Alex writes:
"In "The Conqueror Worm," by Edgar Allen Poe, the second stanza uses several metrical details to carry forth the message of the piece.. . . " (rest is in the Comments section, to keep this page from getting too hard to navigate)
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[Alex's words again]:
Here is the stanza:
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly;
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their condor wings
Invisible woe!
The humans-as-mimes/puppets of God metaphor is the focus of this stanza, and the meter of the second and third lines reinforces this doubling.
Mutter and mumble low,
and hither and thither fly;
The syllables of "mutter and mumble low," and "hither and thither fly" follow the same pattern of iamb-trochee-trochee. [KSG notes: should be trochee/iamb/trochee: an iamb is daDAH]
The initial stressed syllables set these lines apart, as many of the lines in the piece start with trochees. The "and" at the start of the second line seems more of a breath than part of the metric form, which is why I still counted it as the same pattern as the first.
[KSG: I suggest an elision: andHI / th'randTHI / therFLY: this is 3 iambs in a row]
But the main thing to notice about these two lines is how they mimic themselves and each other.
[YES: that's the important part]
Mutter and mumble follow the same syllable pattern [trochaic: MUTtrand MUMble], and almost sound the same, as hither and thither are (even more) nearly the same word. When these two lines come together, they create a repetitive, mirroring pattern which echoes the theme of the stanza - that of mimicry.
[Great insight!]
There is a lot more to read closely in this stanza and the rest of the poem, for example the last line of this stanza. "Invisible woe!" is a shorter line than all that came before it, only two and half feet long (two trochees and a single stressed syllable).
[two iambs--and again, a slurring or elision: inVIS' / bleWOE]
This calls attention to the final word, woe. What about this state of mimicry is woeful? This short, abrupt statement is explained in the rest of the piece."
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