DOCSLIB.ORG

Metrical Feet Iamb (Iambic) Destroy Anapest (Anapestic) Intervene Trochee (Trochaic) Topsy Dactyl (Dactylic) Merrily Spondee (

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Metrical Feet Iamb (Iambic) Destroy Anapest (Anapestic) Intervene Trochee (Trochaic) Topsy Dactyl (Dactylic) Merrily Spondee ( Metrical Feet Iamb (iambic) destroy Anapest (anapestic) intervene Trochee (trochaic) topsy Dactyl (dactylic) merrily Spondee (spondaic) hum-drum Pyrrhic the sea / son of / mists Line Lengths octameter = 8 feet tetrameter = 4 feet heptameter = 7 feet trimeter = 3 feet hexameter = 6 feet dimeter = 2 feet pentameter = 5 feet monometer = 1 foot Some Other Metrical Concerns caesuras end-stopped vs. enjambed lines rhyme ************************************ "It is not meters, but a meter-making argument that makes a poem." Emerson "[Meter] can't be merely a careless dash off, with no grip and no real hold to the words and sense." Pound *********************************** According to Paul Fussell in Poetic Meter & Poetic Form, there are three principles of expression that metric variations convey: 1 A succession of stressed syllables without the expected intervening unstressed syllables can reinforce effects of slowness, weight, or difficulty; 2 A succession of unstressed syllables without the expected intervening stressed syllables can reinforce effects of rapidity, lightness, or ease; 3 An unanticipated reversal in rhythm implies a sudden movement, often of discovery or illumination; or a new direction of thought, a new tone of voice, or a change or intensification of poetic address. 1 Some Examples Listen! / you hear / the gra / ting roar / Of peb / bles which / the waves / draw back, / and fling, / At their / return, / up the / high strand, / Begin, / and cease, / and then / again / begin / . (Arnold, "Dover Beach") . through many a dark and dreary Vale They pass'd, and many a Region dolorous, O'er many a Frozen, many a Fiery Alp, Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death. (Milton, Paradise Lost) How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. (E. B. Browning) 2 She Walks in Beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o’er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling place. And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent! (George Gordon) 3.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Introduction to Meter
    Introduction to Meter A stress or accent is the greater amount of force given to one syllable than another. English is a language in which all syllables are stressed or unstressed, and traditional poetry in English has used stress patterns as a fundamental structuring device. Meter is simply the rhythmic pattern of stresses in verse. To scan a poem means to read it for meter, an operation whose noun form is scansion. This can be tricky, for although we register and reproduce stresses in our everyday language, we are usually not aware of what we’re going. Learning to scan means making a more or less unconscious operation conscious. There are four types of meter in English: iambic, trochaic, anapestic, and dactylic. Each is named for a basic foot (usually two or three syllables with one strong stress). Iambs are feet with an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable. Only in nursery rhymes to do we tend to find totally regular meter, which has a singsong effect, Chidiock Tichborne’s poem being a notable exception. Here is a single line from Emily Dickinson that is totally regular iambic: _ / │ _ / │ _ / │ _ / My life had stood – a loaded Gun – This line serves to notify readers that the basic form of the poem will be iambic tetrameter, or four feet of iambs. The lines that follow are not so regular. Trochees are feet with a stressed syllable, followed by an unstressed syllable. Trochaic meter is associated with chants and magic spells in English: / _ │ / _ │ / _ │ / _ Double, double, toil and trouble, / _ │ / _ │ / _ │ / _ Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
    [Show full text]
  • Rhythm and Meter in Macbeth Iambic Pentameter (Nobles)
    Grade 9 Analysis- Rhythm and Meter in Macbeth Iambic Pentameter (Nobles) What is it? Shakespeare's sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. An example of an iamb would be good BYE. A line of iambic pentameter flows like this: baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM. Why does Shakespeare use it? When Shakespeare's characters speak in verse (iambic pentameter), they are usually the noble (aristocratic) characters, and their speech represents their high culture and position in society. It gives the play a structured consistency, and when this is changed in instances of prose such as when Macbeth writes to Lady Macbeth and when Lady Macduff talks with her son, these are normally instances where a situation is abnormal e.g. when the Porter babbles in his drunken haze. Trochaic Tetrameter (Witches) What is it? Trochaic tetrameter is a rapid meter of poetry consisting of four feet of trochees. A trochee is made up of one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable (the opposite of an iamb). Here is the flow of a line of trochaic tetrameter: BAboom / BAboom / BAboom / BAboom. Why does Shakespeare use it? The witches’ speech patterns create a spooky mood from the start of the scene. Beginning with the second line, they speak in rhyming couplets of trochaic tetrameter. The falling rhythm and insistent rhyme emphasize the witchcraft they practice while they speak—boiling some sort of potion in a cauldron.
