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Poetry
METER: The pattern of stressed and unstressed--or long and short-- syllables in a unit of verse, usually based upon the number of feet per line. The stress of most English poetry is usually identical to that in normal speech.
FOOT: A metrical unit following a set pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
- IAMB (iambic)
- "And justify the ways of God to men." Milton
- TROCHEE (trochaic)
- "Never, never, never, never, never." Shakespeare
- ANAPEST (anapestic)
- "I arise and unbuild it again." P.B. Shelley
- DACTYL (dactylic)
- "This is the forest primeval; the murmuring..."
- Longfellow
- SPONDEE (spondaic)
- "And ten low words oft creep in one dull line."
- Pope
- Metrical Feet: Lesson for a Boy
- Trochee trips from long to short.
- From long to long in solemn sort
- Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able
- Ever to come up with Dactyl tri syllable.
- Iambics march from short to long.
- With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
- One syllable long, with one short at each side,
- Amphibrach is haste with a stately stride.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
- LINE: A metrical unit measured by the number of feet in it.
- MONOMETER--1 PENTAMETER--5
- DIMETER--2 HEXAMETER--6
- TRIMETER--3 HEPTAMETER--7
- TETRAMETER--4 OCTAMETER-8
- VIRGULE: The diagonal stroke--/-- marking the boundaries of poetic feet.
- CAESURA: A pause in the middle of a line (particularly important in Anglo-Saxon poetry), marked by a double virgule--//.
- STANZA: A group of lines whose metrical pattern is repeated throughout the poem.
- SCANSION: Analysis of poetic structure, including meter, rhyme scheme, and stanzaic pattern if any.
- QUANTITATIVE VERSE: With rhythm determined by the length (duration) of sound in each syllable, and length being determined by a series of artificial rules in addition to pronunciation in speech. Greek and Latin poetry is quantitative.
- BLANK VERSE: Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
- SONNET: A 14-line verse form with interlocking rhyme scheme.
- ENGLISH or SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
- abab cdcd efef gg
- ITALIAN or PETRARCHAN SONNET
- abbs abba cddccd
- VILLANELLE: A nineteen-line verse with only two rhymes (aba aba aba aba abaa) and repeating two of the lines in a set pattern (lines 1,6,12,18; lines 3,9,15,19). See Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."
- RHYME: The duplication of similar sounds.
- Alliteration
- Consonance
- Assonance
- Masculine rhyme
- Feminine rhyme
- Slant rhyme
- A Fit of Rime against Rime
- Rime the rack of finest wits,
- That expresseth but by fits,
- True Conceit.
- Spoyling Senses of their Treasure,
- Cosening Judgement with a measure,
- But false weight.
- Wresting words, from their true calling;
- Propping Verse, for feare of falling
- To the ground.
- Joynting Syllabes, drowning Letters,
- Fastning Vowells, as with fetters
- They were bound!
- Soone as lazie thou wert knowne,
- All good Poetrie hence was flowne,
- And Art banish'd.
- For a thousand yeares together,
- All Pernassus Greene did wither,
- And wit vanish'd.
- Pegasus did flie away,
- At the Wells no Muse did stay,
- But bewail'd.
- So to see the Fountaine drie,
- And Apollo's Musique die,
- All light failed!
- Starveling rimes did fill the Stage,
- Not a Poet in an Age,
- Worth crowning.
- Not a worke deserving Baies,
- Nor a lyne deserving praise,
- Pallas frowning;
- Greeke was free from Rimes infection,
- Happy Greeke by this protection!
- Was not spoyled.
- Whilst the Latin, Queene of Tongues,
- Is not yet free from Rimes wrongs,
- But rests foiled.
- Scarce the hill againe doth flourish,
- Scarce the world a Wit doth nourish,
- To restore,
- Phoebus to his Crowne againe;
- And the Muses to their braine;
- As before.
- Vulgar Languages that want
- Words, and sweetnesse, and be scant
- Of true measure,
- Tyran Rime hath so abused,
- That they long since have refused,
- Other ceasure;
- He that first invented thee,
- May his joynts tormented bee,
- Cramp'd for ever;
- Still may Syllabes jarre with time,
- Still may reason warre with rime,
- Resting never.
- May his Sense when it would meet,
- The cold tumor in his feet,
- Grow unsounder.
- And his Title be long foole,
- That in rearing such a Schoole,
- Was the founder.
- Ben Jonson (1572/3-1637)
- Lightly Stepped a Yellow Star
- Lightly stepped a yellow star
- To its lofty place.
- Loosed the moon her silver hat
- From her lustral face.
- All of evening softly lit
- As an astral hall.
- "Father," I observed to Heaven,
- "You are punctual."
- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
- Mark Antony, stanzas 3 and 4
- Wanting a glass to plait her amber tresses,
- Which like a bracelet rich decked mine arm,
- Gaudier than Juno wears whenas she graces
- Jove with embraces more stately than warm;
- Then did she peep in mine
- Eyes' humor crystalline;
- I in her eyes was seen,
- As if we one had been.
- Never Mark Antony
- Dallied more wantonly
- With the fair Egyptian Queen.
- Mystical grammar of amorous glances;
- Feeling of pulses, the physic of love;
- Rhetorical courtings and musical dances;
- Numb'ring of kisses arithmetic prove;
- Eyes like astronomy;
- Straight-limbed geometry;
- In her art's ingeny
- Our wits were sharp and keen.
- Never Mark, etc.
- John Cleveland (1613-1658)
