Leofranc Holford-Strevens
Wed, 11 Aug 2004 12:00:43 -0700
At 05:30 PM 8/11/2004 +0100, you wrote:There was another possibility: blank verse, with its capacity for constructing paragraphs in the Vergilian manner, as demonstrated by Milton, again citing Italian precedent. But Dryden rejected this: how far was this due to the new French aesthetic (which not only privileged the couplet, but required clear demarcation of line-ends) and how far (without admission) to Milton's outdated and undesirable views on religion and politics?There are some reasonably convincing remarks about the rise of the form, if not as I recall the name, in heroic literature in Ruth C Wallerstein, 'The Development of the Rhetoric and Metre of the Heroic Couplet 1625-45' PML 50 (1935), 160ish
It was actually Wallerstein that put me onto this. Wallerstein was Piper's teacher, and she argued that the heroic couplet so-called was originally devised as an equivalent for the Latin elegiac couplet -- not heroic at all. Piper confirmed this. But you see where my question is going: when did something that was originally used for translating elegies and epigrams become the de facto meter for epic?
Leofranc Holford-Strevens -- *_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
Leofranc Holford-Strevens 67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter? OX2 6EJ
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