QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Life is tons of discipline.  Your first discipline is your vocabulary; then your grammar and your punctuation.  Then, in your exuberance and bounding energy you say you're going to add to that.  Then you add rhyme and meter.  And your delight is in that power.”
  - Robert Frost

As Robert Frost is saying, meter and rhyme are not the most important parts of writing.  They are the most intricate when creating poetry, but poems can be written without them.  I began my poetry with free verse, and gradually became more and more fixed as I went on to learn more about how meter affects the poem, and how rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and the like also affect the reader’s experience with a piece of poetry.  And my free verse is all the better for it.  Even if you never write another fixed poem after finishing this course, an intricate understanding of the rules of conventional poetry can be quite useful.  There is a difference between breaking rules because you don’t know them and breaking rules because you know them well enough to be able to effectively deviate:  the latter works, the former doesn’t.


BASICS OF METER

Meter is the pattern of stressed syllables in a line of verse, not quite synonymous with “rhythm,” but it’s helpful to think of meter as a type of rhythm.  There are four different metrical systems, but the one best-suited for English is “accentual-syllabic,” which attempts to regularize the number of syllables between stressed (accented) syllables.  Since English is the only language I know, and this class is designed for poets writing in English, we will focus on the accentual-syllabic system for now.  We’ll discuss the other systems later.


FEET

The basic metrical unit is the foot, which is a stressed syllable combined with one or two unstressed syllables in a particular order to create a two- or three-syllable piece.  There are many types of these, but only six are common and necessary.  Four of these can form a base meter:

      Foot Name         Scansion*         Examples
        Iamb              ˘/                create, extreme
        Trochee           /˘                hero, candle
        Anapest           ˘˘/               overdue, interfere
        Dactyl            /˘˘               catalyst, poetry

The remaining two feet are only used for substitutions and cannot be a base meter:

        Spondee           //
        Pyrrhus**         ˘˘

* Scansion marks are used to denote stressed (/ or ’) and unstressed (˘ or -) syllables, and are written over each syllable as a poem is scanned.  A vertical line, |, is used to show the (somewhat arbitrary) division between feet.

** The spondee is rarely found in single, isolated words (usually when the two syllables are identical, as in “murmur”); the pyrrhus never so.  In scansion, they are also usually found together, in the form of a double-iamb (˘˘//) or a double-trochee (//˘˘).

As mentioned, there are other metrical feet that some consider to be valid, but virtually any line of poetry can be broken down into these six, and in the interest of simplicity, we will be ignoring them.


BASE METER

Every metrical poem should have a base meter:  a pattern that forms the “backbone” of the poem.  There will often be deviations from this pattern to create some kind of effect, but in general the poem will stay true to its base.  When first beginning to work with meter, it’s best to try to write in an immaculate base, with no deviations, just to gain an understanding of how meter works.  Only when a poet understands the basics fluently can he or she employ metrical deviations to the utmost effect.

The number of feet per line will dictate the number of stressed syllables in the line, while the type of foot will suggest the number of total syllables.  Most commonly, a poem will have four or five feet per line, though some go as high as eight and some (though rarely) will go as low as one.  These are referred to, in order from one syllable to eight, as:

Monometer
Dimeter
Trimeter
Tetrameter
Pentameter
Hexameter
Heptameter
Octameter

These words are combined with the adjectival form of the name of the primary feet in the line, creating phrases such as “iambic pentameter,” “trochaic octameter,” “anapestic tetrameter,” and so on (the other adjectival forms are “dactylic,” “spondaic,” and “pyrrhic”).

Iambs, trochees, anapests, and dactyls are the only feet that would easily create a base meter.  A spondaic base meter would be very difficult to write, and a pyrrhic meter would be impossible.


WHEN TO STRESS

To stress, or not to stress:  That is the question.  Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes not so obvious.  Every polysyllabic word has at least one stressed syllable in it, but what about monosyllables?  It always depends on context; there is no absolute rule I can give you that will work in every situation.  Usually article-noun combinations (“the car,” “a bird”) are iambs, and prepositional phrases (“of my life,” “in a bind”) are anapests, but sometimes the rest of the line can change that.  Always look at the entire line during scansion.

The best way I know of to determine whether stresses are where you think they are is to read the line aloud and over-emphasize the syllables that seem to be stressed.  If it sounds very wrong, it probably is wrong.  If, with the over-emphasis, it sounds like it might work, it’s probably right.  If you have a good ear, read the line normally and listen for rises in volume in your voice (or have someone else read the line and listen for where they put the stress).  Unfortunately I can’t demonstrate this in a textual format.

One method of practice is to look at song lyrics and listen to the performed song.  In song, stressed syllables are often accompanied by equally stressed notes, providing an audible clue as to a line’s scansion.  For example, listening to a performance of “Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound” will give little reason to believe that it is not iambic tetrameter.  “Tiptoe through the tulips” is clearly trochaic trimeter.  “Mary had a little lamb” is trochaic tetrameter, missing the final syllable.  Listen to your favorite song while looking at the lyrics, and see if you can find the meter.


