'But if Varius thinks Williams' free verse is metrical, he knows less than they.'

if this is true, then he evidently knows less than the poet himself, who, as quoted in V's original post, claimed that the poem was 'metrically absolutely regular'. now, doing the poet the favor of taking him at his word, if he says that the poem is 'metrical', we would do well to figure out why he might say so, which is what varius has done in his original post. flinging such terms of scorn at him as 'that poet (insert scoffing laugh here) of free verse' may give us our rhetorical jollies, but it also might close us off to the possibility that he really is up to something interesting.

If you watched Technorati, you might have spotted this post sooner! Sorry about the comment closure, but it's necessary to minimize comment spam. For some reason, I find trackback pings have only worked irregularly for my MT installation. It may be some technical problem I ought to check, but it hasn't been a high priority. Anyway I'll pass your post on to Tim, who might do a better job of defining his terms this time.

WCW, like Hopkins, had odd personal ideas about meter. Such ideas have proven to be blind alleys where quite a few imitators have gotten lost. Though scholars may enjoy the study of failed metrical systems, they offer little to benefit the practicing poet.

Meanwhile the main street of English-language mertical practice continues to be well-trafficked. For all his classical scholarship, Dennis does not appear to be familiar with the termimology or uses of meter in contemporary verse.

If I were to analyze the WCW poem in generally-accepted terms, I would call it accentual monometer. Each line has one principal stress, though you have talk like a New Jerseyite to make this measure work, sort of. Anyway, it is a very crude meter, and a very simple-minded bit of versification. WCW is hugely overrated. He was a man of limited poetic skill and even more limited imagination. (Maybe he was a good doctor.)

Sorry about the typo. 'Metrical.' I should preview before I post. It works so much better.

And 'terminology' too. Sheesh!

Well, while I'm here, let me invite Dennis and Eric to Eratosphere, where there is plenty of discussion about arcane matters like the interplay of 'sentence stress' and meter, though I prefer to say 'rhetorical stress' and some others say 'speech stress.'

Whatever term one prefers, I would add that a reader finds no conflict between the two when one reads the work of a highly competent metrist like Richard Wilbur. But this phony issue is often raised by unskilled or lazy poets who try to excuse their infelicities on grounds of 'sentence stress.' So it is a bit of a sore point with those of us who must make counter arguments.

One last PS. I didn't accuse anyone of 'classical snobbery.' That's pure, Tim, who's quite a snob in his own right, as you fairly perceived.

Alan,

I appreciate your comments and am glad to exchange ideas. I still consider myself a student of meter and I'm sure I have years of study ahead of me.

There's certainly a difference between being a highly competent metrist and being a poet. There's also quite a difference between a thing being metrical in a broad sense and being metrical in a highly technical sense.

Your position is predicated not only on accepting what's traditional in English meter, but in degrading what does not fit. You seem to deny the name poetry to anything that can not be analyzed by formal rules of scansion, but all such rules are at the late end of literary development. In Greek Meter M.L. West shows that early ideas of what constitute poetry rarely involve more than obsession with a single idea, repition of phrases, or a simple cadence at line end.

If you want to put the 'cultivated' meters of tradition on a pedestal, that's fine, and it's an issue of taste. But you can not flatly deny meter and poetry to the rest of the world.

Formalism is not the heart of poetry. There's a world between a march and a field hollar, and I'll take the blues.

4 points:
1)whatever imitators may or may not have done with whatever system WCW may or may not have employed is not relevant as a criticism of WCW's own poetry. by analogy: one's dislike for catullus does not a valid criticism of callimachus make. if an epigone of a poet incorrectly understands and/or implements a poetic scheme, that is no fault of or detriment to the poet being imitated.

2)no one has proven that the metrical system is 'failed'. there is obviously much debate regarding what type of scheme he is even employing, and until that is solved more conclusively, it is premature to relegate WCW's poetry to the dustbin of hackery.

3)whether or not the study of a metrical system benefits a practicing poet is also not relevant. the purpose of scholarship is understanding, regardless of whether a practioner is able or inclined to implement the findings of the scholar. however, as a corollary to greater understanding, the serious practicing poet cannot help but be benefited.

4)'generally accepted terms' are only applicable if it has been established that the scheme of a poem fits under a pre-ordained paradigm. thus, the poem must first be analyzed on its own terms, and if we cannot pigeon-hole the poem by means of customary nomenclature, then we must develop new terms that fit the observed evidence.

First, for Dennis, I have replied to your comment at my own blog. Here I would only observe that by your lights, the system of Ptolemaic spheres should be as useful for understanding the universe as post-Copernican astronomy. You're positively pomo!

Now, let me respond to not-Scheie's four points:

1. I'm far more concerned with poetic practice than scholarship per se. I write the stuff myself, though blogging has gotten seriously in the way for the last few years. Why not critique an idea based on its consequences? Right-wing bloggers do that with socialism all the time.

2. We could get into an endless subjective debate on the merits or demerits of WCW's influence for poets. One thing is certain. The audience for poetry collapsed in the second half of the Twentieth Century. When I ask why, I can't help suspecting WCW and his ilk had something to do with it.

3. I would send you to Yeats, 'The Scholars.'

4. A poem "must be analysed on its own terms?" Taken to its logical conclusion, this notion means a new metrical theory must be derived for each and every poem. This is nonsense.

Surely the purpose of scholarship, at least in part, is to discern and describe recurring patterns. Poets and scholars have been doing this for centuries. Your use of the word 'paradigm' implies that theories have been devised from thin air and forcibly imposed on hapless poems. This is not the case. Rather, theory and practice exist in rough symbiosis, each advancing the other. Sometimes, however, progress is counterproductive to art.

For anyone interested, the other half of this mind-numbing non-debate can be found here:

http://bilge.seablogger.com/archives/002194.php

Alan,

Your last comment is completely illogical. Metrical schemes and scientific theories are far from correlative. Does this kind of sloppy rhetoric ever work for you? The charge of post-modernism doesn't even deserve a response.

You're treading in treacherous waters, Gilligan. I would advise you to take this nonsense back to the chat rooms where you can dazzle the uncritical pedestrians.

Perhaps in your eagerness for dispute, you misconstrued my last remark above. Or perhaps you misunderstood my use of the word 'progress' by which I meant only forward motion in time. Some times are plainly more fruitful than others in the arts. Or would you argue with that also?

I will admit, since I'm a mere poet and not a denizen of the empyrean like yourself, that I don't know what the hell you're talking about when you say "metrical schemes and scientific theories are from correlative." How does that statement contradict what I said? You seem only to answer arguments with insults.

Alan,

I'm sorry that you have such a hard time with the English language, but I'm busy with Callimachus (who would have a few words for Telchines like yourself) and don't care to explain what's plainly written.

I'm also sorry that you tried to attack me, then tried to back off putting the blame on 'the Skipper,' then got angry because I put you in your place, then made nonsensical arguments about my supposed politics that are neither true nor relevant, all the while failing to see that nothing you've said from the beginning is remotely logical or objective.

I insult you in the hope that humiliation will breed humility.

I wish you luck in all your future rhyming and scheming. With a bit more practice you'll surely put the doggerel of lesser poets in the dust bin where it belongs, beside Whitman and his post-modernist ilk.

Housman would be shocked had I not treated you so.

Calling something illogical does not prove it illogical. You are long on rhetoric and very short on substance.

I guess Tim was right after all.

Z43 http://office.gelago.de/cat1939/Tinte-Toner-Verbrauchsmaterial/Tintenstrahldrucker-Patronen/Lexmark/Z43/