Poetry: Rhythm and Meter

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Poetry Rhythm and Meter

• Rhythm refers to any wavelike recurrence of
  motion or sound. In speech, it is the natural
  rise and fall of language (intonation). All
  language alternates between stressed and
  unstressed (or accented or unaccented)
• The terms rhythm and meter tend to be used
  interchangeably, but they are different.

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Poetic Meter

• Meter is the identifying characteristic of the
  rhythm of a poem. There are specific ways to
  analyze meter so that we can say something clear
  about a poems rhythmic pattern.
• When verse is metrical (has meter) the accents
  are arranged so as to occur at equal intervals.

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Scanning a Poem

• We scan a poem to determine its basic rhythm
  and to consider the relevance of that rhythm to
  the meaning of the poem.
• Poetry has much in common with music, and both
  have mathematical foundations.
• When we scan a poem, we begin by saying the
  poetic lines aloud, paying careful attention to
  the syllables which seem to be stressed
  (pronounced with more emphasis).

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Lets Look at One Poem

• Aunt Jennifers Tigers
• by Adrienne Rich (1951)
• Aunt Jennifers tigers prance across a screen,
• Bright topaz denizens in a world of green.
• They do not fear the men beneath the tree
• They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
• Aunt Jennifers fingers fluttering through her
  wool
• Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
• The massive weight of Uncles wedding band
• Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifers hand.
• When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
• Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
• The tigers in the panel that she made
• Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

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A Scan of Lines 1 and 2

• To scan a poem, we mark each stressed and each
  unstressed syllable with a mark. Here, well use
  / for stressed and for unstressed.
• / / / / /
  
• Aunt Jennifers tigers prance across
  the screen
• / / /
  / /
• Bright topaz denizens of a world of
  green.
• Then we count the stressed syllables in a single
  line. Here there are 5 stressed syllables in
  each line.

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Counting Stressed Syllables

• Once we have taken a count of the stressed
  syllables in each line, we have a good idea of
  what the dominant meter of the poem is. Every
  line may not be the same, but usually there will
  be one dominant pattern. In Richs poem, we
  could scan all the lines and we would see that
  there are generally 5 stresses (5 stressed
  syllables) to each line.
• Poetry scansion makes use of some Greek-derived
  words to label the meter of a poem. Lets take a
  look at those.
• We measure the meter of a poem using the
  measurement of poetic feet. A foot in poetry is
  one stressed syllable the unstressed syllables
  that seem to go with it.

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Poetic Meter

• These terms show number of stresses or feet to a
  line
• One stress (foot) per line mono meter
  monometer
• Two di meter
  dimeter
• Three tri meter
  trimeter
• Four tetra meter
  tetrameter
• Five penta meter
  pentameter
• Six hex a meter
  hexameter
• Seven hep a meter
  heptameter
• Eight oct a meter
  octameter
• Since Richs poem has 5 stresses per line, or
  five poetic feet per line, we can say that its
  meter is pentameter.

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One More Step

• Finally, we try to determine the dominant type
  of stressed unstressed syllable combination
  which seems prominent throughout the poem.
• In Richs poem, there are many alternations back
  and forth between unstressed and stressed
  syllables. Many look like this / /
  /
• This pattern of / also has a name derived
  from Greek it is called an iamb.
• Although there are some exceptions -- notably the
  pattern
• / in Richs lines -- we can say that the
  dominant, most common pattern is the iamb, or the
  iambic pattern.

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Iambs and other weird patterns

• Along with the iamb, there are other possible
  patterns
• Pattern Noun
  Adjective
• / iamb
  iambic
• / anapest
  anapestic
• / trochee
  trochaic
• / dactyl
  dactylic
• / / spondee
  spondaic
• We describe a poetic line, then, by its type and
  number of poetic feet. For example
• 5 iambs iambic pentameter
• 4 trochees trochaic tetrameter

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Rhythm and Meaning

• While the iamb / easily represents a natural
  rhythm and emphasis often used in English, the
  trochee / gives a feeling of pressing forward,
  of more urgency or insistence
• / / /
  /
• Charging down the Kings path steady
• On to meet our death charge ready
• The anapest is used for a galloping kind of
  rhythm / / or for a light, almost comic
  feeling
• /
  / /
• There once was a fellow at Drew
• Who spotted a mouse in his stew,
• Told the waiter about it, who said Well dont
  shout it
• Or the rest will be wanting one too!

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Describing Poetic Meter

• About Richs poem, Aunt Jennifers Tigers,
  then, we could say that its meter is
• iambic pentameter
• This tells readers that the dominant meter of the
  poem is 5 stresses to a line (pentameter) and
  that the dominant pattern or foot of syllable
  stress is / (iambic).

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The Aim Was Song

• Frost invents a myth about the origin of poetry.
  What implications does it suggest about the
  relation of man to nature and of poetry to
  nature?
• Scan the poem and identify its meter. What is
  the rhythm and meter of the poem? How does the
  poet give variety to a regular metrical pattern?

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But Why?

• Poetry is a musical art form. Its impact depends
  on its rhythm as well as on its language.
• Being able to describe the pattern of a poems
  meter can help us to analyze its meaning.
• Sometimes, however, especially with more modern
  poetry, you will find that there is no clear
  dominant meter, that the poet has written the
  line as it would be spoken, in a more casual mix
  of syllables, a more conversational tone. Being
  able to recognize the lack of rhythm and meter
  can also lead to an analysis of meaning.