[robert mezey]

Yes, exactly: the last line has 9 syllables
because it's headless---it omits the first
unaccented syllable (the first foot has only
the one accented syllable). And you're right
that line 13 has 13 syllables; but it is still
strictly metrical. Two of the sylllables are
accounted for by elision, "Th' insomn'yak"
and the third is the feminine ending, the
unaccented syllable at the end of the line---
very common. (Eg, "To be or not to be, that
is the question.") It's very useful, in fact
essential, to know how the metrical line works,
but as Tim said, nothing can substitute for
reading verse, good verse, and listening to it
carefully. Shakespeare did not know from iambs
and ionics and so on---that was all Greek to
him---but he knew the music so well that he
could invent his own gorgeous variations by
the thousands.
And Steele's book is very good. But it covers
a lot and is long. You might also want to have,
just to get the operation of the iambic line, an
excellent very short book called VERSIFICATION:
A Short Introduction, by James McAuley, about 80
pages, very clear.

[Solan]

Thank you, Robert.

"It's very useful, in fact essential, to know how the metrical line works, but as Tim said, nothing can substitute for reading verse, good verse, and listening to it carefully."

I agree. That is probably why this forum is so useful for newbies like myself: We can ask questions about form while reading good verse. I hope you won't mind me asking more questions of the same kind.

Book recommendation: Noted. Amazon.com had a 4-6 weeks wait, though, so I might even have received and finished Steele's book by then.

[robert mezey]

Solan---
Whenever you have a question about the meters,
don't be shy---I'll do my best to clarify things
(though not always promptly). One of my projects
is to write a treatise on prosody, so it would be
useful for me to write some short replies and then
copy them to add to my notes. (Just to see that
someone is really interested is terrific; when I
used to teach meter to undergraduates, I was always
excited, it was a subject I found endlessly fasc-
inating, but most of the students' eyes would glaze
over before I had gone five minutes.)

[Solan]

Thank you, Robert. The reason I am here is actually to learn about the rhythm of language; I think the best way to do that is through poetry - metric poetry. There is much good free-form poetry, too, but I think (alert: newbie opinion) that even free-form poetry can not be written well until one has control - or at least understanding - of metric poetry.

One question I had thought of asking was about meter in different languages. Are the conceptions of meter the same in all languages, or are they so different that I just opened a can of worms?

I had planned to ask this under the Goethe poem, or possibly in the "Ask the Poeta Lariat" section.



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--

Svein Olav
http://nonserviam.com/solan/

[Tim Murphy]

Svein, Robert, et alia, Let's move this discussion to the Lariat board, where this amateur has offered his ill-informed opinions.