| User | Jason The Basta | | Topic | Meter | | Message | Accentual Syllabic Meter:
This stood as the norm for English language poetry for centuries and was only set aside during the (tragic) rise of anything goes free verse thanks to the likes of Pound, Elliot, and their ilk. I will not drone on about free verse here (that’s for later) but will instead concentrate on the old standard for those of us wanting more structured work.
Is it necessary? Is it truly the voice of English?
To me, this was an attempt by early poets of the language to attach their barbaric tongue to classical poetry of the Mediterranean, Greece, Rome, etc. The concept of the metric “foot” comes from there but was not the same as ours. In these languages it was not stress that was the factor but length of a syllable while speaking it aloud.
To me, it’s artificial and cumbersome. Yes, there needs to be an underlying rhythm from which to work but I think the nature of English allows much more versatility without losing rhythm. I guess I’m basically a syllabic writer of verse with a few exceptions here and there but I’d like to hear opinions on this. |
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| User | DavidHirt | 2006-07-08 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | You may not beleive it, Logic, but people who write poetry think about these things. |
| User | Logic | 2006-07-06 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | Damn. Blah blah blah |
| User | joeyalphabet | 2006-01-26 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | There’s meter in free verse too. I think it’s a natural thing rather than something imposed. Nothing wrong with going back to more structured form at all; if you can bring something fresh to it, then great! For some writers structure is great - for me it’s not. I can’t seem to fit what I want to say into a set structure like a villanelle (am I spelling that right?) or sonnet. Every time I try it just doesn’t work. But that’s just me. |
| User | Rokhal | 2006-01-19 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | Meter is a learning tool that all poets should experiment with. It taught me how to recognize and fix "awkwardness" in free verse, create continuity and echoes, and learn faster from a good piece. |
| User | DavidHirt | 2006-01-19 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | Technically speaking, Meter is anyway you measure a line based on stress. The greeks had a large repertory of meters. and that didn’t mean that the were all the same kind of feet per line. They moved. Heroic tetrameter was an arangement of anapests and spondees... a tetrameter line could actually be created from four quadruple feet.. where one foot was 4 syllables alternating unstresed stressed unstressed stressed.
I love strong stress verse... I think it is more natural for a speaking voice than any other meter. Pure syllabics like the welsh are cumbersome unless you impose a rhythm to it. The English like to symplify things, though. They like their iambs and trochees... love hate their anapests and Dactyls... and the parfectly good bacchic and such they just tosed out... probably the puritan in them... those bachic meters are just too exciting. |
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