METER! And rhythm Here’s a quick overview of what’s what with fancy metered poetry

Types  The most common type of metered poem for the English language is accentual syllabic. This means that in each line, the number of syllables are counted, as well as the number of stressed syllables.  What’s a stressed syllable? Think of the word upon. It is two syllables, with the stress at the end, you put more emphasis on the PON than the U. Think about how weird it would sound if you said UH-pon  (usually, your chin moves down for stressed syllables, so if you get confused, place you hand on the bottom of your chin and say the lines, to feel when your jaw moves sharply, this isn’t fool proof but it works).

Stress Patterns  Each line of poetry is grouped into feet. These feet are measured by stress patterns in words. We have 6, though Iambic is probably the one we hear of most.  Iamb- an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed  Trochee- a stressed followed by an unstressed  Anapest- Two unstressed followed by a stressed  Dactyl- A stressed followed by an unstressed followed by a stressed  Spondee- two stressed syllables  Pyrrhic- two unstressed syllables Each one of these units counts as a foot

So….  If a line is made of Iambs, it is iambic. Depending on how many iambs are in it, it is ether monometer (1 iamb), Dimeter (2), Trimeter (3), Tetrameter (4), Pentameter (5) or Hexameter (6)  Shakespeare wrote in Iambic Pentameter. Which means??