ABSTRACT
Wimsatt and Beardsley's account, soon published in PMLA and subsequently quoted in the "Note on Versification" in Understanding Poetry's third and fourth editions, helped stave off resistance to this traditional view, thus solidifying a consensus about poetic lines and their meters. Like their traditional view of meter, which Wimsatt and Beardsley observe "is often under attack and is sometimes supposed to be outmoded by refinements" the traditional view of racial identity has likewise come under attack: "To espouse identity politics in the academy risks being viewed as a member of the Flat-Earth Society". The recent refinements that make racial identity seem outmoded stem not only from developments in the discipline of philosophy but also from developments in various scientific disciplines, including anthropology. Such an analytical stance is likewise possible with meter, which takes back to the exchange between Hollander and Wimsatt at the Conference on Style.
