Dichroic
03-23-2009, 12:52 PM
I don't generally recommend book reviews as educational sources - but this one has some really good information about things like how changing the rhythm of the end of a line can change that line's feel. I get Powell's Book Review-a-Day emails, and there have been some real gems - this is one of them. It's a review of a new translation in the Aeneid, in which an erudite reviewer talks about the new work, Vergil's original, the differences between them, where the new translation holds up and where it falls short. Sample passage:
"It is normal with English pentameter to have the extra unstressed syllable of the "feminine ending," as with "shadows" above. But Ruden often adds a stressed syllable, a monosyllable following an equally stressed monosyllable (a spondee). At first I found this a little disturbing, as slowing down the run of lines. But Ruden finds many uses for that final spondee. To describe a wasting sickness, for instance, she writes:
We gave our sweet breath up or dragged our lives out.
Three lines show her metrical effects. Two stresses ending the first two lines, and the feminine ending to the third, give a sense of straining to see Dido in the underworld. Aeneas
Encountered her and recognized her dim form
Through shadows, as a person sees the new moon
Through clouds -- or thinks he sees it -- as it rises.
That last line, its disjointed rhythmic wispiness, almost makes Dido fade again before our eyes."
If you're a would-be formalist wondering why the heck anyone actually cares about iambs, trochess and spondees, go take a look (http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=5741).
"It is normal with English pentameter to have the extra unstressed syllable of the "feminine ending," as with "shadows" above. But Ruden often adds a stressed syllable, a monosyllable following an equally stressed monosyllable (a spondee). At first I found this a little disturbing, as slowing down the run of lines. But Ruden finds many uses for that final spondee. To describe a wasting sickness, for instance, she writes:
We gave our sweet breath up or dragged our lives out.
Three lines show her metrical effects. Two stresses ending the first two lines, and the feminine ending to the third, give a sense of straining to see Dido in the underworld. Aeneas
Encountered her and recognized her dim form
Through shadows, as a person sees the new moon
Through clouds -- or thinks he sees it -- as it rises.
That last line, its disjointed rhythmic wispiness, almost makes Dido fade again before our eyes."
If you're a would-be formalist wondering why the heck anyone actually cares about iambs, trochess and spondees, go take a look (http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=5741).