catalectic / acatalectic / hypercatalect

[sb70012]

acatalectic (Gk ‘not lacking a syllable in the last foot’) It denotes, therefore, a metrical line which is complete. If a line lacks one or more unaccented syllables, it is truncated (see catalexis). If a line contains an extra syllable it is then hypercatalectic (or hypermetrical, redundant or extrametrical). In the following stanza from William Blake’s Art and Artists the first line is catalectic, the third acatalectic, and the fourth hypercatalectic:

When Sr Joshua Reynolds died
All Nature was degraded;
The King dropp’d a tear into the Queen’s Ear,
And all his Pictures Faded.

Source: Dictionary of English Literary terms by J. A. Cuddon

Hello,
I have a little difficult question. I can not find the blue written parts in the poem. Would you please be kind enough to help me with that so that we can detect them in the poem?

Thank you

[YesNo]

I don't know the answer. This is my guess.

The first line is supposed to be "catalectic". I put the last stanza in bold and assume the meter should be unaccented-unaccented-accented. Then we are missing an unaccented syllable.

When Sr Joshua Reynolds died

The third line is supposed to be "acatalectic". Here is has two unaccented syllables and the final one accented.

The King dropp’d a tear into the Queen’s Ear,

The four line is supposed to by "hypercatalectic". In this and the 2nd line, the meter is iambic (unaccented-accented). The last foot has an extra unaccented syllable at the end, the "ed" part.

And all his Pictures Faded.