All the Fun's in how You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and VersificationPerfect for the general reader of poetry, students and teachers of literature, and aspiring poets, All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing is a lively and comprehensive study of versification by one of our best contemporary practitioners of traditional poetic forms. Emphasizing both the coherence and the diversity of English metrical practice from Chaucer's time to ours, Timothy Steele explains how poets harmonize the fixed units of meter with the variable flow of idiomatic speech, and examines the ways in which poets have used meter, rhyme, and stanza to communicate and enhance meaning. Steele illuminates as well many practical, theoretical, and historical issues in English prosody, without ever losing sight of the fundamental pleasures, beauties, and insights that fine poems offer us. |
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... heavy syllables , as in phrases like " a train to catch " or " a call to arms . " Conversely , we " demote " a weighty syllable sandwiched between other weighty syllables . An obstructive effect results if we try to say several con ...
... heavy - plus - light - foot combination will overlap with the light - plus- heavy combination . In the following line , for instance , the first and third feet are heavy and the second is light , with the result that the relationship ...
... heavy syllables are demoted if flanked by other heavy sylla- bles , a circumstance that explains the metrical properties of this line : X / X / And destined Man | himself | to judge | Man fall'n ( Milton , Paradise Lost , 10.62 ) The ...