Caleb, you're wrong on both counts. You scan the
Frost line with only four accents, which should
suggest that you've made a mistake somewhere. In
fact, you're sort of close to the truth without
quite recognizing it. for does get the
metrical accent, BUT it is very very light, so
that you might say the line just as you scanned
it, but your ear should be satisfied that the
number of accents has been fulfilled. However,
there is no caesura, none, not one, zip, nada.
As for the tetrameter, it is perfectly iambic and
it is excellent verse. voys had is similar
to clouds in---both inverted iambs. Carol's
account of it is pretty sound, so a word to the
wise etc.
Carol, why complicate a scansion that isn't really
all that complicated?---no need for the monosyllabic
foot and anapest. Of course a caesura can divide
a foot, it happens all the time. The foot is completely
abstract and mustn't be confused with the phrase, which
is something else altogether (although once in a while
they coincide). For example,
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
Wonderful line, especially the phrasing: a single
syllable, a trochaic phrase, and a dactyllic phrase---
but the meter is iambic. And there is a clear caesura
in the middle of the first foot and the second.
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTO / S o / S o s / S o o S
or you could mark the first foot S / O---it
doesn't really matter, the two syllables are just
about equal in stress. But if you look at just about
any line, and look just at the feet, not the phrasing,
you'll see that the foot often ends in the middle of
a word or is often split by a caesura. Sometimes the
caesura is huge, as in this line, which begins with a
trochaic foot.
So. But the hand was gone already. S // o o S...
[This message has been edited by robert mezey (edited September 15, 2001).]
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