What is the prosody in his fame rested on solid personal achievement?

Here's a start by a non-expert: The line has five stressed syllables. It is not Heroic verse, and it is not iambic pentameter or any other standard, classical rhythm. The five stresses, along with the fact that it is, we presume, end-stopped, give the line declamatory strength. Out of context it is impossible to be sure, but the line has the feel of prose rather than of poetry. There is an interesting prosodic effect resulting from the fact that the stresses come in words totaling one, two, two, three and three syllables, coupled with the tendency to deliver the stresses themselves relatively equally spaced in time. This gives the line emphatic strength, because relatively equally spaced stresses means that the speech itself becomes more rapid from beginning to end. The line avoids a sing-song tedium by the varied distribution of syllables between stresses: 0, 2, 1, 3. So the prosody of the line is interesting, even if the thought is prosaic.

First answer by Emdrgreg. Last edit by Emdrgreg. Contributor trust: 1013 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 1 [recommend question]