This is a pretty good all-purpose explanation of why I’m disinclined at this point to become your pinata on the subject of metrics. Some posters like **Knowed Out ** claim they won’t even read it, while others claim that they wouldn’t trust anything I wrote on the subject, while yet others are popping their pimples in breathless anticipation of an opportunity to jump all over me whatever I say or don’t say. Not exactly an environment likely to persuade people that maybe I know some things about versification. I’m afraid you’ll have to seek your edification from some other source than me just now. I’m willing to play the fool sometimes, but this seems a little too masochistic even for me. How about I just concede that Biffy’s scanning was beautiful and inspired and a marvel to behold while admitting that not only have I never taken a course in metrics but I’ve never attended school of any kind and have faked literacy in these posts through dumb luck, as I’m actually a monkey flailing away at my keyboard and have made decent sentences here, wherever I had, by blind chance that might give out at any snfkdfignhvdfghjjjfgjksjfj
Pathetic, man. I do hope your security blanket is handy; once you’re done sucking your thumb and feeling sorry for yourself, though, you can come back and play nice with the rest of the class.
More importantly, don’t be a dick in Cafe Society, and you’ll find that people will appreciate your involvement and your education. Be a dick in Cafe Society, and you’ll find that people focus on that.
It’s kinda like the real world that way, don’tcha think?
Daniel
True. You weren’t there to teach. You were there to be a dick. Congratulations! You’re enormously successful in your pursuits!
How much more backpedaling can you do in this thread, I wonder?
On preview: Holy whinefest, Batman. Even when invited to share your brilliance, you’re afraid to because people might disagree with you.
You claimed expertise and now you don’t think you can even defend your scan of a single line of poetry.
That’s some serious weaseling you’re doing.
If anyone is interested in what metric practitioners make of the line, I’m going to poll some of them. I’ll return with results for the handful of people who might care.
I’m certainly interested. I gave my own scan earlier, but that’s without any formal training since the age of 14 (when I took a summer-camp course on poetic meter and learned to write sonnets), and without being familiar with the poem.
Daniel
Had you spent a fraction of the ammount of time you’ve spent whining and jumping up on the cross on, ya know, actually proving your point, you’ve had avoided most of this mess. That you continue to fail to provide any support or elaboration suggests that you simply cannot. You can whine all you like about how some wouldn’t believe you, but there are many people reading this thread, and many of them have training in this subject. If you post something true, chances are most people who know about it will back you up.
Despite your claims that you’ve already posted something on this very subject, that you could link to in a matter of seconds, you still have not provided even the barest of support for your arrogant and obnoxious claims of expertise. Your continued failing to do so strongly implies that you simply cannot, and never could.
Personally, I now believe it to be much more likely that you are a sophmore in college who has taken a course of two on poetry, and possibly become a ‘published author’ by writing for the school literacy magazine. You are certainly not a teacher, or an expert, as either of those classes of people would have only required a few minutes of work to post an analysis which would have settled the matter days ago.
Me, I’m an expert in neuclear physics… but I won’t tell anybody anything about it, because it wouldn’t be properly appreciated. But you’re all foolish and lazy wilfully ignorant sloths for not agreeing with my unstated and unsupported position. Oh, what a martyr I am.
I think it’s perfectly fair to measure your effectiveness in teaching by showing where you’d rather be a condescending prick to those with less knowledge on the subject than teach them. I think an effective teacher would be one who enjoys sharing knowledge in a polite manner, rather than someone who decides for himself who is “ready to learn” and who is merely deserving of scorn.
Well, as I suspected, there is major disagreement over how the line should be scanned, with four of the votes coming for straight IP*–the exact scan that Biffy provided.
A couple of votes so far for a double iamb opener (pyrrhic + spondee), a few votes that he’s dabbling in anapests*, and one brave soul who’s gone all acc-tet**** on us.