    [Show full text]
  • Metrical Feet Iamb (Iambic) Betray Anapest
    Meter & Form Metrical Feet Iamb (iambic) betray Anapest (anapestic) intercede Trochee (trochaic) stupor Dactyl (dactylic) secondly Spondee (spondaic) stop light Pyrrhic a night / for the / ghosts Some Other Metrical Concerns caesuras end-stopped vs. enjambed lines rhyme ************************************ “It is not meters, but a meter-making argument that makes a poem.” Emerson “[Meter] can’t be merely a careless dash off, with no grip and no real hold to the words and sense.” Pound ************************************ According to Paul Fussell in Poetic Meter & Poetic Form, there are three principles of expression that metric variations convey: 1 A succession of stressed syllables without the expected intervening unstressed syllables can reinforce effects of slowness, weight, or difficulty; 2 A succession of unstressed syllables without the expected intervening stressed syllables can reinforce effects of rapidity, lightness, or ease; 3 An unanticipated reversal in rhythm implies a sudden movement, often of discovery or illumination; or a new direction of thought, a new tone of voice, or a change or intensification of poetic address. 1 Meter & Form Some Examples Listen! / you hear / the gra / ting roar / Of peb / bles which / the waves / draw back, / and fling, / At their / return, / up the / high strand, / Begin, / and cease, / and then / again / begin / . (Arnold, “Dover Beach”) . through many a dark and dreary Vale They pass’d, and many a Region dolorous, O’er many a Frozen, many a Fiery Alp, Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death. (PL) Drove them before him Thunder-struck, pursu’d With terrors and with furies to the bounds And Crystal wall of Heav’n, which op’ning wide, Roll’d inward, and a spacious Gap disclos’d Into the wasteful Deep; the monstrous sight Strook them with hoor backward, but far worse Urg’d them behind; headlong themselves they threw Down from the verge of Heav’n, Eternal wrath Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.
    [Show full text]
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins' Diacritics: a Corpus Based Study
    Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Diacritics: A Corpus Based Study by Claire Moore-Cantwell This is my difficulty, what marks to use and when to use them: they are so much needed, and yet so objectionable.1 ~Hopkins 1. Introduction In a letter to his friend Robert Bridges, Hopkins once wrote: “... my apparent licences are counterbalanced, and more, by my strictness. In fact all English verse, except Milton’s, almost, offends me as ‘licentious’. Remember this.”2 The typical view held by modern critics can be seen in James Wimsatt’s 2006 volume, as he begins his discussion of sprung rhythm by saying, “For Hopkins the chief advantage of sprung rhythm lies in its bringing verse rhythms closer to natural speech rhythms than traditional verse systems usually allow.”3 In a later chapter, he also states that “[Hopkins’] stress indicators mark ‘actual stress’ which is both metrical and sense stress, part of linguistic meaning broadly understood to include feeling.” In his 1989 article, Sprung Rhythm, Kiparsky asks the question “Wherein lies [sprung rhythm’s] unique strictness?” In answer to this question, he proposes a system of syllable quantity coupled with a set of metrical rules by which, he claims, all of Hopkins’ verse is metrical, but other conceivable lines are not. This paper is an outgrowth of a larger project (Hayes & Moore-Cantwell in progress) in which Kiparsky’s claims are being analyzed in greater detail. In particular, we believe that Kiparsky’s system overgenerates, allowing too many different possible scansions for each line for it to be entirely falsifiable. The goal of the project is to tighten Kiparsky’s system by taking into account the gradience that can be found in metrical well-formedness, so that while many different scansion of a line may be 1 Letter to Bridges dated 1 April 1885.
