ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author attempts a more rigorous sketch of metrics than was being widely used in literary criticism at the time, drawing not only on phonetics and phonology, but also with an eye on pragmatic issues of performance and an ear open for readerly matters of interpretation and affect. It is wide-ranging in the sources of its quotations, demonstrating the familiar double-advantage of stylistics as a contribution to linguistic theory and to literary criticism simultaneously. The distinction between metre and rhythm suggests a clear strategy for investigating the pattern of English verse. Some polysyllabic lexical words, like trepidation and counterfeiter, have two stresses; and one of these stresses takes precedence over the other in bearing the nucleus of the intonation pattern: trepidation, counterfeiter. In music, pauses are marked by rests of various lengths and it is easy to adapt the notation to the purpose of recording rhythmic values in poetry.
