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Re: THOUGHT: on prosody
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In a message dated 3/1/2010 8:07:02 AM Central Standard Time,
MRoth@MESSIAH.EDU writes:
> Here is a scan of the relevant lines from The Exile:
>
> >>
>> Verlaine had been also a teacher somewhere
>> in England. And what about great Baudelaire,
>> alone in his Belgi-an hell?
>
>
> [Actually, in isolation these lines might be scanned as iambic pentameter!
>
> >> Verlaine had been also a teacher somewhere
>> in England. And what about great Baud'laire,
>> alone in his Belgian hell? ]
>
It seems as though Nabokov is having his fun with the syllabic rigidity of
amphibrachic meter, showing how it forces three syllables on "Baudelaire"
and capping the joke by forcing three on "Belgian."
No way this could be scanned as iambic pentameter. However, changing the
syntax of the first line results in "Verlaine had also been a teacher
somewhere," which is a fairly regular I5 line (with feminine ending).
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MRoth@MESSIAH.EDU writes:
> Here is a scan of the relevant lines from The Exile:
>
> >>
>> Verlaine had been also a teacher somewhere
>> in England. And what about great Baudelaire,
>> alone in his Belgi-an hell?
>
>
> [Actually, in isolation these lines might be scanned as iambic pentameter!
>
> >> Verlaine had been also a teacher somewhere
>> in England. And what about great Baud'laire,
>> alone in his Belgian hell? ]
>
It seems as though Nabokov is having his fun with the syllabic rigidity of
amphibrachic meter, showing how it forces three syllables on "Baudelaire"
and capping the joke by forcing three on "Belgian."
No way this could be scanned as iambic pentameter. However, changing the
syntax of the first line results in "Verlaine had also been a teacher
somewhere," which is a fairly regular I5 line (with feminine ending).
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/