Comments | wax_wane: A little help!

wax_wane

A little help!

Feb 23, 2009 18:30

Hi friends list (Ben maybe?). Could you help me with the scansion for this line?

"Orb'd in a Rain-bow; and like glories wearing"

(stress - unstress - unstress - stress - unstress) is the first part yeah? But after the semi-colon, I'm unsure. "and" and "like" are both monosyllabic, so are they both stressed? unstressed?

Comments 6

blahyblahy February 24 2009, 04:26:30 UTC

I think they're both unstressed if written like that.

I have, however, nosed around and found a version saying "Orb'd in a Rain-bow; and, like glories wearing" which would imply 'and' is stressed but 'like' is not. With the entire passage, it seems like 'and' is stressed since it is Truth and Justice that are orb'd and it is Mercy that is like glories wearing. That's a switch between subjects and makes the 'and' stressed because of it.

blahyblahy February 24 2009, 04:27:29 UTC

Also: John Milton is a baller.

wax_wane February 24 2009, 09:56:18 UTC

I didn't know you read this.

Yeah, that sounds right. I think I could argue for it being a pretty ambiguous case though. Thanks -- this was helpful :D

And I dunno... I liked Milton when all I read was Paradise Lost, and didn't know TOO much about his political life, but I have to read a bunch of his prose works for class and the guy is sort of insufferable. Reminds me of an intellectual Tom Cruise -- HONESTLY. And his religion (which only bears a modicum of resemblance to Christianity as we know it) is really just as lame (and made up) as Scientology.

Paradise Lost is still miraculous, though.

blahyblahy February 27 2009, 01:38:19 UTC

Maybe my problem, then, is I haven't read any of his prose works. But agreed, Paradise Lost = win.

I am one of few (that I know) remaining on livejournal. Woot.

Thread 5

jackkansas February 24 2009, 05:35:44 UTC

I'd give equal stress to everything following the semicolon, kind of an Anglo-Saxon boom boom boom. But I know almost nothing about Milton.

(What is it with Milton these days? One of the checkout clerks in the Walnut Creek Nob Hill Market on Oak Grove Road was reading Paradise Lost last semester. And there was an article about him in a recent issue of New York Review of Books....)