Re: _ _ _ _Re:_Metrical_Stress,_Feet,_ etc.

En réponse à Philippe Caquant :


>French metrics are based on the number of syllables,
>OK, but if you limit yourself to that rule, and
>definitely decide to ignore the rhythm, I doubt you
>ever come to writing any good (classical) poetry !
No, but see further.

>Fist you have to take into account the césure (pause
>inside the verse). In an alexandrin, it’s normally in
>the middle of it (6 + 6), but the scheme can also be 4
>+ 4 + 4 (Ah si mon coeur / osait encor / se
>renflammer, La Fontaine), or possibly other schemes
>(the decasyllable can be 5 + 5, but preferingly 4 + 6;
>etc.)
That's the point: there are guidelines, but no *rules*, and we were talking 
about *rules* of French metrics. The stress rhythm can be done in many ways 
(many more than you described), and nearly anything is possible depending 
on the occasion as long as it "sounds good". And there's nothing vaguer 
than that. That's why I didn't refer to those rhythms while I know they 
exist. They depend too much on personal taste (what's music for someone is 
noise for somebody else. I personally find classical French verse with 
defined cesures very bland and uninteresting for instance).

>Now look at those 2 alexandrins:
>1) C’est bien. Tout ce qui n’est pas moi vaut mieux
>que moi. (Victor Hugo)
>2) Un soir, t’en souvient-il, nous voguions en
>silence. (Lamartine)
>
>The 1st one has absolutely no musicality. It is
>composed of monosyllables only, the cesure, if any,
>would be after the 2nd syllable (?), then they would
>be a secundary stress on the 8th, but you have to
>count on your fingers to make it out.
I, on the other hand, find it easy to make it rhythmic. It has the kind of 
"broken" rhythm (underlined by the "moi" repetition") that raises my interest.

>  It is simply
>dreadful. As it happens, this verse belongs to theatre
>(Hernani).
You may find it dreadful. I find it a fine example of musicality. De 
gustibus non disputandum, which is why I didn't discuss the stress patterns.

>The 2nd one is a model of musicality, as is the entire
>poem where it comes from (Le Lac). There is a stress
>on the 2nd syllable (which is long),
Not long, as it is pronounced just as long as any other syllable there. If 
you pronounce it longer, then you sure have a strange accent! :)

>  then a pause,
>then a pause (cesure) after the 6th syllable (which is
>short), then a stress on the 9th (half long), then on
>the 12th, which is long. Everything is made to evoke
>the bark quietly evoluting on the lake in the evening.
Sorry, but to me it evokes more my head doodling and my own snoring :)) . I 
find the verse bland and atonal. It has no music but what the other nailed 
in it with a hammer. Sorry, but it's not the kind of thing I call musical. 
Once again, de gustibus...

>So one cannot say that things like long or short
>syllables are not relevant in French poetry. There are
>not part of the DEFINITION of the verse,
Which was the whole question....

>  but their
>(mastered) use reveals the TALENT of the poet, and is
>essential for the beauty of the poem. If there is no
>music in there, there is no poetry.
The problem being that this "music" you talk about is extremely personal, 
and thus cannot be derived into rules, and thus is not part of the common 
ground of poetry. And what you find talentless other people find wonderful.

[snip sleep-inducing examples :)) ]


>True, there was a strong tendency in the last decades
>to ignore everything about rhythm and melody, and
>write ‘intellectual’, ‘clever’ poems. To me this looks
>rather sterile, and the fact is that nobody ever
>REMEMBERS such poems by heart (or even wants to recite
>them), because there are made for the brain only, not
>for the soul, and because rhythm and rhymes are a
>strong help to remember verses (‘classical’ poems also
>can be put into songs). It contributed very much to
>the growing disdain towards poetry: nowadays, nobody
>ever buys poetry books, and at least 90% of the
>self-called ‘poets’ ignore nearly everything about
>metrics, musicality and classical rules. When they
>write ‘alexandrins’, they count on their fingers. This
>is the end of a culture ! :-(
This has been said already for centuries, and each time culture showed that 
it was very much alive, just undergoing a transition. This is no different 
nowadays...

Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

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