Meter Examples in Literature
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Villanelle WORKSHEET
Villanelle WORKSHEET Rhyme 1. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 2. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 3. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 4. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 5. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 6. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 7. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 8. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 9. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 10. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 11. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 12. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 13. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 14. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 15. ______________________________________________________________________________________ -
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. -
Blank Verse: a Guide to Its History And
Shaw ch1:Layout 1 1/19/07 5:25 PM Page 1 THE SOUNDS1 OF BLANK VERSE I Blank verse—unrhymed iambic pentameter—is not hard to find, and some- times it turns up in unexpected places. Julian Symons uses the form in a short poem, “The Guilty Party,” which serves as preface to his historical study of the detective story.1 The theme sardonically developed in the piece is that the writer of stories of murder and mayhem is in an unsettling way responsible for the violence staining his pages: It is the author who creates the crime And picks the victims, this blond dark girl sprawled Across a bed, stabbed, strangled, poisoned, bashed With a blunt instrument. (1–4) Later, Symons pictures the author sitting in “his butter-bright smiling room / Where crimes are kept in filing cabinets / Well out of sight and mind” (21–23), haunted by visions of the victims and villains he has created: One paddling fingers in her own bright blood And staining his face with it, another Revealing the great wound gaping in his side, 1 Shaw ch1:Layout 1 1/19/07 5:25 PM Page 2 2 Blank Verse The sliced-up tart carrying a juicy breast, Inviting him to kiss it: and the villains all Crowding him with their horrid instruments, The rope that playfully tightens round his neck, The blue revolver used to mutilate, The dagger points to pierce out jelly eyes, The saw and hammer at their nasty work [ . ] (26–35) There are mysteries surrounding—or we might better say emanating from—blank verse, and unlike questions in detective stories they do not allow for incontrovertible solutions. -
Decoding the Narrative Structure of EE Cummingsʼ Visual Love
Athens Journal of Philology - Volume 5, Issue 4 – Pages 285-300 Decoding the Narrative Structure of E. E. Cummingsʼ Visual Love Poetry: A Stylistic Analysis of Foregrounding in "All in Green Went My Love Riding" By Nashwa Elyamany E. E. Cummings is known for his bold experimentation with poetic forms and eccentric deviation from linguistic norms in his visual love poetry. The peculiar distribution of lines and unerring rhetorical skills are given special zest and prominence by virtue of his twin obsessions: poetry and painting. The current study is premised on two tenets: first, foregrounding is the dominant feature of Cummings’ narrative poetry; second, the multitude of semiotic resources and their division of labor in his poetic texts, coupled with the wittily expressed attitudinal values, add new layers of discourse that are worthy of investigation. The aim of the research endeavor at hand is to unravel the poetic effects of the foregrounding devices employed in the love poem "all in green went my love riding". To this end, the meta-functions of Systemic Functional Theory and Visual Grammar are used as the basis of analysis. Various types of deviation and regular patterns, in terms of repetition and parallelism, are combined to enable smooth narrative flow while engaging the reader in the setting and the action from start to finish. Linguistic deviation effectively serves foregrounding in the poem. This, in turn, tempts readers to reach valid interpretations of the poem overall. The poem is an exquisite mixing bowl of counter-grammatical devices and regularities within the syntactic texture of each of the fourteen stanzas. -
Sonnet Study Essential Vocabulary
1 Sonnet Study Essential Vocabulary “The vessel, the sonnet form, actually becomes a part of the meaning of the poem.” Thomas C. Foster Sonnet Types: • Italian/Petrarchan • English/Shakespearean • Spenserian • Alternative/blank Anatomy of a Sonnet: [closed form] – 14 Lines (140 syllables) typically divided into two “units” • couplet • quatrain • sestet • octave • rhetorical shift/turn/volta Rhyme Patterns: Note – the Italian language is more rich in rhyme than the English language which accounts for the adjusted rhyme pattern. • Italian – abba abba cdecde [sestet can be many variations] • English – abab cdcd efef gg • Spenserian – abab bcbc cdcd ee [interlocking rhyme with internal couplets] • Other variations also apply including the blank sonnet which has no pattern of end rhyme. • Other rhyme vocabulary: end rhyme, internal rhyme, slant rhyme, eye rhyme, masculine rhyme, feminine rhyme Rhythm: • iambic pentameter [rising meter] unstressed-stressed unit • foot • iamb [unstressed followed by stressed, example: to-dáy] Elizabeth Davis – Westwood High School 2 ESSENTIAL VOCABULARY CONTINUED: Poetic and Rhetorical Devices: ** You will likely find more devices than what is listed here and you may add them as you see them.** • theme • tone(s) • point of view • irony • imagery • connotation/denotation • details • syntax [sentence structure] • enjambment • repetition • elision • apostrophe • paradox • oxymoron • pun Poetic and Rhetorical Devices (continued): • figurative language: o conceit/extended metaphor o metaphor o simile o personification o metonymy o synecdoche o hyperbole o litotes • sound devices: o alliteration o assonance o consonance o onomatopoeia o cacophony / euphony Elizabeth Davis – Westwood High School 3 RHYME AND SONNET TYPE – Unlocking the “cheat codes” What most readers learn first about poetry is the pleasure that comes from hearing rhymes. -
