Floating emphasis

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By floating emphasizing the presentation of a poem, the occasional mismatch is between meter offset of a word and natural emphasis.

A poem can, for example, as the predominant meter (meter) a Jambus having thus a change from an unstressed and stressed syllable. However, it is possible that this meter does not always match the natural accentuation of a syllable. This problem can be solved by emphasizing the syllables in question equally. In this case one speaks of floating stress.

example

The two

"She carried the mug in her hand
- her chin and mouth resembled its rim -
her walk was so easy and sure,
not a drop jumped out of the mug.

His hand was so light and firm:
He was riding a young horse,
And with a careless gesture he
forced it to stand trembling. "

- (Hugo von Hofmannsthal)

The poem has mostly an iambus. In the 3rd line of the 2nd stanza, however, this meter differs from it. According to the iambus, the word "sloppy" should actually be stressed on the 2nd syllable, which, however, would not correspond to the natural accentuation . This contradiction is resolved by a floating accent in which the relevant syllables are evenly accented.

This deviation from meter can be interpreted in such a way that the carelessness of the rider corresponds to the form that has been deliberately neglected here .

literature