Tag: dunciad

Verse 46: 45  In clouded Majesty here Dulness Shone;46  Four guardian Virtues, round, support her throne. What we will find with general analysis is that one of the verses of a couplet will be iambic pentameter, and the other will have a minor variation. In his instance, the first verse is of the expected iambicity.…

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…

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…

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.…