    [Show full text]
  • Miscellanea the Long Um and Biceps of the Greek
    MISCELLANEA THE LONG UM AND BICEPS OF THE GREEK HEXAMETER Recent articles by Irigoin 1) and Devine & Stephens 2) have demonstrated that the statement of Dionysius of Halicarnassus that the monosyllabic biceps of the Greek hexameter is 'longer' 3) than the longum is basically true 4). Irigoin concluded that the phonetic structure of the longunz was different from that of the biceps. Devine & Stephens deny this, and attribute the greater length of the biceps to the effect of the metrical structure of the hexameter on the Greek language. There is, of course, a basic difference between the longum and the biceps : the former cannot be resolved, the latter can. Devine & Stephens are right, however, to suggest that the structure of the hexameter is usually responsible for a shorter longum. This becomes very clear when we consider such factors as lengthening in arsis, hiatus in arsis, short final vowel lengthened in arsis before mute and liquid, and so on. These features are mentioned by West 5) as evi- dence that the thesis (biceps) is longer than the arsis (longum). If the arsis were as long as the thesis, according to West, there would be no reason why such factors should not occur as readily in thesis; they are tolerated in arsis because the arsis is shorter. This state- ment, however, overlooks a fundamental factor in the structure of the Greek hexameter: the restrictions on word-end in thesis. The factors mentioned by West generally involve word-end, the length- ened syllable usually being final. The possibility of 'lengthening in thesis' obviously presupposes a monosyllabic thesis; but word-end after a monosyllabic biceps is greatly restricted in the hexameter 6).
    [Show full text]
  • The Poetry Handbook I Read / That John Donne Must Be Taken at Speed : / Which Is All Very Well / Were It Not for the Smell / of His Feet Catechising His Creed.)
    Introduction his book is for anyone who wants to read poetry with a better understanding of its craft and technique ; it is also a textbook T and crib for school and undergraduate students facing exams in practical criticism. Teaching the practical criticism of poetry at several universities, and talking to students about their previous teaching, has made me sharply aware of how little consensus there is about the subject. Some teachers do not distinguish practical critic- ism from critical theory, or regard it as a critical theory, to be taught alongside psychoanalytical, feminist, Marxist, and structuralist theor- ies ; others seem to do very little except invite discussion of ‘how it feels’ to read poem x. And as practical criticism (though not always called that) remains compulsory in most English Literature course- work and exams, at school and university, this is an unwelcome state of affairs. For students there are many consequences. Teachers at school and university may contradict one another, and too rarely put the problem of differing viewpoints and frameworks for analysis in perspective ; important aspects of the subject are omitted in the confusion, leaving otherwise more than competent students with little or no idea of what they are being asked to do. How can this be remedied without losing the richness and diversity of thought which, at its best, practical criticism can foster ? What are the basics ? How may they best be taught ? My own answer is that the basics are an understanding of and ability to judge the elements of a poet’s craft. Profoundly different as they are, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Dickinson, Eliot, Walcott, and Plath could readily converse about the techniques of which they are common masters ; few undergraduates I have encountered know much about metre beyond the terms ‘blank verse’ and ‘iambic pentameter’, much about form beyond ‘couplet’ and ‘sonnet’, or anything about rhyme more complicated than an assertion that two words do or don’t.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry: Why? Even Though a Poem May Be Short, Most of the Time You Can’T Read It Fast
    2.1. Poetry: why? Even though a poem may be short, most of the time you can’t read it fast. It’s like molasses. Or ketchup. With poetry, there are so many things to take into consideration. There is the aspect of how it sounds, of what it means, and often of how it looks. In some circles, there is a certain aversion to poetry. Some consider it outdated, too difficult, or not worth the time. They ask: Why does it take so long to read something so short? Well, yes, it is if you are used to Twitter, or not used to poetry. Think about the connections poetry has to music. Couldn’t you consider some of your favorite lyrics poetry? 2Pac, for example, wrote a book of poetry called The Rose that Grew from Concrete. At many points in history across many cultures, poetry was considered the highest form of expression. Why do people write poetry? Because they want to and because they can… (taking the idea from Federico García Lorca en his poem “Lucía Martínez”: “porquequiero, y porquepuedo”) You ask yourself: Why do I need to read poetry? Because you are going to take the CLEP exam. Once you move beyond that, it will be easier. Some reasons why we write/read poetry: • To become aware • To see things in a different way • To put together a mental jigsaw puzzle • To move the senses • To provoke emotions • To find order 2.2. Poetry: how? If you are not familiar with poetry, you should definitely practice reading some before you take the exam.
