Poetic Rhythm – Structure and Performance –– An Empirical Study in Cognitive Po…

Poetic RhythmStructure and Performance -- An Empirical Study in Cognitive Poetics\nAuthor(s): Reuven Tsur\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Liverpool University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Liverpool University Press\nISBN-13: 9781845195243, 978-1845195243\nSynopsis\nThis research is an instrumental investigation of a theory of rhythmical performance of poetry, originally propounded speculatively in the author's Perception-Oriented Theory of Metre [tel]. \""Iambic pentameter\"" means that there is a verse unit consisting of an unstressed and a stressed syllable (in this order), and that the verse line consists of five such units. In the first 165 verse lines of Paradise Lost there are two such lines. The theory takes up one of the central issues in metrical studies: all criteria for metricality hitherto proposed have been violated by the greatest masters of musicality in English poetry. The question arises, how do we recognise two verse lines that are very different in their structures .