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Sources:
B&P Brooks, Cleanth, and Robert Penn. Understanding RHYTHM IN VERSE LINES
Poetry. London: Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, 1968.
P&B Preminger, Alex, and T. V. F. Brogan. The New Kinds of metre in English:
Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: - stress or accentual verse : rhythm based on the regular number of
Princeton University Press, 1993. stresses in a line
Shapiro, K. A Prosody Handbook. New York: Harper & Row - accentual-syllabic verse : rhythm based on the regular number of
1965 stresses and syllables in a line (the standard versification in
Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics. London: Longman, English poetry since the 14th century)
1991. - syllabic verse : rhythm based on the number of syllables per line (as
in French prosody)
free verse : rhythm provided without a fixed number of stresses
FIRST DEFINITIONS and syllables
Prosody: the study of the laws that govern the ways in which the
regular patterns of sound and beats in poetry are arranged ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC VERSE
(B&W )
the traditional term for what is now called verse theory, Its pattern is based not only on the number of syllables in a line,
which is the study of verseform, i.e. structures of but also on the relation to each other of the accented and unaccented
sound patterning in verse, chiefly meter, rhyme, and syllables (B&W 496)
stanza (P&B 982) We count stresses and syllables
Its basic unit of measure is a combination of syllables and stresses
Rhythm: - the quality of sounds or movements happening at regular (or in other words, of unaccented or less accented syllables and
periods of time stressed or more stressed syllables). Each unit is called a foot.
- a regularly patterned flow of sounds or of movements
(Brooks & Warren 493) Kinds of feet (a dash - means unaccented syllable; acute accent
Metre: arrangement of sound elements into strong and weak beats or indicates stressed syllable)
accents. Iamb (iambic) : / - / one unstressed followed by a stressed syllable:
We say that a work is written in verse, that is, in meter, when alone
the rhythm has been regularized and systematized (B&W Trochee (trochaic): / - / a stressed syllable followed by an
494) unstressed syllable: only
Spondee (spondaic): / / two stressed syllables :
We examine regularized rhythm both at the level of the verse line, Pyrrhus (pyrrhic): / - - / two unstressed syllables
and at the level of groups of lines or stanzas
Anapest (anapestic) : / - - / two unstressed syllables followed by a This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks
stressed syllable: intervene (H. W. Longfellow, Evangeline)
Dactyl (dactylic): / - - / one stressed syllable followed by two (scanned as Ths is the/ frest pri/mval, the/ mrmuring/
unstressed syllables: happily pnes and the/ hmlocks -> dactylic hexameter
Line lengths
one foot -> monometer
two feet -> dimeter SPRUNG RHTYHM
three feet -> trimeter A term coined by Gerard Manly Hopkins (1844 - 1889)
four feet -> tetrameter measured by feet of from one to four syllables, regularly, and for
five feet -> pentameter particular effects any number of weak or slack syllables may be
six feet -> hexameter (also alexandrine) used. It has one stress, which falls if there are more [than one
seven feet -> heptameter syllable] on the first (Hopkins, in P&B 1208-9)
To speak shortly, [it] consists in scanning by accents or stresses
Line lengths combined with the dominant kind of feet constitute line alone (Hopkins) -> thus he envisaged sprung rhythm as a pure-
metrical patterns that characterise a kind of verse line: stress metre whose stresses are sense-stresses or rather than
Examples of line metrical patterns: metrical, expressive rather than purely rhythmic. Sprung rhythm
iambic trimeter: / - / - / - / also shares with [Old English] verse a cultivation of alliteration,
anapestic tetrameter: / - - / - - / - - / - - / though not raised to a metrical principle, and other echoic patterns
(assonance, internal rhyme) (P&B 1209)
Examples: For Hopkins, sprung rhythm is the rhythm of natural speech in
My mother thinks us long away; everyday language, prose, nursery rhymes, etc.
Tis time the field were mown. .... This rhythm springs loose of the common rhythm (running
(A. Housman) rhythm, as Hokpins called it) of accentual-syllabic verse measures by
feet of two or three syllables (P&B 1209 and 1101)
My mother thinks us long away;
(scanned as My m/ther thnks/ us lng/ awy/ ->
iambic tetrameter) ACCENTUAL VERSE
Tis time the field were mown. .... ( -> iambic trimeter) Its pattern is based on count of stresses disregarding the number
of syllables per line. Usually, lines have a fixed number of stresses
(natural speech-stresses) and a variable number of syllables)
It was night in the lonesome October (Poes Ulalume) Used in folkverse (nursery rhymes, college chants, slogans,
(scanned as It was nght / in the lne/some Octber/ -> jingles), balldas, hymns, popular song, in S. T.
anapestic trimeter Coleridges Christabel, in T. S. Eliots Four Quartets (P&B 7)
SYLLABIC VERSE
Its pattern is based on syllable count. The number of syllables per Caesura
line is fixed, while the number of stresses is variable. The caesura is an internal pause marking the end of a sense unit - not
Standard measure in French prosody and in Spanish prosody a metrical unit (B&W 511). Example: A thing of beauty | is a joy
(until the rise of free verse) forever: (John Keats).
