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Coleridge, Scott, and "this mescolanza of measures".(Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Walter Scott's dispute)

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From: Wordsworth Circle
Date: 20070622
Author:Paley, Morton D.

Coleridge was always intrigued by the power of sound, particularly by the effects of meter in poetry. He considered himself one of those poets who "has few or no proper pictures, but a magnificent mirage of words instead--and gives you the subjective associations of the Poet instead of the external object." (1) His delight in sound arranged metrically for its own sake is shown in verses he wrote for young Derwent Coleridge in 1807, beginning:

 
  Trochee / trips from / long to / short: 
  From long / to long / in sol/emn sort 
  Slow SPONDEE stalks--strong Foot! yet ill able 
  ...

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