Yes, Shakespeare clearly knew is numbers, as did Milton, Pope, et al.
Today, Neil Simon won't let an actor improvise from his script because it's likely to destroy his desired rhythm. He'll revise, if he feels an awkwardness, but his script is the law.
As to basics, Clive, I think we have to take from the label accentual, and assume that a line will contain a certain number of accents, ie., pentameter, tetrameter, etc. It should also contain a certain number of syllables corresponding to the normal two-syllable per foot expectation, ie., eight syllables in tetrameter. Finally, accentual/syllabic should display useful variations, ie., those that enhance the rhythm and that emphasize crucial content of the poem. When these variations, such as a trochee in a pentameter line, an anapest in a hexameter line, or, say a dactyl in a basically anapestic ditty, fall judiciously to surprise or delight, they make good poetry. When they are used to extreme, they tend to muddy the work.
I think that many good writers hear in numbers for certain kinds of poems. It might be a writer's style to write a first draft in a regular iambic tetrameter, then to follow it up with metric tinkering to improve its rhythm and content through more precise control of its music and diction.
I firmly believe that SOUND is the main ingredient of a poem and that it should firmly support its other conveyers of meaning, ie. denotation and connotation.
Is that basic enough?
Bob
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