Alicia:
Quote:
|
Just because it hasn't caught on much in English (which I totally agree with), doesn't mean it isn't something to try, or that it isn't a valid experiment.
|
It
was a valid experiment in the centuries following 1066, as English poets mimicked French examples. On its own, English syllabic poetry failed the test of time long before Shakespeare was born. Do we believe its desuetude since has been mere oversight? Fashion, perhaps? Was the original experiment flawed? Were two and a half centuries not long enough as an experiment?
Unaccented languages have developed entire prosodies around syllabics. In our accented language with its fungible syllables, what would our syllabic prosody be? Will it take the same number of centuries or eons of dominance to define? Would its successes come because of, in spite of or irrespective of the meter? How would we judge what, to an audience, may sound like free verse minus the polyrhythmic riffs and interesting variations in line lengths? Speaking of audience and bearing in mind the difficulty in selling even accentual-syllabic poetry nowadays, where will we find people interested in a format that people rejected for 6+ centuries before the 20th? In short, how will we test market something when we have neither a test nor a market?
I'm all for experimentation but wouldn't it seem more productive to try out approaches that
haven't failed to hold an anglophone audience in the past?
I hate to sound so negative so I'll end on this bright note: the post-1066 experiment did lead to the accentual-syllabic hybrid that eclipsed accentual meter in English poetry. It brought us Donne, Shakespeare, Milton, the Brownings, et al. And, of course, you. For this I think we can all extend a heartfelt "Merci!"
-o-