Golias,
At the risk of illuminating my ignorance further...
I'd have to say that the poem is obviously accentual in nature, in which case whatever secondary stresses might be present are not accented. Auden sometimes blurred the lines when doing this sort of thing (flirted at the edge of accentual and accentual-syllabic writing), but this poem, this type of accentual verse, requires only that the primary stresses receive accents. So your question, "But are all those unaccented syllables also unstressed," would be properly answered, imo, as "No. Some of those unaccented syllables might receive a stress because of normal speech rhythms, but even so the stresses are much weaker than the primary stresses and do not interfere with the accentual meter." Such secondary stressing is not "demoted" in an accentual scheme--it's simply not accented, even if still stressed lightly.
Some of the lines in the poem you posted could be read as tetrameter, but the context in which they appear, the poem, would argue against such a reading. E.g., theoretical rhymes on "unmarriageable" and "incorrigible," on either the penultimate syllable or the last, or even on the middle syllable, would not be true rhymes; they'd be exact repetitions; on the second syllables of the words, they are slant rhymes. (immalleable & unmanageable follow the slanting path of these, beginning with the second syllable, although immalleable might be considered a true rhyme with these on the penultimate syllable.) "insuperable portion" & "considerable fortune" show the play happening in a similar way, because they are slant rhymes if begun on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable of the adjectives in those pairings...were one to attempt a tetrameter interpretation. L4 of S1 might even be read as accentual tetrameter; the slant rhyming between L4 & L5, and between L4 & L8 is just hilarious and also might confuse an over-conscientious reading.
I mentioned Auden. heh. The polysyllabic words in question could be used in positions throughout a poem in such a way that the poem could be read as accentual trimeter or as accentual-syllablic tetrameter, depending on how one treated the secondary stresses. If in every duplicitous line in the example the poet positioned the secondary stresses where they might be promoted in context without interfering with a duple meter, one could use the context for an acc-syl tetrameter reading or choose to ignore the secondary stresses for an accentual trimeter reading. (The same duplicitous effect might be achieved by using non-content words such as prepositions in positions where they might be promoted or unaccented--as long as the strong stresses in each line, in content words, still added up to "3".)
Curtis.
[This message has been edited by Curtis Gale Weeks (edited January 10, 2003).]
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