Author: Ferrick
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The Dunciad—Part 3: Book I—verses 20, 37
Verse 20: 19 O Thou! whatever title please thine ear,20 Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! The first verse is what we call typical in that it is the normal iambic pentameter verse: 19 Ŏ Thōu! | whătēv | ĕr tī | tlĕ plēase | thĭne ēar A wonderful verse with the alignment of both metrical…
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An Essay on Criticism
Introduction ( or What This is Not) This analysis is not exactly a critique, but in some ways it may well be. One would be daring to criticize a master such as Pope. However, this is about analyzing the metrical variations that Pope has employed in his work. In some instances, the verses do not…
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The Dunciad—Part 2: Book I—verses 15, 17
Verse 15: 15 Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,16 She rul’d, in native Anarchy, the mind. The temptation in most readings knowing Pope’s form is to immediately place a metrical accent on every second syllable assuming that it is likely iambic pentameter. With this closed couplet, it goes well to a point, in this case…
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The Dunciad—Part 1: Book I—verses 11, 12
11 Dulness o’er all possess’d her ancient right,12 Daughter of Chaos and eternal night: If we look at this couplet with the intent of examining its iambicity, we find both unwanted promotion and demotion of speech stress conflicting with metrical accent. Thus we are tempted to say that this couplet is not pure iambic pentameter.…