Rhyme, Rhythm, and Meter in Poetry

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Rhyme, Rhythm, and Meter in Poetry

• English 20-1 Advanced

Modified from the A. Nyberg Poetry Handout
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Rhythm

• The beat created by the sounds of the words in a
  poem
• Rhythm can be created by meter, rhyme,
  alliteration, assonance, consonance, and refrain

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Alliteration, Assonance, Consonance

• Alliteration the practice of beginning several
  consecutive or neighboring words with the same
  sound.
• Ej. The twisting trout twinkled
• Assonance the repetition of vowel sounds in a
  serious of worlds.
• Ej. cry, side sweet, thee road, groan
• Consonance is the repetition of a consonant
  sound within a series of words to produce a
  harmonious effect.
• Ej. And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

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Rhyme

• There are two basic categories perfect and
  imperfect
• Perfect thing/wing
• Imperfect crooned/ground or love/move
• Either form of rhyme may be classified into the
  following four types Internal rhyme, end rhyme,
  masculine rhyme, feminine rhyme

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Rhyme

• End rhyme the most common form involving rhyming
  words at the end of lines.
• The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
• But I have promises to keep.
• Internal Rhyme the rhyming of words which occurs
  within a line of poetry.
• On Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the
  Dawson trail
• Talk of your cold! Through parkas fold it
  stabbed like a driven nail.

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Rhyme Scheme Sample

• The Germ by Ogden Nash
• A mighty creature is the germ, a
• Though smaller than the pachyderm. a
• His customary dwelling place b
• Is deep within the human race. b
• His childish pride he often pleases c
• By giving people strange diseases. c
• Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? a
• You probably contain a germ. a

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Rhyme Continued

• Feminine Rhymes are rhyming words with multiple
  syllables, with the first rhyming syllable
  accented and the remainder unaccented.
• Deliver/shiver
• Believing/grieving
• Impulsively/convulsively
• Masculine Rhymes are rhyming words of one
  syllable
• Life/wife fun/run concealed/revealed

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Refrain

• The repetition of a sound, word, phrase, or line
  within a poem.
• Example Do not go gentle into that good night
• rage, rage against the dying of the
  light.

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Meter

• A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
• Meter occurs when the stressed and unstressed
  syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in
  a repeating pattern.
• When poets write in meter, they count out the
  number of stressed (strong) syllables and
  unstressed (weak) syllables for each line. They
  then repeat the pattern throughout the poem.

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Meter Continued

• FOOT - unit of meter.
• A foot can have two or three syllables.
• Usually consists of one stressed and one or more
  unstressed syllables.
• Types of feet are determined by the arrangement
  of stressed and unstressed syllables.

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Syllables

• Every polysyllabic word will have one stressed
  syllable. If it is not obvious, say the word
  aloud. This will help.
• Monosyllablic words can be stressed or
  unstressed however, prepositional phrases (the,
  of, my, . . .) are usually unstressed. But you
  must look at the line as a whole.

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Meter Types of Feet

• Iambic - unstressed, stressed
• That time of year thou mayst in me behold
• Trochaic - stressed, unstressed
• Tell me not in mournful numbers
• Anapestic - unstressed, unstressed, stressed
• And the sound of a voice that is still
• Dactylic - stressed, unstressed, unstressed
• This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines
  and the hemlock

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Kinds of Metrical Lines

• monometer one foot on a line
• dimeter two feet on a line
• trimeter three feet on a line
• tetrameter four feet on a line
• pentameter five feet on a line
• hexameter six feet on a line
• heptameter seven feet on a line
• octometer eight feet on a line
• Remember that a foot contains either two or three
  syllables

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Analysis

• How to determine foot and metrical line
• Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
• IShall com pare thee to a sum mers
  day?
• Number of feet? 5 pentameter
• Type of foot? iambic (unstressed stressed)
• Therefore this is known as iambic pentameter.

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• Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks.
• Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater
• Picture yourself in a boat on a river with
• Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot

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Meter

• Iambic meter tends to sound more natural. Love
  songs, odes, and monologues are generally written
  in iambic meter.
• Trochaic meter is the mirror of iambic and also
  sounds fairly natural, but more urgent. Rap,
  marching, and many nursery rhymes use this.
• Anapests tend to sound songlike. Limericks, most
  of Dr. Suesss poems, and other childrens poetry
  use this meter.
• Dactylic meter is rare and unusual. Examples are
  The Iliad and Odyssey.

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Blank Verse Poetry

• Written in lines of iambic pentameter, but does
  NOT use end rhyme.
• Shakespeare uses this meter in his plays.
• Example from Julius Ceasar
• Cowards die many times before their deaths
• The valiant never taste of death but once.
• Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
• It seems to me most strange that men should fear
• Seeing that death, a necessary end,
• Will come when it will come.

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Free Verse Poetry

• Unlike metered poetry, free verse poetry does NOT
  have any repeating patterns of stressed and
  unstressed syllables.
• Does NOT have rhyme.
• Free verse poetry is very conversational - sounds
  like someone talking with you.
• A more modern type of poetry.