METRICALLY CONFERRED ACCENTUATION

Prepositions (in, of, at, on, etc.) and conjunctions (and, that, since, etc.) are usually unstressed, but you’ll often find a situation where one of these is preceded and followed by weaker syllables, and thus receives stress.  Remember, stress is always relative.  This concept is called “metrically conferred accentuation,” or MCA.  It is also referred to by the simpler “relative stress” or “relative accent.”   Take this line from Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover”:

      The rain set early in tonight

Here we have an article-noun combination (“The rain”), and two disyllabic words (“early,” “tonight”).  So we can scan these parts easily:

       ˘    /       / ˘      ˘  /
      The rain set early in tonight

“Set” is a weaker syllable than “rain” and “ear,” and while it may be stronger than the initial “the,” compared to the syllables immediately next to it, it is unstressed.  “In,” might be just as strong as “set,” but when it is compared to “ly” and “to,” it stands out, so it is stressed.  Thus we have perfect iambic tetrameter:

       ˘    / | ˘   /|˘  / | ˘  /
      The rain set early in tonight

Note that I am not in any way claiming that “in” is as strong a syllable as “rain” or “night,” but because of its placing in the line, it counts as a stressed syllable.

If inserting a normal stress confuses you, you could use an accent grave (` or ) to designate a syllable affected by MCA, but I prefer to stick with the simple binary system.

Some metricists (people who study meter) try to use a four-level stress scale, on which the above line would be scanned:
            *                    *  
                     *
                 *        *
        *              *      *
      The rain set early in tonight

I--and many others--find this to be a little too complex for most scansion, so for our purposes we’ll stick with the binary ˘/ system.  It’s useful, however, to be able to refer to this four-level system when identifying MCA.


EFFECTS OF METER

Different base meters have different sounds, and thus they each affect the reader differently.

Iambic meters tend to sound natural, as English tends to sway toward alternating syllables.  Love songs, odes, and monologues are generally written in iambic meter.

Trochaic meter is the mirror image of iambic, and also sounds somewhat natural, though more urgent as the initial stresses hit hard.  Rap, marching cadences, and many nursery rhymes often use trochaic meter.

Anapests are essentially extended iambs, and tend to sound more songlike.  Anapestic lines usually include an initial iambic substitution (we’ll go over substitutions later).  Limericks, most of Dr. Seuss’s poems (and other children’s poetry), and many songs tend use anapestic meter.

Dactylic meter is rare, as it nearly always slips into anapestic meter.  The Iliad and Odyssey were originally written in dactylic hexameter.

We’ll go over the effects of meter more thoroughly in the future.


EXAMPLES

      /     stressed syllable
      ˘     unstressed syllable
      |     division between feet

    ˘   / | ˘  / | ˘    / |  ˘     /  | ˘   /      - iambic pentameter
  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
  - William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 116”

   / ˘  | / ˘  |  /  ˘ | / ˘                       - trochaic tetrameter
  Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater
  - Nursery rhyme

   /  ˘     ˘ | /   ˘ ˘ | /   ˘ ˘ | / ˘  ˘         - dactylic tetrameter
  Picture yourself in a boat on a river with
  - The Beatles, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”

   ˘  ˘   / | ˘   ˘    / | ˘    ˘    / | ˘ ˘   /   - anapestic tetrameter
  Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot
  - Dr. Seuss, “The Lorax”*

* Notice that, while I said that no disyllabic word in isolation is pyrrhic, “unless” and “awful” are both pyrrhic in this line.  This is a result of MCA, as both words are forced to be pronounced more quietly than the strong syllables next to them.


CLOSING COMMENTS

I’ve barely touched on the full range of intricacy in meter, and we’ll delve more thoroughly into it soon.  The point to remember now is that English is an accent-timed language, and is naturally suited to have meter.  If you feel intimidated by this, don’t!  You can learn this.  Every speaker of English has the timing of the language’s accents in their subconscious; all you need to do is become aware of it.


SCANSION EXERCISES 1

Time to test your knowledge!  Identify the base meter of the following lines (Hint:  Each line is perfect meter, with no substitutions):


1.  Tell me not in mournful numbers
      - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “A Psalm of Life”

2.  I have been one acquainted with the night
      - Robert Frost, “Acquainted with the Night”

3.  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
      - Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”

4.  ’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
      - Clement Clarke Moore, “The Night Before Christmas”

5.  Condemned whole years in absence to deplore
      - Alexander Pope, “Eloise to Abelard”

6.  Willows whiten, aspens quiver
      - Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”

7.  That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall
      - Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess”

8.  Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
      - John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”


Keep your answers for yourself, or note them to me.  If you had problems scanning these lines, please see Handout 1 for a more detailed explanation of how scansion works.


WRITING EXERCISE 1 - BLANK VERSE

Now that you can recognize the main types of meter, I want to see if you can apply it.  So give me a poem.  I’m looking for 10 to 15 lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter--this is just a meter exercise, so don’t try to rhyme; we’ll get to that later.  The subject is completely up to you, so feel free to get creative.


Sample:


I want a poem that has a seamless flow
Of iambs, five per line, and no rhyme, please.
The meter’s what I’m looking for; don’t be
Afraid if you don’t think it’s something you
Can do--just try; I’m sure it will work out.
Iambic meter isn’t hard to write;
The hard part might instead be to suppress
The urge to rhyme (I know it’s hard for me).
We will be rhyming soon enough, so try
To write in pure, exact, iambic verse.
It doesn’t have to make much sense; just write!