[Carol Taylor]

Those are much better examples, Mark. The Larkin is accentual dimeter and the de la Mare is accentual trimeter, long lines and all. If it seems clumsy to many ears that's because it is difficult to establish a rhythm in the absence of a pattern. I wouldn't go out of my way to write accentual meter; it must have taken a great deal of determination on de la Mare's part to avoid the obvious and go for the awkward and verbose:

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

instead of

Echoed through the still house's shadows

or the redundancy and strange usage of the verb in:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

when he could have said:

And he smote the door for a second time

and as long as he was going to such extremes to avoid accentual-syllabic meter, why the abbreviated 'neath?, which almost surely was invented by poets to comply with the demands of accentual-syllabic meter?

I keep thinking I've read this poem in Spanish, but maybe I'm mixing it up with something else. It's not a translation, is it? That would explain some of the choices.

Carol

[Mark Allinson]

Jerry,

I am sorry you feel I am merely "muddying the waters", I am trying to understand these meters myself, and in the process I often confuse myself.

Let's focus on the de la Mare poem.

Carol, I agree with your reading of this as consistent accentual trimeter:

'Is there ANYbody THERE?' said the TRAVeller,
KNOCKing on the MOONlit DOOR;
And his HORSE in the SILence champed the GRASSes
Of the FORest's FERny FLOOR:
And a BIRD flew up OUT of the TURRet,
AbOVE the TRAVeller's HEAD
And he SMOTE upon the DOOR again a SECond time;
'Is there ANYbody THERE?' he SAID.

I think it has a charming swing to it.

Jerry, how does this one sit for you?



------------------
Mark Allinson

[Henry Quince]

Mark, I was trying to stay out of this , but you sucked me in with The Listeners.

I oversimplified or summarised incorrectly on that other thread when I said The Listeners was pretty well 4/3 throughout. Though the poem is through-printed (and I assume that’s how de la Mare wanted it), syntactically and structurally it consists of quatrains with the second and fourth lines rhymed. I'll set it out in that way below.

In each quatrain the first and third lines look and sound longer — this is because, whatever the number of speech stresses, the author packed more words into those lines. It’s so consistently done that it must have been intentional. The shorter, rhymed lines seem to rely less on a dramatic, rhetorical delivery — and they are all quite clearly trimeter. I read some of the longer lines as trimeter too, but some as tet.

Anyway, here’s my shot at marking the number of stresses line by line. Some of the longer lines (L1 and L3) could go either way, and I’ve indicated my reading for a few of them by way of example. 3343 3343 3343BANNED POST 4333 4333BANNED POST 3343 3343 3343BANNED POST 4333. (Did he originally write ten stanzas and cut out the penultimate one?) But really, if the poem works despite different readers’ stress perceptions, that’s to its credit, surely.


'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller, 3 --^---^--^--
Knocking on the moonlit door; 3
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses 4 --^--^-^-^-
Of the forest's ferny floor: 3

And a bird flew up out of the turret, 3
Above the Traveller's head 3
And he smote upon the door again a second time; 4 --^---^---^-^
'Is there anybody there?' he said. 3

But no one descended to the Traveller; 3
No head from the leaf-fringed sill 3
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, 4 -^--^---^^
Where he stood perplexed and still. 3

But only a host of phantom listeners 4 -^--^-^-^--
That dwelt in the lone house then 3
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight 3
To that voice from the world of men: 3

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, 4 -^---^---^^
That goes down to the empty hall, 3
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken 3
By the lonely Traveller's call.3

And he felt in his heart their strangeness, 3
Their stillness answering his cry, 3
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 4
'Neath the starred and leafy sky; 3

For he suddenly smote on the door, even 3 --^--^--^--
Louder, and lifted his head:- 3
'Tell them I came, and no one answered, 4
That I kept my word,' he said.3

Never the least stir made the listeners, 3
Though every word he spake 3
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house 4 -^----^-----^^
From the one man left awake: 3

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, 4
And the sound of iron on stone, 3
And how the silence surged softly backward, 3
When the plunging hoofs were gone.3


Carol, you start with the theory that it’s all trimeter, which makes you want to rewrite (disastrously, in my view) a line like :

....fell ECHoing through the SHADowiness of the STILL HOUSE

to make it fit your theory. Some of those longer lines are admittedly open to different readings, but I can't see a trimeter intent in the “shadowiness” line, nor in “Tell them I came, and no one answered” or a number of others.

My theory is a looser one. I think de la Mare used the clearer-cut “shorter” rhymed lines as a sort of rhythmic grounding for the accentual flights and variety in the longer lines — which feel and look longer even where they probably only have three stresses. I say “probably” because at this distance we can’t always be sure of the author’s intentions or how most of his readers might have spoken the lines. There’s an example in the first line: most educated British English speakers of his day probably said ANybody, not ANyBODy, hence I think that line is meant to be 'is there ANybody THERE? said the TRAVeller.

