I guess I should apologize. I'm really not that familiar with Pope, Dryden, et al, although I have plowed through An Essay on Man two or three times now.
I'm genuinely surprised that these poets would avoid enjambment since enjambment creates a variety that consistently end-stopped verse seems to me to cry out for. That doesn't strike me as advancement. Frost's The Tuft of Flowers, which R S Gwynn mentions, goes about as far in that direction as I am likely to admire.
I'm happy to find that our tastes run so much alike, both in regard to enjambment and to Chaucer.
Thanks for the correction,
–GSL
On Aug 26, 2010, at 2:24 PM, Hyman, Eric wrote:
Yes, Chaucer too. Chaucer is my favorite poet, and one of the reasons for that—not the main reason, of course—is my preference for enjambed narrative rather than ferociously end-stopped couplets...
Eric Hyman
Professor of English,
Assistant Chair
Graduate Coordinator
Department of English
Fayetteville State University
1200 Murchison Rd.
Fayetteville, NC 28301
(910) 672-1901