- or LIKE stout CORtez WHEN with EAGle EYES
** or like STOUT CORtez WHEN with EAGle EYES
*** or like STOUT corTEZ when with EAGle EYES (note that this scan leaves only four feet in the line)
**** or like STOUT CorTEZ when with EAGle EYES (which looks like *** but this person is arguing that the sonnet is accentual, meaning that you only count the number of strong stresses in a line, and that the whole poem has four (tet) stresses per line. This type of meter is common in Anglo-Saxon poetry, and some metricists would argue that it’s more common than otherwise thought. On preview: Ooh, he’s gaining some support! It’s a footrace! 
I also asked if they could see a way to sub in “Balboa” and everyone agreed that they could sub in in directly (the pro-anapest crowd)***** or that “stout” could be taken out.******
***** or like STOUT balBOa WHEN with EAGle EYES
****** or LIKE balBOa WHEN with EAGle EYES
And this is why I think prr stance is so unacceptable. Experts debate these things. Biffy was being simplistic, perhaps, though with many many writers there is no need to look beyond the obvious.
I know that scansion isn’t really the point of the thread anymore, but I’ve been sitting in front of my computer trying to say “or like STOUT CORtez WHEN with EAGle EYES”, and I simply can not manage it. The accent keeps drifting from ‘stout’ to ‘like’, or from the first syllable of ‘Cortez’ to the second.
If anyone can figure out how to explain it with nothing but text, help?
Good heavens, what a thread!
As a poet, pseudotriton ruber ruber, you’ll surely appreciate this from Horace:
Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
(The mountains are in labour, and give birth to a ridiculous mouse.)
In other words, much ado about nothing. Suck it up; the admonition from Dex was as mild as it was justified.
I find that a good rule of thumb is: “What would I actually say to someone face-to-face if I were wishing to correct them in a well-mannered fashion?”
If you ask yourself, honestly, “Would I actually *say *‘You have a lot of botanic learning to do.’, or would I simply think the third point?” you pretty much have your defining line of ‘How much snark is too much snark for CS?’ right there.
I’ve been sucking it up for quite some time, almost three full pages worth. I’ve got no problem if people want to vent on me some more, though I might not respond to every “dick” and “asshole” that comes my way.
I’ve no problem with Dex’s admonition now that he’s explained his tone. It’s funny, though, isn’t it, that **Dex ** explained that he was trying for a lighthearted kidding-around tone which I somehow misread and got into a high dudgeon about-- because everyone else here also assumed (like me) that Dex was kicking some serious ass in the other thread, only (unlike me) everyone else prior to Dex’s explanation felt that it was a well-deserved serious ass-kicking. You can’t be lighthearted and and performing a total bitch-slapping at the same time, can you? So I conclude that Dex was perhaps not so skillful in communicating his tone properly (which he graciously concedes)–if he’d been able to provide his tonal reading to me sooner, perhaps this ludicrous mouse-birth could have been aborted. I asked him for clarification, and he provided same. My OP was essentially satisfied.
And now that the gratuitous baiting has died down, we seem to be evolving towards a civil discussion (in the Pit?) of ways to scan the line of Keats in question. How odd. I hope you won’t mind if I wait a little longer to judge if this is really a serious discussion before chiming in thoroughly.
It’s not just that Biffy’s scansion was mistaken, as I keep telling you, jsgoddess, it’s his assertiveness in making that claim. “I scanned it this way, this way makes Keats appear incompetent, therefore Keats was incompetent” is a very poor way to approach a poem. Sure, sometimes Homer nods, but the best assumption is that Homer is wide awake and pretty good at what he does. In fact, that may be my Rule One of Scansion: “Poets generally know what they’re doing. If you have a problem with a poem, the fault, Brutus, may be in yourself.” Presuming that the poem is somehow faulty because you can’t get it to scan right is a serious error most of the time.
Pretty good rule of thumb, Bites When Provoked. I’ll have to bear that one in mind. Thanks.