Words with three trailing unstressed syllables are still relatively common in British and Australian, but much less so in American speech. Consider words like exPLANatory (Brit) v exPLANaTORy (American). It’s this sort of difference that leads me to wonder if some accentual lines, especially where they require longer leaps between stresses, might be more troublesome to American ears.

Mark, notice that where we need to “skip over” a run of syllables, de la Mare seldom asks us to do that on content words that would be stressed in speech. The longest such run here is on SHADow-i-ness of the STILL HOUSE. On examination that isn’t really difficult: SHADowiness is a natural peonic dactyl — in a clearly accentual-syllabic context we would give the ness a light beat, but not here. And there’s no reason to stress the of or the the. This is different from some of the lines where you have been arguing that we should somehow know to skim over content words. The poem will be read the way it strikes the reader, and that will depend on how the author sets the context and chooses and arranges the words.

Henry



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited August 20, 2005).]

[Janet Kenny]

Mark,
I like what Henry wrote about the difference of stress in American and English speech. Also, when reading aloud or internally, a sensitive performer/reader will add many checks and balances which are impossible to notate but which make the difference between doggerel and poetry. That's why in the end I find such discussions self-defeating.
Janet


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 20, 2005).]

[Mark Allinson]

Henry,

thank you so much for that detailed reading.

You say the poem seems to work anyway for most readers, but this poem appeared on "Mastery" in the context of puzzled responses that characterised the meter as "chaotic" or "satanic" - so I don't know if this one does work with any reading.

I agree with you on everything you say except the tets - to me it all fits well in 3s.

Many of those lines you are reading as tet, I would read as having virtual feminine endings - which I have hyphenated here:

a SECond-time

his GREY-eyes

on the DARK-stair,

In this line, I would elide the first four syllabels, like this:

B't'only'a HOSTof PHANtom LISTeners.

Which is how we would say it in the flesh - "b't'onlya" with the first major accent coming with "HOST".

Yes, I take your point questioning the longer lines, which do, at first, give the appearance of the ballad form. Maybe he just wanted this visual impression of a ballad on the page? I am not sure.

But I really don't think we need anything but tri-lines here.




------------------
Mark Allinson

[Carol Taylor]

Henry, it's probably my funky American ear, but I read it just as Mark does.

I don't think it's my attempt to read it as accentual trimeter that makes me say he went out of his way to make the following line clumsy:

Fell ECHoing through the SHAdowiness of the still HOUSE

It sounds twice as inept if you try to force a fourth beat onto it.

Carol

[Henry Quince]

Mark, why cite “how we would say it” to justify suppressing the ONly in but only a HOST of PHANtom... yet ignore “how we would say it” in your idiosyncratic insistence on an unstressed final syllable in SECond time, GREY eyes and DARK stair?

Of course “how we say it” is the point in an accentual reading. It won’t always be the same for each reader, and I agree that the ONly is somewhat debatable, but I question whether anyone without a theory to defend would naturally read those adjective-noun line ends in the way you suggest.

Carol, I simply don’t agree that the shadowiness line is inept in context, nor can I read “still HOUSE” any more than I can read “STILL house” which I guess Mark prefers.

I’d like either or both of you to give me your trimeter readings for:

....While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

and

....tell them I came, and no one answered

Actually, I think the first of those hovers between tet and pent, depending on how willing one is to glide over the cropping. The pent reading would stress HORSE, MOVED, CROP, DARK, and TURF). And if so, if he has a lone line of pent, so what? It makes not a scrap of difference to the effect of the poem.

If you say you read “while his HORSE moved, CROPping the DARK turf” I’m giving up on you, Mark!

Henry

[Mark Allinson]

Henry, I promise you I have no "theory to defend", only my immediate feeling of how to read these things. I do believe the whole thing works better in 3s, which is not so much a theory as it is the product of my experience - and I think that the poet wrote it that way. I am not saying it doesn't or can't happen that a poet like this slips in a few tet or pent lines, but I would feel uncomfortable doing it in one of my tri poems. It feels a bit cheaty, somehow. I know that this will sound "hide-bound" to some, but I believe that the challenge for the writer (and the reader) is to stick with a set meter, and not just throw in an odd, asymmetic, longer line. As I say, I am sure this has been done, and maybe often done (that is, asymmetrical het-met), but I don't care for it myself, and I have a strong feeling de la Mare agrees. I think it is inelegant. It looks sloppy. It looks like the poet took an easy way out. Others will see it differently, as the expression of a greater freedom. Maybe they are right. Maybe I am just an old-fashioned fart. But to me this poem is consistent accentual trimeter. And if it had been my poem, I would have kept it all in tri, with no random variations.

