I suspect that they learned their craft through vast memorization and repetition. Today, even poets who read a great deal probably hardly approach the exposure that people in more oral (and aural) cultures gained in the ordinary course of life.
My point remains simply that the terms we use to explain prosody aren't necessary to the performance. They're useful in all kinds of ways, but they are no substitute for an ear trained by a lifetime of attentive listening. Same goes for rhetorical figures. The human brain seems to be a metaphor making organ as surely as the stomach is a food digesting one. It's good to be able to analyze these processes, but the analysis is a second-order activity.
RPW
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