I've read your post on beat displacement, but unfortunately it doesn't address my deeper difficulty with meter.
It is still not clear to me how to judge whether there is a displacement or an unexpected stress at the normal place in the meter. In many cases, it feels like there are various possible answers, and figuring out the most sensible one requires a deep understanding of the prosodic convention of the time and the author, to know how tight they are with the meter, what effects they leverage, and what they are careful to never, ever do.
From most lines, I get an iambic tetrameter as the meter but multiple lines don't fit this exactly.
The second one clearly has an additional syllable:
"Of many a brave unbodied scheme."
In practice, when I read this line, I tend to read "Of many" as an anapest and "unbodied" as three syllables, with the accent on "bo". This one feels relatively straightforward, although I don't really have an explanation for why this rather than the alternatives.
Then "Sad patience—joyous energies;", it feels a bit weird to accent "jo" (which would be the accented one in the pure iambic pattern... I don't know, in practice I read this as... maybe an anapest in "Sad patience", then an iamb for "joyous" and... or no, thinking about it, maybe it's a headless line, and so "Sad" is accented, the rest are iambs, except "energies" which is an anapest?
See, that's the sort of thing I get confused about when I really try to understand the meter.
By poetic convention, "many a" counts metrically as two syllables. The extra half syllable we hear in practice lends a certain bounce!
"Sad patience—joyous energies;"
This is a matter of understanding heavy offbeats and light beats. The beats do indeed land on every other syllable (including "joy-"). However, "Sad" is a heavy offbeat, and "-gies" is a light beat; so long as every other syllable has greater or equal stress to the previous syllable (usually greater), the iambic rhythm is maintained. When two adjacent syllables *swap* stress level, in either direction, that is what creates the sonic effect of a displaced beat (so long as the syntax accommodates clarity of beat displacement).
The beat placements in *this* line are regular. But of the *simple* variations (involving adjustments in stress of *individual* syllables, as opposed to the *swapping* of stress of adjacent syllables), the heavy offbeat opening a line or phrase is usually the most striking - in part, because it is only *retrospectively* confirmed as an offbeat by the *next* syllable! If, as a poet, you wish to catch the reader's ear, that is one way to do so.
Those two syllables together ("Sad pa-": a heavy offbeat followed by a beat) are popularly known as a "spondee". Those final two syllables "-ergies" (an offbeat followed by a light beat) are popularly known as a "pyrrhic"; this particular kind of pyrrhic I call an "appended pyrrhic", because it's a pyrrhic appended to the end of a word: EN-er-gies.
The other line that might cause you confusion is this:
"Audacity—reverence. These must mate,"
Both "Audacity" and "reverence" are contracted:
"Audac'ty--rev'rence..."
The contraction on "Audacity" is bold, and requires a firm delivery - one that is characteristic of bold audacity! A skilled poet will ensure that contractions serve an expressive purpose.
Often we still hear an extra half syllable when there's a contraction: one and a half syllables can metrically count as one. Or, conversely, an easily elidible syllable can be drawn out to sound as a full metrical syllable. The post I shared earlier on "Making the words fit the meter" is well worth a read.
I point up a highly expressive contraction in a sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning here: https://qr.ae/pYTHhz
I made a bad typo earlier which may have caused confusion! I wrote "because it is only *retrospectively* confirmed as a beat by the *next* syllable!" when I *meant* "...confirmed as an offbeat...". Now corrected!
When there's a feminine caesura, and when the following phrase opens on a full stress, that first word of the following phrase is naturally heightened. So if we look at the whole poem...
In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt—a wind to freeze;
Sad patience—joyous energies;
Humility—yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity—reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel—Art.
...the words thus heightened are "joyous", "love", "These" & "Art". You said you found it weird to accent "joy-", but that extra kick (provided by immediately picking up the beat after the caesura) conveys "energy"! Even more so with the final flourish of the appended pyrrhic! This is skillful prosody.
Speaking of the prosodic conventions of individual poets, Robert Frost, wanting to convey everyday speech, spoke of aiming to "drag and break" the intonation across the meter "as waves first comb and break stumbling on the shingle": https://substack.com/@snapdragons/note/c-117490719
There is generally a lack of clarity on the full principles of beat displacement, so you might find this useful: https://qr.ae/pGeXLZ
My own approach to scansion is somewhat nuanced: https://substack.com/@snapdragons/note/c-101889426?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=9w4rx
Thanks for the comment!
I've read your post on beat displacement, but unfortunately it doesn't address my deeper difficulty with meter.
It is still not clear to me how to judge whether there is a displacement or an unexpected stress at the normal place in the meter. In many cases, it feels like there are various possible answers, and figuring out the most sensible one requires a deep understanding of the prosodic convention of the time and the author, to know how tight they are with the meter, what effects they leverage, and what they are careful to never, ever do.
