Two unstressed syllables.Recent Examples on the Web The move is part of a strategic pivot to capture a bigger share of U.S. (A trick for remembering this is that "dactyl" comes from the Greek word for finger, and your finger has a long joint followed by two shorter joints.) Verse in dactyls is dactylic. Verse in anapests is anapestic.Ī stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.
Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. Verse composed of iambs is iambic.Ī stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Terms that describe the number of syllables and pattern of stresses (or vowel length) in a foot.Īn unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (or, in quantitative verse, a short vowel followed by a long vowel). Heptameter (pronounced "hept-AH-muh-ter" fourteeners are a common type of heptameter). Hexameter (pronounced "hex-AH-muh-ter" alexandrines are a common type of hexameter).
Pentameter (pronounced "pent-AH-muh-ter" blank verse is a common type of pentameter.) For English prosody, a good rule of thumb is to count the number of beats (stresses) per line. Note: while most meters are composed in just one kind of foot per line, poets frequently vary the prescribed rhythm. Terms that describe the number of feet in a line. Click here for a glossary of common poetic forms. Note: a stanza need not have lines of uniform length or rhythm. Terms that describe the number of lines in a stanza. Medial describes the middle of a line, and terminalthe end of the line. initial rhyme is the rhyming of the lines' first words. Occurring at the beginning of the line, e.g. If a poem substitutes a troche for an iamb in the first foot of a line, that line is said to have a reversed initial foot. This is a more specific way of describing variation.Ī foot whose pattern of stresses and unstressed syllables is exactly opposite that of the original: e.g. The substitution of one foot for another. Counterpoint, modulation, tension, syncopation, and interplay are all terms for describing the interaction between the pattern of stress the meter prescribes and the actual pattern we hear: this interaction is the source of most prosodic pleasure, and is the primary motivation for the practice of scansion. To "scan" a line of poetry is to mark its stressed and unstressed syllables.īrief deviation from the metrical framework. The identification and analysis of poetic rhythm and meter. Meter describes an underlying framework actual poems rarely sustain the perfect regularity that the meter would imply (see variation). Regularly repeating rhythm is called meter.Ī regularly repeating rhythm, divided for convenience into feet. The patterns of stress, vowel-length, and pauses in language.
This is the most common verse in English, and it counts both accents (stresses) and syllables. This verse counts syllables only, ignoring stress or vowel length Most common in classical languages, this type of verse counts vowel-length. It is a reasonably efficient system, but it's important to remember that it's not perfect: there are far more subtle variations in speech rhythms than the simple binary of "stressed" and "unstressed" (or, in quantitative meters, "long" and "short") can register. The following terms describe the generally agreed-upon system for approximating, in writing, our speech rhythms. What follows below is an outline of the basics. Various languages and poetic traditions listen for stress, vowel length, syllable count, or some combination of these three, and poets experiment with all of them. There are many different ways of describing the spoken cadences of verse.
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