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FUNDAMENTALS The precise units of poetic meter, like Rhyme , vary from language to language and between poetic traditions. Often it involves precise arrangements of syllables into repeated patterns called '' Feet '' within a line. In English Verse the pattern of syllable stress differentiates feet, so English meter is founded on the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. In Latin verse, on the other hand, while the metrical units are similar, not syllable Stresses but Vowel Length s are the component parts of meter. Old English Poetry used Alliterative Verse , a metrical pattern involving varied numbers of syllables but a fixed number of strong stresses in each line. Meters in English verse, and in the classical Western poetic tradition on which it is founded, are named by the characteristic foot and the number of feet per line. Thus, for example, Blank Verse is unrhymed " Iambic Pentameter ," a meter composed of five feet per line in which the kind of feet called ''iamb''s predominate. The origin of this tradition of metrics is Ancient Greek poetry from Homer , Pindar , Hesiod , Sappho , and the great tragedians of Athens . TECHNICAL TERMS
COMMON FEET The most common characteristic feet of English verse are the Iamb in two syllables and the Anapest in three. (See Foot (prosody) for a complete list of the metrical feet and their names.) Greek and Latin The metrical "feet" in the classical languages were based on the length of time taken to pronounce each syllable, which were categorized as either "long" syllables or "short" syllables. The foot is often compared to a musical measure and the long and short syllables to whole notes and half notes. In English poetry, feet are determined by emphasis rather than length, with stressed and unstressed syllables serving the same function as long and short syllables in classical meter. The basic unit in Greek and Latin prosody is a Mora , which is defined as a single short syllable. A long syllable is equivalent to two moras. A long syllable contains either a long vowel, a Diphthong , or a short vowel followed by two or more consonants. Various rules of Elision sometimes prevent a grammatical syllable from making a full syllable. The most important Classical meter is the Dactylic Hexameter , the meter of Homer and Virgil. This form uses verses of six feet. The first four feet are dactyls, but can be spondees. The fifth foot is almost always a dactyl. The sixth foot is either a Spondee or a Trochee . The initial syllable of either foot is called the ''ictus'', the basic "beat" of the verse. There is usually a caesura after the ictus of the third foot. The opening line of the '' Æneid '' is a typical line of dactylic hexameter: : ::("I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy. . . ") The first and second feet are dactyls; their vowels are grammatically short, but long in poetry because both are followed by two consonants. The third and fourth feet are spondees, with two long vowels, one on either side of the caesura. The fifth foot is a dactyl, as it must be, with the ictus this time falling on a grammatically long vowel. The final foot is a spondee with two grammatically long vowels. The dactylic hexameter was imitated in English by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem '' Evangeline '': :This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, :Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, :Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic, :Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Also important in Greek and Latin poetry is the Dactylic Pentameter . This was a line of verse, made up of two equal parts, each of which contains two dactyls followed by a long syllable. Spondees can take the place of the dactyls in the first half, but never in the second. The long syllable at the close of the first half of the verse always ends a word, giving rise to a caesura. Dactylic pentameter is never used in isolation. Rather, a line of dactylic pentameter follows a line of dactylic hexameter in the Elegiac Distich or Elegiac Couplet , a form of verse that was used for the composition of elegies and other Tragic and solemn verse in the Greek and Latin world. An example from Ovid 's '' Tristia '': : : ::("I only saw Vergil, greedy Fate gave Tibullus no time for me.") The Greeks and Romans also used a number of , three hendecasyllabics are followed by an "Adonic" line, made up of a dactyl and a trochee. This is the form of Catullus 51 (itself a translation of Sappho 31): :/ x / x / x x/ x / x :Ille mi par esse deo videtur; :/ x / x / x x / x / x :ille, si fas est, superare divos, ::/ x / x / x x / x / x :qui sedens adversus identidem te ::::/ x x / x ::::spectat et audit. . . ::("He seems to me to be like a god; if it is permitted, he seems above the gods, he who sitting across from you gazes at you and listens to you.") The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English by Algernon Charles Swinburne in a poem he simply called ''Sapphics'': :Saw the white implacable Aphrodite, :Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled :Shine as fire of sunset on western waters; ::Saw the reluctant. . . English Most English meter is classified according to the same system as Classical meter with an important difference. English