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Grant: Perhaps with an American accent, "wanderer" has three syllables. In an English accent, it is usually two. We say "Bolton Wand'rers", with the first "er" sound swallowed up. What you have if you voice the both of them equally is something in the nature of a scazon...
What it is, arguably, is a dactyl, (dun-da-da), except that the fall of the ictus would make it anapaestic (da-da-dun), which would sound very odd indeed - "wanderer" pronounced like "vindaloo". So, the dactylic element is elided further.
Compare "I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said, "two vast and trunkless legs of stone".
On one level, it's an iambic pentameter couplet (reading "traveller" as "trav'ler". But you wouldn't read it "I-MET-a-TRAV-ler-FROM-an-AN-tique-LAND" unless you wanted to be kicked to death. The mutability of the pentameter, along with the agreement and disagreement of accent and ictus, makes it, as Jack mentions, such a versatile form. It's like the dactylic hexameter in Homer - the perfectly regular hexameter (long-short-short-long-short-short-long-short-short-long-short-short-long-long-long-short-short) is the basis, but rarely actually found. |
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