Metre Matters: New Approaches to Prosody, 1780-1914

Whether classical or modern, quantitative or accentual, conventional or experimental - metre mattered to nineteenth-century poets and readers; and metrical matters were hotly debated throughout the century. Framed by and often framing these debates, th...

Whether classical or modern, quantitative or accentual, conventional or experimental - metre mattered to nineteenth-century poets and readers; and metrical matters were hotly debated throughout the century. Framed by and often framing these debates, the science of versification - prosody - evolved into a vigorous and highly specialized corpus of knowledge, and treatises, textbooks, manuals, and histories proliferated. The period from 1780 to 1914 constituted the high-water mark of prosodic discourse. Since the early decades of the twentieth century, though, the once vigorous discourse of prosody has been struggling to find its feet. Often rejected for its associations with American New Criticism or other "outmoded" formalist approaches, prosody has suffered both critical hostility and neglect. In recent years, however, scholars have renewed their interest in prosody, and in doing so they have revitalized debates about metre, versification and formalism more generally. This re-examination of prosody has been characterized by a plurality of critical practice, central to much of which has been an attempt to re-embed prosody within its multiple social and cultural contexts and also to highlight new directions for discussions of formalisms. This conference aims to showcase these new approaches to prosody.

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