    [Show full text]
  • Dactylic Hexameter Is Properly Scanned When Divided Into Six Feet, with Each Foot Labelled a Dactyl Or a Spondee
    Latin Meter: an introduction Dactyllic Hexameter English Poetry: Poe’s “The Raven”—Trochaic Octameter / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x Once up- on a mid- night drear- y, while I pon- dered weak and wear- y / x / x x / x / x x / x / x / x / O- ver man- y a quaint and cur- i- ous vol- ume of for- got- ten lore, / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x While I nod- ded, near- ly nap- ping, sud- den- ly there came a tap- ping, / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / As of some- one gent- ly rap- ping, rap- ping at my cham- ber door. / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / “’Tis some vis- i- tor,” I mut- tered, “tap- ping at my cham- ber door; / x / x / x / On- ly this, and noth- ing more.” Scansion n Scansion: from the Latin scandere, “to move upward by steps.” Scansion is the science of scanning, of dividing a line of poetry into its constituent parts. n To scan a line of poetry is to follow the rules of scansion by dividing the line into the appropriate number of feet, and indicating the quantity of the syllables within each foot. n A line of dactylic hexameter is properly scanned when divided into six feet, with each foot labelled a dactyl or a spondee. Metrical Symbols: long: – short: u syllaba anceps: u (may be long or short) Basic Feet: dactyl: – u u spondee: – – Dactylic Hexameter: Each line has six feet, of which the first five may be either dactyls or spondees, though the fifth is nearly always a dactyl (– u u), and the sixth must be either a spondee (– –) or a trochee (– u), but we will treat it as a spondee.
    [Show full text]
  • Definitions & Identify 1. Which of the Following Is A
    Check for Understanding: Definitions & Identify 1. Which of the following is a definition of an iamb? (Short = unstressed, long = stressed) a. 1 short syllable followed by another short syllable b. 1 short syllable followed by a long syllable c. 1 long syllable followed by another long syllable d. 1 long syllable followed by a short syllable 2. Which of these words is an iamb? a. Employ b. Coffee c. Drinking d. Eat 3. Which of these words is not an iamb? a. Unfit b. Unwell c. Behold d. Freedom 4. What is the definition of a metrical foot? a. A syllable b. A group of 5 or more syllables c. A rhyme scheme in a poem d. A group of 2-3 syllables that form a rhythmic unit 5. All of these are types of metrical feet except – a. Iamb b. Trochee c. Spondee d. Taradactyl e. Dactyl 6. True or False: A metrical foot can only be one word. a. True b. False 7. True or False: An iamb must be more than one word. a. True b. False 8. True or False: Poems that rhyme have meter. a. True b. False 9. True or False: Poems that do not rhyme have meter. a. True b. False 10. True or False: A poem’s meter cannot change throughout a poem. a. True b. False Answer KEY 1. Which of the following is a definition of an iamb? (Short = unstressed, long = stressed) a. 1 short syllable followed by another short syllable b. 1 short syllable followed by a long syllable c.
