/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21522874]

Why does iambic pentameter sound so good? Shorter lines are often too punchy (though this can be an asset in some cases) and longer lines drag, while non-iambic feet just sound goofy outside a very few counterexamples.

[Anonymous No.21523421]

>>21522874
Just Werks

[Anonymous No.21523442]

Long enough you avoid the sing song of hexameter. Short enough that it's not exhausting to do a line without a breath. As far as English goes, it's about the shortest line that lets you get a couple of different vowel sounds in there - you do that with hexameter it just sounds tick tock tick tock rather than natural

[Anonymous No.21523462]

>>21522874
it mimics a heartbeat

[Anonymous No.21523478]

>>21523462
blues music is the same

[Anonymous No.21523484]

>>21523442

Yes, it is a music, like a Gregorian chant, Shakespeare was inspired by mystery plays and cannabis as well

[Anonymous No.21523487]

>>21523484

Scots and Irish dialects are also musical

Compare Shakespeare to Robert Burns, many similarities

From Auld Lang Syne to the many songs written for Shakespeare plays that are printed as poetry

[Anonymous No.21523491]

Any books that make this easier to learn (and other forms of poetry too)? Skimming the wikipedia article feels very fine but I want to go deeper.

t. esl

[Anonymous No.21523502]

>>21523491

Just read Shakespeare and commentary, criticism, explanation, or whatever supplemental material you can find.

These stories have been endlessly recycled since his time. and they are drawn from and allude heavily to the Bible.

There is some poetry in there, but the dialogue of the plays themselves are set to meter like music. You can also go to a play or watch a recording of one, or some movie adaptation if you want the cheesed up Hollywood take which isn't that bad honestly.

[Anonymous No.21523507]

>>21523502

The best theater today is Shakespeare hands down

Maybe people still run ancient plays or contemporary stuff and movies, but Shakespeare is still the best stuff for actors and actresses to learn the ropes

[Anonymous No.21523510]

This isn't completely on you'd, but is there a category of poetry which adheres strictly to a decasyllabic structure but freely mixes the metrical feet from line to line with heavy enjambment?

[Anonymous No.21523514]

>>21523510
post-modern poetry takes on any and every form

if you are mixing and combining forms then you are creating something new likely

also consider that hip hop music is just poetry set to meter and rhythms performed live

[Anonymous No.21523570]

>>21523502
Thanks.

[Anonymous No.21523599]

>>21523491
The Ode Less Travelled is a great beginner's introduction to English poetic meters and forma

[Anonymous No.21523614]

>>21523510
I don't think it's very common in English to have lines purely based on syllable count, because the number of stresses is often more important, and free verse can have variable line lengths.

There's a certain level of freedom in formal meters, though. For example, in iambic pentameter, it's common to substitute one foot in a line and to add an additional final unstressed syllable,

[Anonymous No.21523707]

>>21523599
This + shakespeare & commentaries seems like a good combo, thanks.

[Anonymous No.21523741]

>>21523442
>Long enough you avoid the sing song of hexameter
Hexameter is longer than pentameter. What is supposed to be "the sing song of hexameter" anyway?

>>21523510
If the feet are mixed completely freely, then it's not very useful to talk about feet in the first place. It's just syllabic verse at that point (rather than accentual such as iambic pentameter).
Serbian and Croatian folk poetry does sort of resemble what you describe, the stress pattern within their folk decasyllables is rather loose (though it tends towards trochees, and certain syllables in the line cannot be stressed). But by the domination of the syllabic principle, the need for strong and consistent end-pauses is greater than in any other form of verse. If you cannot mark the units with some regularity, you don't have verse. English iambic pentameter can handle enjambment more easily because it still retains the basic rhythmic pulse, same as ancient quantitative hexameters, whereas syllabic verses would lose all recognisability with excessive enjambment. If you enjamb too much, there's no necessary reason to say you're writing decasyllables rather than any other sort of verse.

>>21523491
In addition to Frye's book, a bit more academic but easily readable picks are Fussell - Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, and Attridge - Poetic Rhythm. But make sure look up some studies in your own language too, because it certainly has its distinct school and tradition of verification.

>>21523502
Most Shakespeare commentary doesn't concern itself with the technicalities of verse, which is what the anon asked about.

[Anonymous No.21523780]

>>21523491
Meter isn't exclusive to the English language and neither is Iambic Pentameter. It dominates in German poetry/verse and is very popular in numerous countries. No doubt your country has text on it as well you can read. Unless, maybe, you're from the mountains of Albania. In that case, fuck it all.

[Anonymous No.21523825]

>>21523741
>>21523780
After some research I found that one meter that's historically been used around me is trochaic tetrameter - fascinating. Will try and find old stuff written in that and also maybe a historical overview/lineage, I have missed a lot apparently in this area...

[Anonymous No.21523827]

>>21523825
Which language?

[Anonymous No.21524551]

>>21522874
Well...in French, alexandrines are far more sexy