Saturday 4 April 2020

English Verse, Lesson 2: Iambic Tetrameters and Ballad Meter

Here's the second lesson:



4 comments:

  1. How well do these rhythms survive movements from one style of English to another where the stress is different. For example, in the UK the word monkey is fairly unstressed whereas in the US there's a stress on the first syllable as if to distinguish a monkey from some other type of key.

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    Replies
    1. Monkey is stressed on the first syllable in English English as well. There are words that change COMplex vs comPLEX, and the adjective CONcrete vs conCRETE.
      Incidentally, in The Tempest the rhythm goes off every time some mentions Milan because Shakespeare clearly stressed it on the first syllable.

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  2. Thank you for this weirdly entertaining series of videos. I have followed your blogs (via RSS) and enjoyed them and your books over the years, thank you for those too. They are informative, well written and most importantly, amusing.
    (Who was that masked man?!)
    Why anonymous? well it's my "virtual" nod towards social distancing.

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  3. Some fish (Exocoetidae) have wings (wing-like fins). Jury's still out on pigs.

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