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Unread 03-20-2009, 05:46 AM
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Maryann Corbett Maryann Corbett is online now
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Catherine, it strikes me that the Millay poem is syllabic only because it's very tightly accentual-syllabic. It absolutely repeats a pattern of stresses. It's lovely; I find no fault with it. But it scans. For me, the Wilbur poem also mostly scans. By that standard, most of Pope's IP would be considered syllabic, which is surely a mistake.

All of these poems are wonderful; I'm happy to learn about them (and some of them I knew already, like the Wilbur). But they cast grave doubt on the statement that syllabics should resist having a stress pattern.

Editing back: oops, cross-posted with Alicia.
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