Rhythm and Meter

Rhythm Rhythm refers to the regular recurrence of the accent or stress in poem or song. Consider

Nursery Rhymes Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again. Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after

John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” Poets rely heavily on rhythm to express meaning and convey feeling. Busy old fool, unruly sun Why dost thou thus Through windows, and through curtains, call on us Four feet with two syllables per foot = tetrameter. Five feet with two syllables per foot = pentameter

If rhythm is the pulse or beat we hear in the line, then we can define meter as the measure or patterned count of a poetic line. Meter is a count of the stresses we feel in the poem’s rhythm. By convention the unit of poetic meter in English is the foot, a unit of measure consisting of stressed and unstressed syllables.

A poetic foot may be either iambic, trochaic, anapestic, or dactylic. Duple meters: two syllables per foot. Triple meters: three syllables per foot.

iambic (iamb) an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, a pattern which comes closest to approximating the natural rhythm of speech. Note line 23 from Shelley's "Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples": And walked with inward glory crowned This line of poetry is iambic tetrameter. Each “foot” has two syllables (unaccented followed by accented). Four feet = tetrameter.

Trochaic (trochee) a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable, as in the first line of Blake's "Introduction" to Songs of Innocence: Piping down the valleys wild

anapestic (anapest) two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable, as in the opening to Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib": The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold

dactylic (dactyl) a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, as in Thomas Hardy's "The Voice": Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me

spondee and pyrrhic Two accented syllables together is called spondee (knick-knack) Two unaccented syllables together is called pyrrhic (light of the world) Both spondaic and pyrrhic feet serve as substitute feet for iambic and trochaic feet. Neither can serve as the metrical norm of an English poem.

Feet The woods are lovely dark and deep. That time of year thou may’st in me behold, tetrameter pentameter Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter almost exclusively in his plays.

Rhythm and Meter Work Take the rest of the class to complete the scansion sheet of various stanzas of poems. Read them out loud and tap them aloud. You may work in groups, but make sure you turn in your own work at the end of class. No class Monday, August 15. Check engrade for the e-assignment.