    [Show full text]
  • Thinking in Song
    THINKING IN SONG Prosody, Text-Setting and Music Theory in Eighteenth-Century Germany A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Martin Kuester January 2012 © 2012 Martin Kuester THINKING IN SONG Prosody, Text-Setting and Music Theory in Eighteenth-Century Germany Martin Kuester, Ph.D. Cornell University 2012 Eighteenth-century music theorists habitually used terms that were apparently im- ported from grammar, rhetoric and poetics. While historians of music theory have commonly described these words as reflecting metaphorical attempts to understand music by analogy with language, this study emphasizes their technical value, especially with respect to vocal music, which includes both domains. In the case of Johann Mat- theson, Johann Adolph Scheibe, Joseph Riepel and Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, the literal meaning of this common vocabulary can be recovered by viewing their general composition rules���������������������� in the previously une�amined������������ conte��������������������������������t of their theories for compos- ing te�t and music of vocal works. Chapter One questions the applicability of a ‘metaphor of music as a language’ to eighteenth-century musical thought and proposes a new framework, centered on what Scheibe and others considered �����������������������������������������������the origin of both music and language, prosody. Chapter Two e�amines Mattheson’s famous minuet analysis and concludes that a prosodic sub-discipline of music theory provided a vocabulary that applied, in ten- dency, to words and notes of vocal music, simultaneously. Chapter Three traces the interaction of prosodic parameters in the longer history of ‘musical feet,’ pointing out eighteenth-century theorists’ successful efforts to adapt or re-adapt their terminol- ogy to the practice of modern vocal composition.
    [Show full text]
  • The Phonology of Classical Arabic Meter Chris Golston & Tomas Riad 1
    The Phonology of Classical Arabic Meter Chris Golston & Tomas Riad 1. Introduction* Traditional analysis of classical Arabic meter is based on the theory of al-Xalı#l (†c.791 A.D.), the famous lexicographist, grammarian and prosodist. His elaborate circle system remains directly influential in theories of metrics to this day, including the generative analyses of Halle (1966), Maling (1973) and Prince (1989). We argue against this tradition, showing that it hides a number of important generalizations about Arabic meter and violates a number of fundamental principles that regulate metrical structure in meter and in natural language. In its place we propose a new analysis of Arabic meter which draws directly on the iambic nature of the language and is responsible to the metrical data in a way that has not been attempted before. We call our approach Prosodic Metrics and ground it firmly in a restrictive theory of foot typology (Kager 1993a) and constraint satisfaction (Prince & Smolensky 1993). The major points of our analysis of Arabic meter are as follows: 1. Metrical positions are maximally bimoraic. 2. Verse feet are binary. 3. The most popular Arabic meters are iambic. We begin with a presentation of Prosodic Metrics (§2) followed by individual analyses of the Arabic meters (§3). We then turn to the relative popularity of the meters in two large published corpora, relating frequency directly to rhythm (§4). We then argue against al Xalı#l’s analysis as formalized in Prince 1989 (§5) and end with a brief conclusion (§6). 2. Prosodic Metrics We base our theory of meter on the three claims in (1), which we jointly refer to as Binarity.
    [Show full text]
  • Basic Guide to Latin Meter and Scansion
    APPENDIX B Basic Guide to Latin Meter and Scansion Latin poetry follows a strict rhythm based on the quantity of the vowel in each syllable. Each line of poetry divides into a number of feet (analogous to the measures in music). The syllables in each foot scan as “long” or “short” according to the parameters of the meter that the poet employs. A vowel scans as “long” if (1) it is long by nature (e.g., the ablative singular ending in the first declen- sion: puellā); (2) it is a diphthong: ae (saepe), au (laudat), ei (deinde), eu (neuter), oe (poena), ui (cui); (3) it is long by position—these vowels are followed by double consonants (cantātae) or a consonantal i (Trōia), x (flexibus), or z. All other vowels scan as “short.” A few other matters often confuse beginners: (1) qu and gu count as single consonants (sīc aquilam; linguā); (2) h does NOT affect the quantity of a vowel Bellus( homō: Martial 1.9.1, the -us in bellus scans as short); (3) if a mute consonant (b, c, d, g, k, q, p, t) is followed by l or r, the preced- ing vowel scans according to the demands of the meter, either long (omnium patrōnus: Catullus 49.7, the -a in patrōnus scans as long to accommodate the hendecasyllabic meter) OR short (prō patriā: Horace, Carmina 3.2.13, the first -a in patriā scans as short to accommodate the Alcaic strophe). 583 40-Irby-Appendix B.indd 583 02/07/15 12:32 AM DESIGN SERVICES OF # 157612 Cust: OUP Au: Irby Pg.
    [Show full text]