[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).]

[ChrisW]

Well, maybe so, but I'd like to find the rule.
And even so, I don't see why one can't extend the concept a bit.
I'd have thought it was less of an extension than eliminating the nonsense word -- which to me seems perfectly fine, though clearly non-standard.

[Hugh Clary]

Hey, if Wendy Cope can bend the rules, so can the rest of us! (note line 4)

Emily Dickinson

Higgledy-piggledy
Emily Dickinson
Liked to use dashes
Instead of full stops.

Nowadays, faced with such
Idiosyncrasy,
Critics and editors
Send for the cops.

[Jan D. Hodge]

Originally posted by Hugh Clary:

Hey, if Wendy Cope can bend the rules, so can the rest of us! (note line 4)

Emily Dickinson

Higgledy-piggledy
Emily Dickinson
Liked to use dashes
Instead of full stops.

Of course we can bend, or break, or even smash to smithereens, the rules--and I say: Full steam ahead! The question is one of (relative) effectiveness, though, and my ear likes the punch of the sudden rhyme leaping from the normative dactyls.

P.S.: Cope's example isn't really a metrical exception at all, but simply a matter of conventional (printed) appearance. The "founding fathers" established the "legitimacy" of hyphenating words at the ends of lines to preserve the (metrical) form, and the cited lines sound, and for H and H would have been written:

Liked to use dashes in-
Stead of full stops.

Yep, they even capitalized the second syllable of the hyphenated word. All a matter of which conventions one accepts, I suppose.

Cheers,
Jan

[Hugh Clary]

I dare say you are correct, Jan.

Bruce Newling was kind enough to send me many pages of his McWhirtles. I will rummage around and post a few on a separate thread if I can discover where I stashed them.

Meanwhile, thinking of your friend's "amphibrachic monometer sonnets", how about a DD using the fewest words possible? Incredibly tough to write one that makes any sense, but here is a shot at it:

Varius-Barius
Heliogabalus
Overdiversified
Bachelorhood;

Tri-sexuality's
Characteristically
Ideologically
Misunderstood.

[Hugh Clary]

Laughingstock - Gaffingstock
Clark, to be Superman,
Changes his clothing, but
Loses his smarts!

Why in the hell does he
Bassackward-wearingly
Pull up the trouser legs
Lacking his shorts?

[Hugh Clary]

Hastily - Pastily
Sextus Tarquinius
Quick on the trigger when
Bedding Lucrece,

Later suspected some
Labiogingival
Efforts at first might have
Saved him some grief.

[Carol Taylor]

Doubly-troubly,
Carol, her Duchessness
pulling a moribund
thread to the top,

hoping to activate
simul-tenaciously
twice-over jeopardy:
post till we drop.

[Roger Slater]

Dactyls are hard for me,
two dactyls harder still;
iambs and anapests
flow in my blood.

Trochees and amphibrachs
vary pentameter
nicely to my tin ear;
dactyls just thud.

[joyeleonora]

Sexiest pecksiest
Iain Donnachaidh
drool-worthy sixpack
very nice butt

choose instead of me
superficially
a cradle robbing hussy
that's also a slut

Gabriëlle Joy Eleonora