ENGL 2100Y Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Accentual Verse, Goliard, Syllabic Verse
23 Feb 2016
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Document Summary
English (whether old, middle and modern) is an accentual language, in which meaning is determined by patterns of stress (intonation) P ronunciation can change the meaning of words if the accents are in the wrong sequence. Emphasis can change tone and thus meaning. Imported into english in the 14th century (chaucer) and again in the early 16th (wyatt and surrey) from france and italy. Based on the classical forms of greek and latin verse (long and short vowels) More suited to romance languages than english. Accentual (rhythmic) rather than metric i. e. , the poetic line contains a fixed number of stresses, regardless of the number of syllables. Follows the natural rhythms of english speech, and is therefore the simplest, oldest, and most natural poetic measure in english (dana goia, accentual verse ) Will have one main stress (usually on the root syllable), and will alternate stressed. Will not generally receive stress (e. g. , i have won ), except where there is usual.
