[ginger]

I have a very elementary question about meter. Since there is only one primary stress in English words, how does one fit longer words into an iambic line? For instance, the word octopus (which I did actually use in one poem) scans Xoo, and the word declaration scans ooXo. I've read that a certain amount of variation is permissible, and even desirable in metrical verse, but does that mean that one can only employ a certain number of these kinds of words in a single poem? What if one wanted to write a piece that used declaration, fascination, trepidation, etc. as end-rhymes but did not want to vary the meter of the entire piece to scan as those words do?

I've also seen quite a bit of talk about the anapest as something to be avoided. Does anyone have the short answer for why?

My advanced thanks for the help.

Ginger

[Carol Taylor]

Ginger, somebody on General Talk, (Solan, I think) asked about secondary stress. I'm reproducing my answer here because I think it addresses your questions.

I use the term secondary stress to refer to the second-most prominent syllable in a multisyllabic word, rather than as a metrical promotion.

In English, words of more than two syllables can have more than one stressed syllable. (In fact, so can two-syllable words.) There will be a primary stess and a secondary stress, sometimes even a tertiary stress. English is different in this respect from languages like Spanish with only one stressed syllable per word and the others all equal.

carburetor = CAR buh RAY tr

psychoanalysis = SY ko an AL ih SIS

Tertiary stress is trickier. In the second example, there's slightly more stress on SY than on SIS, but there's more stress on SIS than on ih, ko, or an.

I think where this comes into play in rhyme is that secondary stress can take the rhyme, even against a primary stressed opposite; for example, recipe/brie, analysis/Swiss. But you can't rhyme an unstressed syllable against a stressed one, as in king/dancing. (Don't tell me who did it. It wasn't rhyme.)

In meter, secondary stress becomes important because the beat of the metrical foot can fall on a secondary stressed syllable, as in the double dactyl:

PSYcoan/ ALysis/

Or you could divide the word over mixed feet, in combination with other words, as in this basically iambic couplet:

I've HEARD/ that AUS/tri ANS/ and SWISS
exCEL/ in PSY/ co an AL/ is SIS

iamb, iamb, anapest, iamb

What you could not do is devise a metrical foot that would place stress of the foot on the unstressed syllables an, ih, or ko. Little words like "if" and "of" and "and" can be promoted, if their relative position in the metric foot places them between syllables that are stressed even less than they are. But the unstressed syllables in multisyllabic words can't be promoted over the stressed syllables in the same word. It's all relative.

Re your question about anapests being bad, they are good. Anapests are a more natural and informal rhythm than iambs. Some scholars hold that there is only one foot in the English language worth writing in and that's iambic. But three-syllable feet like anapests and dactyls are the meters of the people. The anapest has a less stodgy and formal gait than the iamb, and may be used in combination with iambs to loosen up the over-regular stiffness somewhat. Use them for the effect you want. They are great for light verse or where you want to speed up the line. Too many of them may cause a stately iambic poem to seem frivolous, though.

Carol

[Caleb Murdock]

The short answer is that the secondary stress gets elevated to conform to the meter:

the OC / to PUS / is LONG / and BLACK
her DEC / la RA /tion STUNNED / the ROOM

That's not to say that you would put an exaggerated emphasis on "PUS" or "DEC", but the meter causes them to take more stress than they would take in ordinary speech.

As for anapests, some "strict" metrists avoid them, whereas others (Robert Frost, for example) use them frequently in iambic verse. It's all a matter of preference.

As for using a lot of long words in poetry, it all depends on the effect that you are trying to achieve. English is an amalgam of Latinate and Germanic languages. Most long words are of Latin derivation, whereas the majority of short, "business" words are Germanic. Latinate words tend to sound more cerebral or intellectual. In poetry as well as in day-to-day speech, we use more Germanic words than Latinate, but poets often throw in a Latinate word here and there for emphasis or special effect.

Here's a short list of Germanic words with their Latinate equivalents (this isn't original to me -- I lifted it out of a book). Not all Latinate words are long.

ship/vessel
merry/ecstatic
life/existence
dream/illusion
sweat/perspiration
spit/expectorate
house/residence
love/affection
food/nutrition
light/illumination
bath/ablution

[My apologies: I posted this response before I realized that this is the Poet Lariat board. I think Ginger's question was directed to Robert Mezey.]

Caleb
www.poemtree.com



[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited August 14, 2001).]

[Tim Murphy]

Caleb, You and Carol have both given excellent answers, which the Lariat always welcomes, nay, begs his fellow Spherians to supply.

[R. S. Gwynn]

I have a very elementary question about meter. Since there is only one primary stress in English words, how does one fit longer words into an iambic line? For instance, the word octopus (which I did actually use in one poem) scans Xoo, and the word declaration scans ooXo. I've read that a certain amount of variation is permissible, and even desirable in metrical verse, but does that mean that one can only employ a certain number of these kinds of words in a single poem? What if one wanted to write a piece that used declaration, fascination, trepidation, etc. as end-rhymes but did not want to vary the meter of the entire piece to scan as those words do?

----------

Longer words with secondary stresses can fit into both duple and triple meters. In duple meters the secondary stresses count as full stresses; in triple meters the secondary stresses "step down" to unaccented syllables.

The octopui are lucky when they beg
Because they have a hand for every leg.

When the octopus begs it's a luckier fate,
For his mendicant status gets totaled as eight.

At the ends of lines, the words you mention could work as both double and triple rhymes (triple in dipodic meters).

We stood around and viewed with fascination
The former star who ran a filling station.

While we stood around and wondered with a sort of fascination
We observed a former movie star reduced to has-been station.