Tim wrote on Oct 14^th, 2009 at 3:38am:

When is it permissible to sub a spondee for an iamb?

When it works ... and the readership lets you get away with it.  One place it can maybe count on working is in the opening lines, where the reader is expecting a strong statement anyway.

Lets ask Liz; She's got a pretty good record for stretching the rules of meter in her sonnets, and while some critics say she just didn't nave much of an ear for iambic, I tend to believe that she had a rarely developed ear for when a lapse will work.  Let's look at this one...

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curvëd point, -- what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented?  Think!  In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence.  Let us stay
Rather on earth, Belovëd, -- where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.


Dunno about the rest of y'all, but I read the 2nd thru 6th beats as stressed..."our two souls stand up"  with a minor drop for 'two', granted, but certainly 'souls stand up' comes across as three strong beats.  I think one reason it works is because it's three strong words .  our two souls stand up...no one, hearing or reading that passage is even going to be looking for the stresses to back off.

Again (and again and again and again) Work by Feel!  Your reader will forgive the technical if the work makes them feel the target emotion.  And again (and again and again and again) read the works of the great sonneteers.  EBBrowning offers example after example of meter that lapses from the iambic and is still accepted as great sonneting.  Watch what they do, how and where they do it.  The examples are really the best learning tools around.

Dang, yer quick!

Since you were replying even as I was correcting, please look back and note that I screwed up an example line...I've amended it, and it's marked with ***

The ictus...the stressed beat.  

In a poem I recently posted in firebox (Untitled Under Glass) it became apparent to me that I've left the topic of stressed beats woefully confusing.  This has probably happend because of my device of daDUMdaDUM...creating the appearance that a beat is either unstressed or heavily stressed.  Y'all...I led you astray.  There are words that will confuse you in this by having, in speech, only a mild stress.  The line that created such confusion was 

such furor?  (Did Demi pass through his thought?)


First confusion:  Demi Moore pronounces her name with an accent on the second syllable...deMI.  Easily corrected.  Other confusions are not so easy to get past, and have forced me to add more to my signals than just daDUM.  

Dan'l called me on it (it's ALWAYS okay to call me on things that I confuse you with!) since he read the line as 

such furor.   (Did Demi pass through his thought?)


It felt to him like two unstressed beats began that phrase.  Only natural, since I'd left the impression that a beat is either a da or a DUM.

In natural speech (whcih, though we're using rhyme and meter, we DO try to approach in our sonneteering) we don't speak in just das and DUMS.  The word in question is a verb, unaccompanied by a modifier, so it does, indeed, draw a stress...but it drew a mild stress.  To modify my signals, I'd put it as 

such furor.   (Did Demi pass through his thought?)

The first syllable of furor is stressed simply because that's how the word is pronounced.  Likewise for Demi...that's how she says her name.  the verb 'did', unmodified, draws a stress by being a verb, but in normal speech it is not a strong stress!  It passed in Daniel's view as unstressed and made the line hiccup in his perception.

To finish out the line...pass is a verb, but it is followed by a modifier--through.  Read this one.  

"He must pass through each trial and snare alone" ***

pass, does, indeed, draw a stress, but through draws a stronger one, so the iambic feel gets maintained anyway.  Compared, with the same verb in different context...

"...and thought that I might have to pass on that"  pass draws a much stronger stress.  It does it by being alone...without a following modifier.


I'm pretty certain that some of you will have gotten at least a vague idea of what I'm saying here.  I'm equally certain that I've managed to only further confuse the issue for some others.  Please use this thread for a continued discussion of where meter confuses you!  I'll try desperately to improve my attendance record.

best regards

Eric