Excuses, Excuses

Hamilton (189-215)

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Scansion

“As noted above [in John Keat’s “Bright Star”], even expert readers vary in scanning complex meters, and some might scan some of these lines a bit differently…All would agree, though, that the dominant meter is iambic pentameter”  (206).

Talk about confusing the poor little dears, just when we think we’ve finally figured out feet and meter Hamilton thumps and stumps us with a final blow to the cranium.  She says that Keat’s poem is a sonnet, which means it is written with 14 lines of iambic pentameter.  If one looks at the scansion of the poem on page 206, you will see a lot of riff-raff.  Stressed syllables are followed by stressed syllables, stresses completely disappear here and there, and dashes are used as excuses for ignoring the stress pattern.  Now if Keat wanted to write a poem this mixed up, he shouldn’t have strived to confuse us by making it only dominantly iambic pentameter.  That’s like making an excuse for why it’s not “gay” or “girly” for some men (ie. football players) to take ballet.