Sherry Chandler

On the politics of meter

from Paul Fussell’s Poetic Meter & Poetic Form (Random House, 1965):

When we stand well back and survey the whole history of English versification over almost fifteen centuries, we perceive even through the philological upheavals a recurring pattern. The pattern described by metrical history is similar, perhaps, to the general shape of political history in that it consists of oscillations now toward ideals of tight control and unitary domination and now toward a relaxation of such control and domination. But metrical history differs from political in one important way: while political history can be shown to involve a very gradual total tendency toward, say, ideals of egalitarianism or public philanthropy, metrical history exhibits no such long-term “progressive” tendency. Meter has not really become “freer” over the centuries, and indeed “freedom” is not a virtue in meter—expressiveness is. The metrical imperative underlying the words that Yeats arranges is hardly less rigid and “perfect” than that underlying Chaucer’s poetic discourse; and in “free verse” that works there are imperatives no less visible.

This paragraph was written well before L*A*N*G*U*A*G*E poetry but even that rebellious form has its imperatives.

Possibly related posts:

On the nature of meter

More on the politics of meter

On Meter and Patience

No such thing as formless poetry

Form and discovery

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