[Milton-L] Let me not
Carl Bellinger
bcarlb at comcast.net
Fri Mar 19 13:23:49 EDT 2010
Thanks Richard Strier: this is extremely helpful. I'll go back through your
previous posts to find "seeing as."
I would like to know the provenance of this understanding of meter.
Cheers,
-Carl
----- Original Message -----
From: "richard strier" <rastrier at uchicago.edu>
To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 12:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Let me not
> Again, I think Gillum is right. # 1 is certainly the version that makes
> most
> metrical sense.
>
> I'm not sure that I understand what meter producing "a patently
> wrong-headed
> or spurious meaning" means. Meter, as I understand it, should NOT be
> determined by meaning. The fact that a word is semantically important
> does
> not mean that it should necessarily be considered a metrically stressed
> syllable.
> Meter is an abstract system, a way, as I said, of "seeing as." The way
> that it is
> most useful in relation to meaning is as an INDEPENDENT variable. That
> way, it
> might show us new ways of reading lines. If it depends on meaning, it is:
> 1) not
> a system; and 2) just enforcing things that we think we already know.
>
> To push the point a little further: 1) I think that the metrical
> ambiguity in the
> second foot of the first line of PL (either an iamb or a spondee,
> depending on
> how one treats "first") has nothing at all to do us "enacting"
> disobedience or
> anything of the sort (both readings are metrically acceptable,
> "obedient"). The
> rest of the line seems perfectly iambic to me (treating "disobedience" as
> 4 syll's
> ["ience" as 1]). To illustrate in a small way the advantage of the
> independent
> variable view, I would say that to treat this line as perfectly iambic
> throughout
> allows for the first syllable of "disobedience" really to come into
> prominence --
> not a bad result, though not, certainly, conclusive.
>
> 2) I think that Vendler's treatment of the 1st line of 116 is driven by
> her general
> view of Sh's sonnets and her general theory of poetry rather than by
> metrical
> considerations.
>
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:32:34 -0400
>>From: Michael Gillum <mgillum at unca.edu>
>>Subject: Re: [Milton-L] performance, meter, and open choices
>>To: John Milton Discussion List <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
>>
>> 1. LET me NOT to the MARriage (unorthodox double
>> trochee or 1-3-6)
>> 2. Let ME NOT to the MARriage (unorthodox
>> 2nd-position trochee & something else is wrong)
>> 3. Let me NOT to the MARriage (nursery-rhyme
>> 4-beat, unmetrical in IP)
>> 4. Let ME not TO the MARriage (not English)
>> Carl, Vendler is correct that attributing
>> metrical/rhetorical stress to "me" changes the
>> meaning of the poem, but there is something wrong
>> with the second option linguistically in that it
>> somehow detaches "not" from "let" and
>> inappropriately connects "not" with the following
>> prepositional phrase. I guess metrically it is
>> caused by the felt need to get some space between
>> adjacent beat-realizing syllables--what Attridge
>> calls an "implied offbeat." So to me #1 seems the
>> best metrical scansion or performance.
>> I'm really enjoying this discussion too. Thanks to
>> all.
>> Michael
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 5:54 AM, Carl Bellinger
>> <bcarlb at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> Sincere thanks to all contributors across this
>> rich discussion. I'm grateful and humbled. And
>> can't keep up. What a generous, learned, careful,
>> acute, comprehensive, honest, patient, cordial,
>> jolly good show!
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>
>> "Meter CAN be a guide to performance, but
>> needn't be" says Prof. Strier.
>>
>> I think I must be misunderstanding this
>> and other opinions which seem to hold that we may
>> treat certain, not unimportant functions of
>> prosody & performance 'any which way' we wish
>> to treat them --we may scan them, interpret them,
>> perform them, as we like. I'm a bit confused,
>> and uneasy...
>> In the case of this particular
>> can-be-but-needn't-be opinion, wouldn't Prof.
>> Strier and others want to exclude instances
>> where using meter to determine performance would
>> produce a patently wrong-headed or spurious
>> meaning?
>> "Let me not to the marriage of true minds /
>> Admit impediments" is the opening of what is
>> usually understood as a definitional poem, but
>> Helen Vendler points out (though I always
>> misremember and over simplify) that if you allow
>> the iambic prosody to do its proper work you have,
>> "Let ME not to the marriage of true minds admit
>> impediments," and the poem is no longer an
>> instance of the genre of definition, but rather of
>> the genre of dramatic refutation or rebuttal. I'm
>> not sure Vendlers reading is the better than the
>> usual one, but it obviously is not a patently
>> wrong-headed or spurious one so it doesn't
>> perfectly suit my query ; I hope it might
>> nevertheless help the discussion.
>>
>> Cheers. Jolly good cheers,
>>
>> Carl
>>
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>
> Richard Strier
> Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor
> Department of English
> University of Chicago
> 1115 East 58th Street
> Chicago, IL 60637
>
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