Bob, I heard these recordings of Yeats' readings just two days ago. I'm afraid I was so impressed by just hearing the great poet read that I listened quite uncritically. Someone told me that when asked why he so accentuated the beats -- in amplitude and duration, he said something to this effect: I went to a lot of trouble to arrange those accents, and I want them to be heard.
If you ever attended a Carl Sandburg performance then you may remember that he did something of the same kind -- deeply intoning the lines and dropping in sonorous UH's here and there. He sang about the same way -- growling.
I'm looking forward to your explanation of rhythm and meter differences. Does it suggest that if one adheres strictly to one or two types of metrical feet, choosing short and long syllables carefully, so that the "metrical rhythm" prevails, then the result is, in most cases, uninteresting, dull and mechanical? Aren't there quite a lot of famous examples to the contrary? I think of Hood's Bridge of Sighs and Gray's Elegy, as being most carefully wrought to the meter and foot-type -- dactylic and iambic respectively--and to me these do not sound monotonous or dull at all. What is it about the argument that I'm missing?
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