03-18-2015, 06:06 AM
(03-18-2015, 05:40 AM)Erthona Wrote: In terms of a "half headed", it's just the opposite of a half foot. It works this way. The poem is primarily written in a certain meter, it can be any meter, but here it is iambic. Iambic begins with an unstressed syllable and ends with a stressed one. If a line is short one syllable at the beginning at the line but end with a stressed with a stressed syllable at the end of the line there are two way to interpret this line. either as a line of trochee with a half foot at the end of the line, that is it is missing the unstressed syllable that should be there; or as a line of iambic that is missing the first syllable (unstressed) at the beginning: thus, half headed. The determination that the line is in iambic is primarily due to the fact that most of the other lines are obviously iambic. In the end it does not matter if it is or isn't, or even if we should decide to call it such, all that matters is, is if the line is disruptive to the reading or not. In this case it is not. However, this should be a purposeful action on the part of the writer, not just a matter of luck. Or if luck, the writer has enough skill to ascertain if it is good luck or bad luck. I don't know "half headed" or "half-headed" is considered an actual poetic term, it makes sense to me. Maybe milo or Leanne knows, seems like I heard Leanne use it before.usually referred to as a headless iamb.
Dale