N HIS PAPER "The Comparative Method in the Study of Prosody," read to the ICLA in 1959, J. Craig LaDriere put forward a strong case for prosody as a central concern of comparative literature and as a subject which lends itself particularly well to comparative study: since none of the world's great literatures has a "pure" metrical system, free of outside influences, the comparative method has an important part to play in showing how national types or variations of meter came about and how they are distinguished from those of other nations, and in establishing, if possible, the general features of poetic form which recur in spite of national and linguistic boundaries.1 It could be added that the comparison of meters also offers a practical approach to the analysis of personal and national styles, a test of the influence exerted on style by cultural and historical forces, and an illustration of the relationship between languages and metrical systems. Unfortunately, however, comparative metrics is still not an acknowledged branch of literary studies, and meter remains a peripheral concern of comparative literature. Metrical forms have never traveled as well as plots, themes, or genres, and they are often the first thing jettisoned by the translator. They are difficult enough even for a native speaker to analyze, and since few people are really capable of appreciating subtle metrical effects in more than one language meter is usually studied either within a single literature or in isolation from literature altogether. The recent rapprochement between literary criticism and