humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare

> >> What we can say with complete confidence is
> >> that there was a continuous increase in the use of both of
> >> these techniques in dramatic blank verse from the times of
> >> Sackville and Norton, when feminine endings were almost
> >> unheard of, through to Beaumont and Fletcher, by which time
> >> the use of both techniques was very common.
>
> What we can say with complete confidence is that
> there was a continuous increase in the use of brass
> and a continuous decline in the use of the organ in
> orchestral music composition between 1850 and 1930.
> We can therefore, with complete confidence, date
> any musical work in that period to a precise year
> by measuring the extent of the use of those
> instruments.
>
> > Peter is absolutely right about this
>
> And this clown agrees.
>
> Paul.

Paul, why do you so often misrepresent your opponents'
arguments before responding them? The argument here
is that a relatively high ratio of certain metrical techniques
per line in dramatic verse is EVIDENCE that the verse in
question was composed later than dramatic verse with a
relatively low ratio of the metrical techniques. To claim
that the argument states that a relatively high ratio of the
metrical techniques can be used "with complete confidence,
[to] date any [dramatic] work in that period to a precise
year" is to ridiculously lie.

A responsible disputant would accept the argument but
try to demonstrate that other, stronger arguments contradict it.
You are never a responsible disputant, however.

--Bob G.