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El presente artículo propone una reconsideración del fenómeno de la paroxitonesis en el trímetro yámbico y el coliambo a partir de una modificación de dos supuestos metodológicos (la interpretación del principio breuis in longo y la teoría del acento) del análisis del fenómeno de Hanssen (1883), que es todavía hoy la principal fuente de datos sobre el tema, en particular en el caso del trímetro. Tras una introducción al problema y una serie de aclaraciones metodológicas, el autor estudia en orden los dos tipos de metro para concluir que las tesis de Hanssen admiten correcciones considerables. The following paper presents a review of the phenomenon of paroxytonesis in the iambic trimeter and the choriamb starting from a modification of two methodological assumptions (the interpretation of the principle brevis in longo and the theory of Ancient Greek accent) of Hanssen’s (1883) analysis of the phenomenon, which is still the main source of data on the subject, particularly in the case of the trimeter. After an introduction to the problem and a number of methodological clarifications, the author studies in order both types of meter in order to conclude that Hanssen’s theses allow for considerable corrections.

The British poet Peter Reading’s collection C (1984) is a sequence of 100 100-word compositions about cancer. Set in a hospice, it documents the suffering of imagined characters adjusting to a terminal diagnosis. C comprises different forms, including limerick, sonnet, acrostic, choriamb, haiku and tanka, 100 variations of the same essential material. The formal restlessness indicates a bind between potential and restriction, where poetry’s forms embody physical changes that can be ameliorative or degenerative. Since C’s lifespan is known in advance, the main narrator, who has abdominal cancer, confides that although his mental wellbeing ‘demands lies’, or the ‘comfort of make-believe games — // such as this one that I play now in distich, almost pretending / verse has validity’, poetry is ultimately ‘fuck-all use here, now.’1