I'm pretty confident I could help you with that, to be honest, Adam (by the by, Bishop's "At the Fishhouses" is not metered).
Even in strictly metered verse, there can be more than one way to read a line.
And, yes, understanding prosodic conventions can be important - for instance, understanding the principles by which words can be expanded or contracted to fit the meter: https://versemeter.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/making-the-words-fit-the-meter/
I compare some sonnets here which explore loose meter and unorthodox variations: https://qr.ae/pvC4xa
You might find this interesting too: https://qr.ae/pY0nT0
I'd be curious to see examples of metered lines that have you scratching your head, if you feel like sharing!
Ok, will read these posts in more details.
No specific line came to mind, but looking at one random poem I know, I found a couple of places where I'm just uncertain.
The poem is "Art" by Herman Melville: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51865/art-56d22fe510c67
From most lines, I get an iambic tetrameter as the meter but multiple lines don't fit this exactly.
The second one clearly has an additional syllable:
"Of many a brave unbodied scheme."
In practice, when I read this line, I tend to read "Of many" as an anapest and "unbodied" as three syllables, with the accent on "bo". This one feels relatively straightforward, although I don't really have an explanation for why this rather than the alternatives.
Then "Sad patience—joyous energies;", it feels a bit weird to accent "jo" (which would be the accented one in the pure iambic pattern... I don't know, in practice I read this as... maybe an anapest in "Sad patience", then an iamb for "joyous" and... or no, thinking about it, maybe it's a headless line, and so "Sad" is accented, the rest are iambs, except "energies" which is an anapest?
See, that's the sort of thing I get confused about when I really try to understand the meter.
By poetic convention, "many a" counts metrically as two syllables. The extra half syllable we hear in practice lends a certain bounce!
"Sad patience—joyous energies;"
This is a matter of understanding heavy offbeats and light beats. The beats do indeed land on every other syllable (including "joy-"). However, "Sad" is a heavy offbeat, and "-gies" is a light beat; so long as every other syllable has greater or equal stress to the previous syllable (usually greater), the iambic rhythm is maintained. When two adjacent syllables *swap* stress level, in either direction, that is what creates the sonic effect of a displaced beat (so long as the syntax accommodates clarity of beat displacement).
The beat placements in *this* line are regular. But of the *simple* variations (involving adjustments in stress of *individual* syllables, as opposed to the *swapping* of stress of adjacent syllables), the heavy offbeat opening a line or phrase is usually the most striking - in part, because it is only *retrospectively* confirmed as an offbeat by the *next* syllable! If, as a poet, you wish to catch the reader's ear, that is one way to do so.
Those two syllables together ("Sad pa-": a heavy offbeat followed by a beat) are popularly known as a "spondee". Those final two syllables "-ergies" (an offbeat followed by a light beat) are popularly known as a "pyrrhic"; this particular kind of pyrrhic I call an "appended pyrrhic", because it's a pyrrhic appended to the end of a word: EN-er-gies.
The other line that might cause you confusion is this:
"Audacity—reverence. These must mate,"
Both "Audacity" and "reverence" are contracted:
"Audac'ty--rev'rence..."
The contraction on "Audacity" is bold, and requires a firm delivery - one that is characteristic of bold audacity! A skilled poet will ensure that contractions serve an expressive purpose.
Often we still hear an extra half syllable when there's a contraction: one and a half syllables can metrically count as one. Or, conversely, an easily elidible syllable can be drawn out to sound as a full metrical syllable. The post I shared earlier on "Making the words fit the meter" is well worth a read.
I point up a highly expressive contraction in a sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning here: https://qr.ae/pYTHhz
I made a bad typo earlier which may have caused confusion! I wrote "because it is only *retrospectively* confirmed as a beat by the *next* syllable!" when I *meant* "...confirmed as an offbeat...". Now corrected!
When there's a feminine caesura, and when the following phrase opens on a full stress, that first word of the following phrase is naturally heightened. So if we look at the whole poem...
In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt—a wind to freeze;
Sad patience—joyous energies;
Humility—yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity—reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel—Art.
...the words thus heightened are "joyous", "love", "These" & "Art". You said you found it weird to accent "joy-", but that extra kick (provided by immediately picking up the beat after the caesura) conveys "energy"! Even more so with the final flourish of the appended pyrrhic! This is skillful prosody.
Speaking of the prosodic conventions of individual poets, Robert Frost, wanting to convey everyday speech, spoke of aiming to "drag and break" the intonation across the meter "as waves first comb and break stumbling on the shingle": https://substack.com/@snapdragons/note/c-117490719
I haven't read Pinsky's The Sounds of Poetry, but I'm liking what you've quoted here.