Svein, it would make life easier if everyone writing or
speaking about prosody used the same terminology, but---
The most common meter in English poetry is accentual-
syllabic, which means simply that there is a fixed number
of accents and a fixed number of syllables. E.g. in a
pentameter, five accents and ten syllables (though of
course there are many exceptions to that count). The
difference between stress and accent, as I use the terms
(and others as well) is that accent has to do only with
the meter, and it is determined almost entirely by its
position in the line. It may be heavy or very light.
Stress has to do with how we speak the language, the
sound of the sentence, inflection of phrases etc. It
often coincides with accent, but far from always. The
beauty and subtlety of accentual-syllabic meter lies
largely in the continuous conflict between stress and
accent. To quote Frost again,
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTRegular verse springs from the strain of rhythm
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTUpon a metre, strict or loose iambic.
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTFrom that strain comes the expression strains of music
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTThe tune is not that metre, not that rhythm,
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBut a resultant that arises from them.
Is that clear? The whole secret is right there, and what
we call the music of verse is just that, the play between
meter, which is a completely fixed and abstract paradigm,
and speech rhythms, which vary a great deal depending on
meaning, tone etc. (what Frost called "the sound of sense").
That play sometimes looks like a dance, sometimes like a
wrestling-match, but as in those activities, one partner
needs the other. (Oh, I guess one could dance alone, but
it's not nearly as interesting or exciting as with a
partner.)
[This message has been edited by robert mezey (edited September 10, 2001).]
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