Quote:
Originally posted by Golias:
A fore-modifier delays the reader's formation of a mental image of the object or activity being described. This delay, however brief, has a weakening or blurring effect on the reader's perception. When a series of two or more fore-modifiers are used, the delay is enlarged geometrically, and the weakening effect is increased porportionately.
All that said, there are occasions when a fore-modifier is clearly necessary to the sense and/or the sound of a line or phrase. That's why the razor cuts at 3/1 rather than lower.
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An excellent occasion for the use of a series of fore-modifiers is displayed in "Memento Mori." The penultimate stanza ends with
leafy list--a description of Frost's
oeuvre--
<dir>...who thought to find more verse, but don’t complain
at this one line from all your leafy list.
How quiet, fresh and warm this upland glen
to stop within for sleep.
I think it must be warm here even when
the snow is drifted deep.</dir>
For the span of
quiet, fresh and warm, the adjectives seem to be describing Frost's "leafy list," or at least the one line from the list.
Curtis.
[This message has been edited by Curtis Gale Weeks (edited January 21, 2003).]