is an accentual language, and therefore beats and offbeats (stressed and unstressed syllables) take the place of the long and short syllables of classical systems. In most English verse, the meter can be considered as a sort of back beat, against which natural speech rhythms vary expressively. The number of metrical systems in English is not agreedFor example, ,'' Northwestern University Press, 1980. ISBN 0810113163, page 34). The most frequently encountered line of English verse is the Iambic Pentameter , in which the metrical norm is five iambic feet per line, though metrical substitution is common and rhythmic variations practically inexhaustible. John Milton 's '' Paradise Lost '', most Sonnet s, and much else besides in English are written in iambic pentameter. Lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter are commonly known as Blank Verse . Blank verse in the English language is most famously represented in the plays of William Shakespeare , although it is also notable in the work of Tennyson (e.g. Ulysses , The Princess ). A rhymed pair of lines of iambic pentameter make a Heroic Couplet , a Verse Form which was used so often in the Eighteenth Century that it is now used mostly for humorous effect (although see Pale Fire for a non-trivial case). Another important meter in English is the Ballad meter, also called the "common meter", which is a four line stanza, with two pairs of a line of iambic Tetrameter followed by a line of iambic Trimeter ; the Rhyme s usually fall on the lines of trimeter, although in many instances the tetrameter also rhymes. This is the meter of most of the Border and Scots or English ballads. It is called the "common meter" in Hymn ody (as it is the most common of the named hymn meters used to pair lyrics with melodies) and provides the meter for a great many hymns, such as '' Amazing Grace '': :Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound ::That saved a wretch like me; :I once was lost, but now am found; ::Was blind, but now I see. Another poet who put this form to use was Emily Dickinson : :Great streets of silence led away :To neighborhoods of pause; :Here was no notice — no dissent — :No universe — no laws. Old English Poetry has a different metrical system. In Old English poetry, each line must contain four fully stressed syllables, which often alliterate. The unstressed syllables are less important. Old English poetry is an example of the Alliterative Verse found in most of the older Germanic Language s. It is to be noted, however, that the use of foreign metres in English is all but exceptionalAccording to Leonardo Malcovati (''Prosody in England and Elsewhere: A Comparative Approach,'' Gival Press, 2006. ISBN 1-928589-26-X), ' {Link without Title} little of it is native'. French In French Poetry , meter is determined solely by the number of syllables in a line. A silent 'e' counts as a syllable before a consonant, but is elided before a vowel (where "h aspiré" counts as a consonant). At the end of a line, the "e" remains unelided but is hypermetrical (outside the count of syllables, like a feminine ending in English verse). The most frequently encountered meter in French is the Alexandrine , composed of two hemistichs of six syllables each. Classical French poetry also had a complex set of Rules For Rhymes that goes beyond how words merely sound. These are usually taken into account when describing the meter of a poem. Spanish In Spanish poetry, meter is determined mainly by the position of the last accent in a line. Confusingly enough, a line whose last accent falls in the seventh syllable is invariably called an "octosyllable", regardless of whether it contains seven, eight or nine syllables. Syllables in Spanish metrics are determined by consonant breaks, not word boundaries; thus a single syllable may span multiple words. For example, the line ''De armas y hombres canto'' consists of 6 syllables: "Dear" "ma" "syhom" "bres" "can" "to." Note how the vowel sounds in adjacent words combine into a single unit, as in the third syllable of the line: ''De armas y hombres canto.'' Some common meters in Spanish verse are:
Italian In Italian poetry, meter is determined solely by the position of the last accent in a line. Syllables are enumerated with respect to a verse which ends with a paroxytone, so that a Septenary (literally, 'having seven syllables') is defined as a verse whose last accent falls on the sixth syllable: it may so contain eight syllables (''Ei fu. Siccome immobile'') or just six (''la terra al nunzio sta''). Moreover, when a word ends with a vowel and the next one starts with a vowel, they are considered to be in the same syllable: so ''Gli anni e i giorni'' consists of only four syllables ("Gli an" "ni e i" "gior" "ni"). Because of the mostly Trochaic nature of the Italian language, verses with an even number of syllables are far easier to compose, and the Novenary is usually regarded as the most difficult verse. Some common meters in Italian verse are:
DISSENT Not all poets accept the idea that meter is a fundamental part of poetry. Many Twentieth Century American poets, including Marianne Moore , William Carlos Williams , and Robinson Jeffers , believed that meter was imposed into poetry by man, and is not a fundamental part of its nature.
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