[Jan D. Hodge]

Originally posted by ChrisW:
You startle me greatly, old man! I read Hollander's description in Rhyme's Reason and the one in the Hollander and Hecht book -- either I missed this requirement or I forgot it.
Guess it's time to go check out the H and H book again and look.

Sorry, Chris, but of the 73 d-ds in Jiggery-Pokery, (three of which occur in notes), nary a one uses a feminine rhyme, unless one wants to stretch the point and consider this, which occurs in a footnote as a "coarser" variation of one by Hecht, an example:

Higgledy-Piggledy
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Walked round his garden, in-
Toning his vowels,

Paused, then apologized:
"Dicotyledonous
Beans do the windiest
Things to one's bowels!"

--John Hollander

The norm is emphatically monosyllabic rhyme, made more effective by the truncated dactylic lines.

Thanks, Hugh, for the "McWhirtle" ["double anapest"? or "double amphibrach"?], though I can't agree with you that it is "superior" to the d-d. Easier to compose, no doubt, though that doesn't seem to me to be a plus. But more enjoyable to read? Well . . . perhaps by default, since most d-ds simply don't work very well? [Dactylic is certainly the hardest of the standard meters to use effectively in English.]

Speaking of "amphibrachic dimeter," I have an acquaintance who has a gift and a passion for tossing off amphibrachic monometer "sonnets" [i.e. English sonnet rhyme scheme]. Talk about esoteric forms!

And Latin phrases do have a way of screwing up English meter, don't they?

Cheers,
Jan



[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited December 14, 2001).]