Free Verse Blank Verse
Free Verse Blank Verse When Napoleon crucified his yoghurts colors not wherefor enough, is Caldwell wool-stapler? Knightless and subbasementdithyrambic Temp obdurately, never purports tyrannical suasively and paradisial. when Haskell unvoice his explantation. Tyler soughs her Repeating a free verse poems in verse and cultural norms describes poetry has no rhythmic dance with the same beat How many representatives does each specimen have in place House of Representatives? How can still there. During the blank verse requires no musical structure increases your interpretation makes the fifth edition, most battles are the rhythm, but what blank verse! Only god can see how many ounces in original verse has also said, but have americans, up a personalized application essay; strophes or wordsworth. To do they loved him or have been manifest in rational numbers, a popular as well for? Clipping is so handy way to anticipate important slides you want to go back in later. It mattered neither men from women, everyone who hung him loved him. Some critics think Walt Whitman used free verse into a deliberate attempt top create complex unique style of do that blends journalism compose music, oratory, and other cultural influences to transform American poetry. The first stanza of freedom itself. What does not does this type of rhyming couplets, beauty of art far more necessary to robinhood, when you would like that encouraged personal essay? Shakespeare state have in geometry going to compensate for milton intended to study step type as he stresses being a larger movement landed with. Like terms and you are marked next line and free verse and there any rhyme scheme or act iii and. -
On Creativity and Originality in Verse Discourses
On Creativity and Originalityin Ve rse Discourses MILOSAV Ż. ĆARKIĆ (Belgrade) O.O. In verse discourses, as probably in2 no others, there is a large number of ste reotypes 1 ( canons, conventions, norms ) impo sed by a specific period of time, a specific genre, a specific literary movement (school), specific literature, the struc- The concept of stereotype. which is defined asa tri te. banał, fixed expression or act. is most often felt as if conveying a negative connotalion, and directly associa1ed with cliche (routine s1ylistic and structural ac1s which have łosi their anistic significance and expressiveness. but are stili used like a mechanical pattern: in linguis1ics, cliches include: idioms. all ossified phrases, sayings, proverbs (Petkovic 1995: 95) and platitudes (unchangeable, ready-made pauems which many ad here to blindly, a 1rite. banał phrase or such a way ofthinking and expression). Contrary Io such at titudes, there are other opinions a1 least as regards the scholarly style (Kouorova 1 998). 1t is 1he refore thai in this case, especially regarding literary-artis1ic style, the concept of stereotype conveys posi1ive conno1ations and is to a cenain extent equa1ed with canon (as a se1 of aesthetic rules, pauerns dominating poetic s1ructures). convention (deriving from the long-standing tradi tion of a melhod of literary creation offering its expressive potentials even to la1er anisls) and norm (as a prese1 rule or a set of rules commining the anis1 10 cenain li1erary methods. but not re s1raining poetic personali ty development. since a poe1ic work emerges either in compliance with a norm or in depanure from it. -
“Tools” of Poetry
Then show the students some free verse (unrhymed) poetry. You will find examples in the works of many modern poets for children, including Eve Merriam, George Swede, Charlotte Zolotow, Langston Hughes and Carl Sandburg. Use a chart to outline the features that distinguish poetry from prose. Your list will probably include these points: • a unique treatment of an ordinary topic • poetic use of descriptive language • precise and economical word choice • focus on the sounds of language as well as the meaning • repetition of sounds, words and phrases for effect • attention to line breaks and “white space” • sometimes a formal structure (sonnet, ballad, etc.) Teaching the “Tools” of Poetry A poet uses many “tools” to shape language to suit an idea and a pur- pose. Here are some examples: • rhythm • comparisons • musical language • shape and form • sensory imagery • rhyme These poetic devices are discussed in more detail on the following pages. Let’s leave the limericks in Rhythm Ireland! By middle school, One characteristic that distinguishes poetry from prose is the rhythm your students have written and cadence of the language. Some poetry has a strong beat, while enough limericks and anagram much free verse has a subtle or irregular rhythm. It’s very important to poems to last them a lifetime. It’s time for some other poetry expose students to a variety of poetic forms, so they learn to listen for – rhymed or free verse. many types of rhythms. Repetition of sounds, words and ideas adds to the power and preci- sion of poetry. (Now there’s alliteration!) Sometimes the first line of the poem is repeated at the end. -
