trove of prosodies

                                     When I embarked on this blog last May, I intended the main drift of the posts to be concerned with poetic form and prosody, which is why I settled on Ictus as a title. However, as with all my creative endeavours, the blog has seemed to pursue its own fortuitous direction and shaped itself according very much to circumstantial eventualities and the fluid on-go of my readings and thoughts (as well of course as the continual struggle against time-constraints).
   I aim to include more posts regarding poetic rhythm this year, reflections towards a book-length treatment of this area. To begin with, I discovered a website today which represents an interesting (if hardly objective) resource on prosody from the viewpoint of several European languages:

http://www.trobar.org/prosody/

The author is one Leonardo Malcovati, a Milanese expert in the Troubadour poets, and indeed he includes his extensive collection of translations of the Troubadours on the same website. I love Pound's translations of Arnaut Daniel but Malcovati seems to be strenuously anti-Pound, perhaps because Pound's versions aren't strict enough. (No time now to get into the age-old argument between the virtues of poetic adaptation against linguistically-accurate translation.)
   Eccentric, opinionated and perhaps a bit lofty in tone (he emblazons 'Trobar' with 'The Democratic Republic of Poetry'), this remains a useful site to have in your Favorites. I love the snappiness of the 'Contacts' section when he says: 'Negative comments are welcomed and will be quickly answered.' (A duel, perhaps?)