10.06.2015, 12:28
J'étais en train de relire quelques lignes du Kullervo, pour l'article découverte du A&H n°5, et je me posais la question du rythme des vers. Flieger explique qu'il s'agit d'un tétramètre à huit syllabes ou tétramètre trochaïque, que l'on rend schématiquement par DUM da DUM de DUM da DUM de. Seulement étant une buse en poésie, je n'arrive pas à voir où se découpent les vers de Tolkien, par exemple dans cette première partie versifiée :
Now in sooth a man I deem me
Though mine ages have seen few summers
And this springtime in the woodlands
Still is new to me and lovely.
Nobler am I now than erstwhile
And the strength of five within me
And the valour of my father
In the springtime in the woodlands
Swells within me Sākehonto.
O mine axe my dearest brother
Such an axe as fits a chieftain
Lo we go to fell the birch-trees
And to hew their white shafts slender:
For I ground thee in the morning
And at even wrought a handle;
And thy blade shall smite the tree-boles
And the wooded mountains waken
And the timber crash to earthward
In the springtime in the woodland
Neath thy stroke mine iron brother.
Now in sooth a man I deem me
Though mine ages have seen few summers
And this springtime in the woodlands
Still is new to me and lovely.
Nobler am I now than erstwhile
And the strength of five within me
And the valour of my father
In the springtime in the woodlands
Swells within me Sākehonto.
O mine axe my dearest brother
Such an axe as fits a chieftain
Lo we go to fell the birch-trees
And to hew their white shafts slender:
For I ground thee in the morning
And at even wrought a handle;
And thy blade shall smite the tree-boles
And the wooded mountains waken
And the timber crash to earthward
In the springtime in the woodland
Neath thy stroke mine iron brother.
What's the point of all this pedantry if you can't get a detail like this right?