[Carl Copeland]

Ok, so Steele goes with the phrasal-stress theory. An article in my archives (without attribution) says: “If a word is pronounced in isolation, it has a tonic stress on the last syllable … If it is used in a sentence, however, there is no tonic stress unless the word comes at the end of a sense group, i.e., at the end of the sentence or the end of a phrase.”

The next question is whether the Nerval poem is tétramètre or trimètre. It must be the former, since even in lines that seem good candidates for the latter (1, 2, 3, 6, 9), one of the breaks always comes at the midpoint.

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

This is all on pp. 57-60 of his book.

I own that book, but have been living out of boxes for years and can never find anything.

[Julie Steiner]

Frankly, I am bad at spotting alexandrine variants of 4 syllables + 4 syllables + 4 syllables, unless there is obvious punctuation to help me.

Carl, the term trimètre seems to apply only to occasional variant lines, not to entire poems written that way. I'm willing to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure no one (or no one significant, anyway) has written a French alexandrine poem using nothing but the 4 syllables + 4 syllables + 4 syllables recipe. It's just too restrictive, and if the desired effect is to shake things up and draw attention to that part in the poem because the meter runs more swiftly there, overuse would seem to spoil the surprise.

I found a doctoral dissertation from 1909 that documents every line of "trimeter" in Victor Hugo's entire œuvre (or at least the alexandrine part of it). There are generally only two or three trimeter lines identified in the same poem—even when the dissertation's author stretches the definition of "trimeter" to include lines of 3 syllables + 3 syllables + 6 syllables (based on a stronger stress at the end of each of these phrasal units, and a fourth stress being absent where one might expect one at Syllable 9).

So even the Romantic poet most associated with "trimeter" alexandrine lines used them sparingly.

[Carl Copeland]

So there may be no such animal as a “trimeter” poem. That makes sense and must surely be right. Thanks for the research, Julie.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

. . . the term trimètre seems to apply only to occasional variant lines, not to entire poems written that way. I'm willing to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure no one (or no one significant, anyway) has written a French alexandrine poem using nothing but the 4 syllables + 4 syllables + 4 syllables recipe.

Yes, I'm sure that Steele is discussing individual lines or groups of lines, not entire poems.

Hugo was upsetting the Neoclassical apple cart:

J'ai disloqué ce grand niais d'alexandrine, "I've dismantled this big simpleton the alexandrine," still far from vers libre but a gesture in its direction. It reminds me of what Montale said about wringing the aulic neck of Petrarchism.

[David Callin]

Recusing myself from that erudite discussion, I just have this for you at the moment, Andrew - and it's so trivial I'm almost embarrassed to put it forward (but not quite) - and that's that I wish you could find a way of using "everything" instead of "all". The two seem to have quite different meanings to me. But that may be just to me.

"Everything" would be a great word if you were using hexameter, I suppose.

Cheers

David

[Andrew Frisardi]

Hi David,

I somehow missed your comment here yesterday.

Ah yes, the meter. “Everything” does come more naturally off my tongue, but I might say “All” if I were drunk or jet-lagged. ;-) It does work dictionary-definition-wise: the first definition of “all” in Webster’s is “All things or all of a group of things”. Which does mean “everything.”

But yes, the meter made me do it, although I think it squeaks by as natural-enough.

I did fix the jagged not-really-rhyme-word “disposal” in line 3, which I suspect you didn’t like in the earlier version, by the way. That bit was bothering me until I revised it yesterday.

Thanks for stopping by,

Andrew

[Samantha Pious]

Hi, Andrew! Are you going for pentameter or hexameter? Lines 5, 9, and 12 are wonderfully resonant in pent, as does line 6 with its unexpected feminine ending.

I like Julie Steiner's suggestion for lines 1–2. If that doesn't work, I'd suggest something like the following:

Freethinker, Man! Do you believe yourself
the only thinker in this world of life?

Or:

Freethinker, Man! Do you believe that you
are the sole thinker in this world, where all
things burst with life?

Instead of liberty having powers "at its disposal" or "to use at will," I wonder if you might consider "at its beck and call" or just "at its call."

I suspect "conseils" (line 4) may mean "thoughts" rather than "advice."

Another possibility for line 7 might be "In metals sleeps a mystery of love."

In line 9, why not "Fear, in that blind wall, a spying eye"?

Instead of "bark," I think "écorce" (line 14) might be more accurately rendered as "crust" or "shell."

[Andrew Frisardi]

Hi Samantha, thanks for the suggestions. This poem is pretty much where I want it to be, however. I don't anticipate making further revisions to it, though poems are never completed just abandoned, as someone once put it.
Edited in: Actually, coming back to this, I see that "conseils" should indeed be translated differently--though not as "thought," I don't believe. I've put "councils" there instead of "counsels," two words I always mix up. I've also considered your suggestion about "at its call" for line 3. Not sure yet, but that might work. So thanks for the suggestions.
Best wishes,
Andrew