Many, with some cause will read the line you quote like this:

While his HORSE moved, CROPping the dark TURF,

But (get ready to abandon me Henry - but hear me out first, please) I am not altogether averse to "DARK turf", which fits the established pattern of feminine endings - there are around a dozen orthodox ones in the poem like "stirrup" and "backward" etc., and the other virtual feminine ended pairs like "grey eyes" (although I grant that you could use this last bit as evidence of petitio principii in my argument). I think you could go with either of these. And, for the same reason, "STILL house" might be preferable.

and

TELL them I CAME, and no one ANswered

That is how you would expect to hear that said in normal speech, I would say.

Henry, before you give up on me forever, can you please allow me one more indulgence?

Can you please give this reading of the poem one try - without prejudice - just read it purely on the basis of what I have capitalised as the beat. And if you still feel that it doesn't work, then fair enough.


'Is there ANYbody THERE?' said the TRAVeller,
KNOCKing on the MOONlit DOOR;
And his HORSE in the SIlence champed the GRASSes
Of the FORest's FERny FLOOR:
And a BIRD flew up OUT of the TURRet,
AbOVE the TRAVeller's HEAD
And he SMOTE upon the DOOR again a SECond time;
'Is there ANYbody THERE?' he SAID.
But NO one desCENded to the TRAVeller;
No HEAD from the LEAF-fringed SILL
Leaned OVer and LOOKED into his GREY eyes,
Where he STOOD perPLEXed and STILL.
But only a HOST of PHANtom LISTeners
That DWELT in the LONE house THEN
Stood LISTening in the QUIet of the MOONlight
To that VOICE from the WORLD of MEN:
Stood THRONGing the faint MOONbeams on the DARK stair,
That goes DOWN to the EMpty HALL,
HEARKening in an AIR stirred and SHAKen
By the LOnely TRAVeller's CALL.
And he FELT in his HEART their STRANGEness,
Their STILLness ANswering his CRY,
While his HORSE moved, CROPPing the DARK turf,
'Neath the STARRed and LEAfy SKY;
For he SUDDenly SMOTE on the DOOR, even
LOUDer, and LIFTed his HEAD:-
'TELL them I CAME, and no one ANSwered,
That I KEPT my WORD' he SAID.
NEVer the least STIR made the LISTeners,
Though EVery WORD he SPAKE
Fell ECHoing through the SHADowiness of the STILL house
From the ONE man LEFT aWAKE:
Ay, they HEARD his FOOT upon the STIRRup,
And the SOUND of IRon on STONE,
And how the SILence surged SOFtly BACKward,
When the PLUNGing HOOFS were GONE.

===============



[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited August 21, 2005).]

[Henry Quince]

But Mark, first you argue from accentual meter as based on the stresses of speech, the “how we would say it” principle, but then you switch to saying that because some of the longer lines have feminine endings they all must have, including GREY eyes, DARK turf, STILL house, etc (which to me are definitely how we DON’T say it).

Come on, Mark, step back and look at what you’re saying. If you spoke to me of a STILL house I would hear stillhouse and think you meant a building housing a still. You’re not using the principle of “how we say it” there, but the principle of trying to make it all trimeter, based on a theory about what lines an author would or wouldn’t, or should or shouldn’t, mix. That’s what you did with Cut Grass and you’re doing it again with this.

TELL them I CAME, and no one ANSwered looks like very much a minority reading to me, though not as much so as While his HORSE moved, CROPPing the DARK turf,which seems simply perverse.

I would never describe de la Mare’s variations as “random”. They’re part of the variations in pace which he so notably achieves.

As for the idea that “asymmetrical het-met” is some sort of “cheating” — did Milton and Wordsworth “cheat” with their great odes in asymmetric het-met? Did Arnold cheat with Dover Beach?

Enough!

[Jerry Glenn Hartwig]

Mark

I'm sorry if my comment about muddying the waters came out harsher than I intended.

I can see what you're doing, and I appreciate the time you've taken to explain it to me.

Yes, I can read the strongest stresses in the de la Mare poem as you have indicated. But that's not the way the way I would read the poem aloud: I would include the lesser stresses, also.

'Is there Anybody THERE?' said the TRAVeller,

I think you've mis-scanned 'anybody'. I hear a primary stress on -bod- and a secondary on an-. No stress on the -y-.

KNOCK/ing on/ the MOON/lit DOOR;
And his HORSE /in the SIL/ence champed/ the GRASSes
Of/ the FOR/est's FER/ny FLOOR:
And a /BIRD flew /up OUT /of the TURRet,
AbOVE /the TRAVel/ler's HEAD

I concede a point that this looks more consistent calling it accentual trimeter - more polished also - but that's not the only way it could be scanned.

The test of the pudding is still to read it aloud *groan*, and I still wouldn't read it differently were we to call it accentual or accentual-syllabic. I mean, if you were reading this aloud, would you intentionally fail to add the stresses I italicised, as well as some I didn't?

So, we conced the author's intent was accentual, but as Carol stated, it comes out awkward and verbose. I say let's clean it up into good ol' acc-syl *grin*

I will, however, concede the accentual intent of the author.




[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited August 21, 2005).]