It is very doubtful that verse lines regulated by nothing more
than identity of numbers of syllables would be perceived by auditors Enjambment
as verse, for there would be nothing to mark them as such except for Also called run-on lines: when the sense unit does not coincide
end-of-line pauses in performance (Brogan, in P&B 1249) with the end of the verse line. When it does, lines are called end-
stopped lines.
Line lengths Examples in lines 2 onwards showing different degrees of
octosyllable enjambment:
decasyllable A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
alexandrine: 12 syllables (a hexameter in English accentual- Its loveliness increases; it will never
syllabic verse; in French prosody, a line of 12 syllables) Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower of quiet for us, and a sleep
Examples of syllabic verse Full of sweet dreams, and health and quiet breathing ... (John
Robert Bridges New Verse (1925), The Testament of Keats)
Beauty (1929)
Marianne Moore
Dylan Thomas SCANSION
To scan a poem, or a line, is to measure its rhythm in order to
analyse its meter by marking the rhythmical or metrical units
in the line
FREE VERSE
difficult to define. A typical free verse poem shows no formal 1.- perceive the dominant rhythm (iambic, trochaic, spondaic, etc.)
prosodic devices, and is unrhymed throughout. It is as difficult to take the poem as a whole and not merely a line at a time, for
scan as prose. And yet it has form: the arrangement of syllables and the lines may not be metrically identical ... get a sense
words, the line lengths, and the distribution of pauses fit the sense at of the basic pattern. Always one should read a poem
every point. aloud, at least several times, to establish the initial
While accentual-syllabic verse regulates both stresses and acquaintance (B&W 505)
syllables in a line, free verse regulates neither (P&B 1249) 2.- mark the natural accents in each the line, and count the number of
Every line has its own length, its own metre and rhythm, and syllables
usually has no rhyme. 3.- try to mark the foot divisions of the line metrical pattern that will
best fit the dominant rhythm, number of accents, and number
of syllables. (For instance, a dominant iambic rhythm will lead
you to think of two-syllable feet; if you count five stresses and
ten (or eleven, or nine) syllables, you can try the pattern of In the pronunciation of words and phrases:
iambic pentameter) elision:
3a. take into account sound and not writing governs rhythm, and words pronounced with one syllable less: heaven
therefore feet do not necessarily correspond to word diphtongs may count as one vowel: oil
divisions (see lonesome in It was nght / in the
lne/some ... Inversion of first feet: this is very common: e.g. trochaic instead of
3b. meter cannot violate the natural accentuation of a word iambic
(B&W 498). Never impose a preconceived hypothesized Example:
metrical pattern on the natural stresses of the line. For See, heres the workbox, little wife
instance, primeval is naturally accented primval. You That I made of polshed oak.
cant accent it as prmeval is you are trying an iambic He was a joiner, of village life;
pentameter pattern in This s / the fr/est pr/meval ... She came of borough folk. (The Workbox)
3c. not all accents in a line have equal force, but what matters is
the contrast between less accented syllables and more First line: Se hres / the wk/box, lt/tle lfe /
stressed syllables Third line: H was / a jin/er of vl/lage lfe
3d. A good working guidline, but not an absolute principle, is that
unimportant words receive less accent while key words in
the line are accented (B&W 499) Lines with less syllables: (with defetive feet)
Example:
4.- when marking foot divisions, take into account accepted or Long for me the rick will wait
expected variations or licences from the metrical pattern (see And long will wait the fold,
corresponding section) And long will standthe empty plate
5.- observe the caesura or internal pause marking the end of a sense And dinner will be cold (Housman)
unit - not a metrical unit (B&W 511). Note that the caesura The first line has one syllable less because the first foot is
may occur in the middle of a foot: Its lve/linss/ incra/ses | defective, has one unstressed syllable missing. The line is
t / will nver (J. Keats) scanned ^ Lng/ for m/ the rick/ will wit/
6.- observe the enjambment(s) or run-on lines.
7.- examine and explain the effect of regularities and irregularities, A defecive foot can occur in mid line:
both those changes that are accepted or expected, and those Speech after long silence; it is right (W.B. Yeats,
that are not. Explain how variations give expression and After Long Silence)
vitality to the verse (B&P 53)
Spech af/ter lng/ ^s/lence; t/ is rght /
........1.....................2...................3
And HANDS..|..be SEECH..|..ing THROWN..............................
..........(iambic trimeter)
Terms to Know