Is it a claim that I’ve posted something on the subject, or have I already supplied a link from 2004 showing that I have? Or are you just not that careful a reader?
Well, now we’re getting into an area of the genus of rat whose ass no one reallly gives about what you do and do not believe. This is a bad road to head down, I know, but perhaps you could supply some standard for demonstrating that I hold a job, with a title and a degree and publications and a transcript, or whatever standard you want to suggest, such that you would be willing to kiss my ass in Macy’s window at high noon if I were, somehow, to supply sufficient proof to you?
In other words, have you considered that I’m not posting further because I just don’t feel like performing on command before people eager to invent specious disagreements, but I will perhaps in a less hostile atmosphere? So far, I’ve had several open avowals of disbelief in whatever arguments I make (in advance of any argument from me), so I should venture into that poisoned well? I’d rather meet you in Macy’s window.
No: you should just not make a hostile atmosphere next time. I have said that I think you’ve got good knowledge to share, but hopefully this thread has convinced you that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Next time, ixnay on the inegarvay, and we’ll all appreciate your contribution.
I really, really hope you’ve learned about what tone does to the well, to mix my metaphors.
Daniel
Also any school I might attend doesn’t have a “literacy magazine.” I’m sure your school has one, and needs one.
My dreams, crushed again.
Daniel
This was intended of course for Finn Again, not LHOD.
Daniel, your point is well taken. Of course I’m responsible for creating much of the poisoned atmosphere in this thread.
Fair enough. I would like to hear your thoughts on meter, although I understand if you’d rather just walk away from this thread.
Daniel
Or, third possibility, are you an arrogant and pretentious schmuck who’s full of shit? You responded to a direct question from LHoD by stating that you had offered to discuss the issue and had done so in the past. Instead, you provide a link that neither has anything to do with the specific line in question nor answers as to how one should mark a line if one doesn’t know its form after a glance. Despite your claims of expertise even your supposed elaboration boils down to subjectivity as the ultimate arbiter.
If you’re a teacher, you’re a piss poor one, just about as good a poet as you are. It sounds that way, to you, and thus that tells “us” that’s the right answer? Is that somewhat like how “we” were unclear about Dex’s words?
Or are you just not that careful of a writer, “poet”?
Mmm hmmm. Except you’ve been whining for quite some time now about how you won’t provide a single shred of elaboration on your specific claims because of what people think and believe about your claims. So obviously You do really care… enough to refrain from actually providing a cite or an explanation.
You’ve spent days now carefully avoiding even the hint of explaining your analysis. If your credentials are real, which I doubt, you are a poor teacher. Your behavior has already proven this, I don’t require anything else to demonstrate it.
You didn’t in the CS thread.
You haven’t in the Pit thread.
You may continue to whine about performing on command, and how you refuse to respond if people (whose opinions you claim not to give a rat’s ass about) don’t believe you… but the fact of that matter is that you simply have not provided an iota of proof, only bluster.
If you wanted to go about fighting ignorance instead of masturbating your ego and spurting all over the place, you’d already have done your best to explain your reading.
’
Want to tell me again how nobody cares about my opinion… but you won’t give a shred of proof to back up your arrogant and obnoxious posturing because you care so much about my (and other people’s) opinions?
Ooooh, you caught me in a brain fart, masterful. Whee. Literary, not literacy. Your points are all proven now.
But while I’m at it, I thought you were a teacher. Now you ‘attend’ school, “poet”?
FinnAgain, I seriously doubt that prr is falsifying his credentials.
Think about it.
You’re on a messageboard. Nobody knows who you are. You can make up any identity you want. An astronaut? Sure! A brain surgeon? Why not? A high-powered Washington insider? Go for it! The duchess of motherfucking Lusitania? All you, baby!
Or wait, I got it, what about a poetry professor? Hoo boy, think of the fun!
He’s legit.
Daniel
I believe the question of the day to be his expertise, not his profession.