Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis

240 Advances in spoken discourse analysis

Of the ten feet that this particular analysis recognises, five are iambic, four are
trochaic and one has minimal weight in both syllables. If we continue through
the stanza, we find little reason for saying that the predominant pattern is
either the one or the other. In such a case, there would seem to be good cause
for applying the alternative method that metricists have always known to fit
some kinds of English verse. Abercrombie (1964) outlines an approach to
verse structure in which he propounds the concept of a silent stress, or silent
ictus. The idea is presented in the context of Abercrombie’s belief in the
isochronicity of languages like English, a belief that stressed syllables tend to
occur at equal time intervals. Probably in any reading of the line:

That is no country for old men. The young

there will be a pause after men, and this pause will affect the overall timing
of the line as if it were a stressed syllable. Furthermore, by assuming that
there is a similar silent stress before that, we can represent the line as a
sequence of five feet, each beginning with a stressed syllable and possibly
followed by one or more unstressed ones. So:

// that is NO country // for OLD men // the YOUNG //

is scanned as follows:

| ^that is | no country for | old men | ^ the | young

It will be noticed that the ‘stressed’ syllables in this version are those to
which I have assigned prominence in the partially engaged reading I have
proposed. This remains true when the procedure is applied to the rest of the
stanza:

// in ONE another’s ARMS // BIRDS // in the TREES //

// those DYing generAtion // at their SONG //

// the SALmon falls // the MACKerel crowded SEAS //

// FISH // FLESH // and FOWL // commend ALL summer LONG //

// what EVER is beGOTTen // BORN // and DIES //

// CAUGHT in the sensual MUSic // ALL negLECT //

// MONuments of unageing // INtellect //

is scanned thus: