I’ve encountered my first Sydney University A+ wanker.

A guy in my English lecture today tried to tell the lecturer he was wrong about the scansion (like, which syllables are stressed, whether it’s iambic etc) of a sonnet line today before the lecturer had finished explaining the line.

Technically, the lines of a sonnet are in iambic pentameter - 5 pairs of syllables, one unstressed then one stressed. The lecturer had marked the first 3 syllables of a Wordsworth sonnet as stressed, and this guy stick his hand up and says “You’re wrong; sonnets are in iambic pentameter so it should be unstressed, stressed, unstressed.”

I would have slapped the guy, honestly. The lecturer is more than twice your age, and a Professor of poetry, he obviously knows his stuff.

The lecturer was good about it, he didn’t embarrass the guy or was rude in anyway; he simply told him that his judgement was based on what he already knew about sonnets, and for the basis of the exercise - and, in fact, the entire unit of study - we assume that everyone isn’t aware of the technicalities of poetry.

The lecturer was right. The foot (section of the line) skewed from iambic pentameter, yes, but it was still iambic pentameter.

What really annoyed me was this guy was just trying to show everyone how much he knew about poetry, but really, if he knew as much as he inferred by trying to correct the professor, he’d know that good poets use variations for effect etc.

I know next to nothing about poetry - I just did the stuff the lecturer told us would help out understanding.

Ugh it was just annoying and quite funny how gr9 this wanker thought he was idk.