Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Slater
I think it helps to think of it in terms of Tim Steele's method of scanning both beats and volume (I forget if that's what he calls it). As you probably remember, Steele does a scansion that gives to each syllable a volume measurement on a scale of 4, with 1 being the softest and 4 being the loudest. What's interesting is that some metrically unstressed syllables could be scanned as a 3, while some syllables taking a metrical beat could be scanned as a 2. What counts for metrical purposes is the volume relative to the immediately adjacent syllables. You can have a 3-4 iamb, but you can also have a 1-2 iamb. And it might even happen in the same line.
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Timothy Steele recommends that the strength of syllables be measured on a scale of one to four, i.e. weak (1), semiweak (2), semistrong (3), and strong (4). Steele would perhaps analyze "That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall" as being five iambs with strengths of 1 2/ 3 4/ 1 3/ 1 2 / 1 3, and call the first foot a light iamb and the second foot a heavy iamb. The stressed syllable in the light iamb is often a case of promotion. He gives no examples of a heavy iamb being followed by a light iamb.
To give examples of this light/heavy iamb combination, here's Millais' "If I should learn, in some quite casual way". There are six instances of it in the sonnet, and in each case the stressed syllable in the light iamb is a case of promotion. (L1, 3rd/4th; L5, 3rd/4th; L7, 4th/5th; L8, 4th/5th; L9, 1st/2nd; L11, 1st/2nd)
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man— who happened to be you—
At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud—I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—
I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.
The next poem in her collection has a title, “Bluebeard”, after a character from a French folktale who kills a succession of wives when they disobey him and enter a room he has warned them not to enter.
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed... . Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see... . Look yet again—
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.
There are few fireworks in this metrically speaking, just eight trochaic substitutions, which suits the bleak tone of the piece. However, we do have, again, six instances of a light iamb followed by a heavy iamb, where in each case the stressed syllable in the light iamb is a case of promotion (L1, 2nd/3rd; L2, 4th/5th; L4, 2nd/3rd, L6, 4th/5th; L11, 4th/5th; L12, 3rd/4th). Here these gradual increases of stress can be said to represent the fatal steps that Bluebeard’s wife takes into the forbidden room. The first two instances occur at the start and at the end of the passage where Bluebeard bids his wife “enter now” (lines 1-2), and the last two instances occur at the start and at the end of the passage that returns to the fateful moment “when you crept / Unto the threshold of this room...” (lines 11-12).
Duncan