Transcript Poetic Meter

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.
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 poem’s rhythmic
pattern.
When verse is metrical (has meter) the
accents are arranged so as to occur at equal
intervals.
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).
Let’s Look at One Poem
“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”
by Adrienne Rich (1951)
Aunt Jennifer’s 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 Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s 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.
A Scan of Lines 1 and 2
To “scan” a poem, we mark each stressed and each
unstressed syllable with a mark. Here, we’ll use /
for stressed and ~ for unstressed.
~
/ ~ ~
/ ~ /
~ /
~
/
Aunt Jennifer’s 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.
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 Rich’s 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. Let’s 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.
Poetic Meter
These terms show number of stresses or feet to a line:
 One stress (foot) per line = mono + meter = monometer
 Two =
 Three =
 Four =
 Five =
 Six =
 Seven =
 Eight =
di + meter =
tri + meter =
tetra + meter =
penta + meter =
hex + a + meter =
hep + a + meter =
oct + a + meter =
dimeter
trimeter
tetrameter
pentameter
hexameter
heptameter
octameter
Since Rich’s poem has 5 stresses per line, or five poetic feet
per line, we can say that its meter is pentameter.
One More Step
 Finally, we try to determine the dominant type of stressed
+ unstressed syllable combination which seems prominent
throughout the poem.
 In Rich’s poem, there are many alternations back and forth
between unstressed and stressed syllables. Many look like
this: ~ /
~/
~/
~ / also has a name derived from Greek:
it is called an iamb.
 This pattern of
 Although there are some exceptions -- notably the pattern
~ ~ / in Rich’s lines -- we can say that the dominant, most
common pattern is the iamb, or the
iambic pattern.
Iambs and other weird patterns
Along with the iamb, there are other possible patterns:
Pattern
~/
~~/
/~
/~~
//
Noun
iamb
anapest
trochee
dactyl
spondee
Adjective
iambic
anapestic
trochaic
dactylic
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
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 King’s 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 don’t shout it”
Or the rest will be wanting one too!”
Describing Poetic Meter
 About Rich’s poem, “Aunt Jennifer’s
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).
“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?
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 poem’s
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.