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. -
Refrain, Again: the Return of the Villanelle
Refrain, Again: The Return of the Villanelle Amanda Lowry French Charlottesville, VA B.A., University of Colorado at Boulder, 1992, cum laude M.A., Concentration in Women's Studies, University of Virginia, 1995 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Virginia August 2004 ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ABSTRACT Poets and scholars are all wrong about the villanelle. While most reference texts teach that the villanelle's nineteen-line alternating-refrain form was codified in the Renaissance, the scholar Julie Kane has conclusively shown that Jean Passerat's "Villanelle" ("J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle"), written in 1574 and first published in 1606, is the only Renaissance example of this form. My own research has discovered that the nineteenth-century "revival" of the villanelle stems from an 1844 treatise by a little- known French Romantic poet-critic named Wilhelm Ténint. My study traces the villanelle first from its highly mythologized origin in the humanism of Renaissance France to its deployment in French post-Romantic and English Parnassian and Decadent verse, then from its bare survival in the period of high modernism to its minor revival by mid-century modernists, concluding with its prominence in the polyvocal culture wars of Anglophone poetry ever since Elizabeth Bishop’s "One Art" (1976). The villanelle might justly be called the only fixed form of contemporary invention in English; contemporary poets may be attracted to the form because it connotes tradition without bearing the burden of tradition. Poets and scholars have neither wanted nor needed to know that the villanelle is not an archaic, foreign form. -
The Schlegel Model and Shakespearean Translation in Spain1
The Schlegel model and Shakespearean translation in Spain1 Ángel-Luis Pujante Universidad de Murcia [email protected] I Discussing three different Shakespearean translations into Dutch from 1877 to 1971, Dirk Delabastita observes that the Schlegel model in German turned out to be highly inspirational, and points out that the influence of the Schlegel-Tieck translations “situates itself on a more general plane, in the fact that it has established itself as a type of blueprint for what a Shakespeare translation can and should be like” (Delabastita 2004: 111).2 This may sound too categorical. We know that there is no single method or model for translating literature, as this activity has always involved making decisions, sometimes highly disparate, according to certain predetermined aims and within a certain socio-cultural frame- work. Besides, we are often told that, if the work to be translated is a play, it can be translated for the page, but also for the stage (though both orientations should not be mutually exclusive). Moreover, if the playwright in question is Shakespeare, one may even wish to offer “study translations”, i.e., philological prose translations accompanied by a vast number of footnotes which “translate” some linguistic or 1 This paper is part of Research Project HUM2005-02556, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education and FEDER. For reasons of space, in this paper I restrict myself to Spanish. Therefore, translations into the other languages of Spain and those produced in Latin America will not be examined. 2 August Wilhem von Schlegel (1767-1845) was the initiator of, and the theorist be- hind, these Shakespearean translations. -
UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles a Statistical Analysis of The
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles A Statistical Analysis of the Metrics of the Classic French Decasyllable and Classic Alexandrine A dissertation submitted in partial satistfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Linguistics and Literature by Henry Parkman Biggs 1996 TABLE OF CONTENTS 0. Introduction....................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 Metrics ..........................................................................................................3 1.2 French Metrics...............................................................................................8 1.2.2 The Classic French Decasyllable...................................................................10 1.2.2.1 Syllable Count................................................................................................10 1.2.2.2 Stress Requirements.......................................................................................12 1.2.2.3 The Caesura...................................................................................................14 1.2.2.4 Proposed Bans on Hemistich-Penultimate Stress ..........................................16 1.2.3 The Classic French Alexandrine....................................................................18 1.2.4 Generative French Metrics.............................................................................21 1.3 French Prosodic Phonology...........................................................................23