Is iambic pentameter a good English-language substitute for epic

Yes.

>>9682305
Why?

>>9683679
It's very natural for the language

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>>9683802
I guess so, I guess the one thing I may be asking is if there's a better meter to write epics in in English than iambic pentameter. Obviously in Latin and Greek, dactylic hexameter is THE meter you write epic poems in, both from pure convention and because it just sounds "epic." Is iambic pentameter that "epic-sounding" meter in English?

>>9685440
The main problem with writing in meters beyond iambs is that English tends to fall into iambs. (cf >>9683802). I'm a speech teacher at a drama and was just talking about this today: when in an unstressed position, most words in the English language make use of the schwa vowel, which never carries length.
Ionic Greek has in its construction something which lends itself to dactyls, though even more about the length of the vowel than it is the stress of the word (in Greek the stress will slide depending on the conjugatio).
e.g. μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
You'll notice that the stress markers fall on the first and third syllables, despite the fact that that is not dactylic.
THAT being said, I'm pretty sure Milton was spot on in choosing blank verse. I could see an argument being made for iambic hexameter, but that's really a matter of opinion, I guess. Comparatively few works make use of Alexandrine: Spenser makes use of them in Faerie Queen, and there's a (really dull) poem called Poly-Olbion which is exclusively Alexandrine.

>>9685440
heroic couplets are about as epic as it gets

People were mad head over heels about waltzes back in the day.

The simple up and down beat is the most rudimentary rythm.

Also consider the terminating bit in binary, and even in genetics. Morse code too.

Im not sure why the 5 syllables is significant if musical rythm was typically measred in 4's.

>>9685654
>Im not sure why the 5 syllables is significant if musical rythm was typically measred in 4's.
that's exactly it, pentameter is the only one that doesn't reduce to groups of 4 beats somehow
>trimeter: 3 beats + paus
>tetrameter: duh
>alexandrine: (3 + pause) + (3 + pause)
>fourteener: 4 + (pause + 3)
if you want to avoid being sing-songy pentameter is the easiest meter

>>9685992
Iambic pentameter is in actuality a waltz. It's not five-beat rhythm, even though "pent" means five, because five beats would be totally offkilter and ridiculous and would never work and would be a complete disaster and totally unlistenable. Pentameter, so called, if you listen to it with an open ear, is a slow kind of gently swaying three-beat minuetto.

Really, I mean it.

>>9686044
>5/4 is unlistenable
learn something every day

>>9686081
And what romanticism did was to set the pentameter minuet aside and try to recover the older, more basic ballad rhythm. Somewhere along the way, so the Romantic poets felt, the humanness and the singingness and the amblingness of lyric poetry became entangled in frippery and parasols, and that's because we stopped hearing those four basic pacing beats. That's what Walter Scott was bringing back when he published his border ballads, and what Coleridge was bringing back when he wrote the Kubla Khan song and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." They were bringing back the ballad. "Where Alph, the sacred river ran"--four beats. "Through caverns measureless to man"--four beats. And it's the basis of song lyrics, too, because lyric poetry is song lyrics, that's why it's called lyric poetry. Now stop acting like a retard human being and try to argue for a change.

>>9686044

You seem to have no musical knowledge whatsoever.

>>9686138
>stop acting like a retard
to do so I would first have to start acting like a retard and I have no wish to do so

>>9686139
>ad hominem
Nice, /lit/. You always surprise me.

>>9686148
Ad hominem. Again. Well, what about trying to make an argument?

English is iambic. Have you tried writing something trochaic or so on? There simply aren't enough words to choose from, and English cannot be shuffled enough to compensate. In other words, it requires incredible creativity to work beyond iambs and still write something decent. I know, when I was a kid, I refused to use iambic pentameter and instead chose some ridiculous meter. Nothing resulted from that.

>>9686171
All you really need is one word and the rest of the line can be iambic words. Or two, i guess.

>>9686175
>What is substitution

>>9686139
>>9686148
Ah, /lit/--home of feigned intelligence and succinct stupidity.

>>9686175
Sure, but that's a cop-out and not very inventive.

>>9686182
No, i meant as long as the first word is a dactyl, you can write the rest of the line in iambs, as long as you end it correctly.

>>9686210
It's kind of how it's done, though

>>9686222
In English yes, because English is bad for anything other than iambic meter. It fails to take advantage of the meter.

>>9686153
>Ad hominem
no