Introducing a scansion machine for Dutch poetry and prose
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/loquens.2014.002Keywords:
stress-timed rhythm, Dutch, poetry, scansion, iambic pentameterAbstract
This paper looks into the possibility that the rhythm present in poetry is the same that characterizes natural languages. This hypothesis, although attractive, faces serious problems such as the tremendous amount of data necessary to reach any valid conclusion and the fact that certain poetic traditions may deviate from the rhythm expected in a certain language. In order to tentatively test whether there is a relationship between the rhythmic properties of a certain language and its poetry we selected Dutch, a stress-timed language, and we took modern Dutch metric poetry as the object of study. Then, we created a tool that finds regular patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables in iambic pentameters and we compared our results to those of de Groot (1936). Finally, we discussed what factors could influence the noticeable findings for the beginning and the end of the studied verses and whether these findings could be the same for Dutch prose texts.
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