Elements of Poetry

POETRY ASSUMPTIONS

Readers of poetry often bring with them many related assumptions:

 That a poem is to be read for its "message,"

 That this message is "hidden" in the poem,
 The message is to be found by treating the words as symbols which
naturally do not mean what they say but stand for something else,
 You have to decipher every single word to appreciate and enjoy the poem.

There are no easy ways to dispel these biases. Poetry is difficult because very
often its language is indirect. But so is experience - those things we think, feel,
and do. The lazy reader wants to be told things and usually avoids poetry
because it demands commitment and energy. Moreover, much of what poetry
has to offer is not in the form of hidden meanings. Many poets like to "play" with
the sound of language or offer an emotional insight by describing what they see
in highly descriptive language. In fact, there can many different ways to enjoy
poetry; this reflects the many different styles and objectives of poets themselves.
For an overview of the many ways to read a poem, click here. Finally, if you are
the type to give up when something is unclear, just relax! Like we just said, there
can be many different approaches to examining poetry; often these approaches
(like looking for certain poetic devices or examining the meaning of a specific
phrase) do not require a complete and exhaustive analysis of a poem. So, enjoy
what you do understand!

 
FIRST APPROACHES

Read the poem (many students neglect this step). Identify the speaker and the situation.
Feel free to read it more than once! Read the sentences literally. Use your prose reading
skills to clarify what the poem is about.Read each line separately, noting unusual words
and associations. Look up words you are unsure of and struggle with word associations
that may not seem logical to you. Note any changes in the form of the poem that might
signal a shift in point of view. Study the structure of the poem, including its rhyme and
rhythm (if any). Re-read the poem slowly, thinking about what message and emotion the
poem communicates to you.

STRUCTURE and POETRY

An important method of analyzing a poem is to look at the stanza structure or
style of a poem. Generally speaking, structure has to do with the overall
organization of lines and/or the conventional patterns of sound. Again, many
modern poems may not have any identifiable structure (i.e. they are free verse),
so don't panic if you can't find it!

STANZAS: Stanzas are a series of lines grouped together and separated by an

empty line from other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a paragraph in an
essay. One way to identify a stanza is to count the number of lines. Thus:

 couplet (2 lines)
 tercet (3 lines)
 quatrain (4 lines)
 cinquain (5 lines)
 sestet (6 lines) 
 

A poem often has a specific pattern of stanza lines, rhyme scheme and/or
rhythm, and many types of poems can be identified by their particular patterns:

Haiku: It has an unrhymed verse form having three lines (a tercet) and usually
5,7,5 syllables, respectively.

Limerick: It has a very structured poem, usually humorous & composed of five
lines (a cinquain), in an aabba rhyming pattern; beat must be anapestic (weak,
weak, strong) with 3 feet in lines 1, 2, & 5 and 2 feet in lines 3 & 4.

Sonnet: It is a lyric poem (see below) consisting of 14 lines. In English, generally

the two basic kinds of sonnets are the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet and the
Shakespearean or Elizabethan sonnet. The Italian/Petrarchan sonnet is named
after Petrarch, an Italian Renaissance poet. The Petrarchan sonnet consists of
an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines). The Shakespearean sonnet
consists of three quatrains (four lines each) and a concluding couplet (two lines).
The Petrarchan sonnet tends to divide the thought into two parts (argument and
conclusion); the Shakespearean, into four.

FORM: A poem may or may not have a specific number of lines, rhyme scheme
and/or metrical pattern, but it can still be labeled according to its form or style.
Here are the three most common types of poems according to form:

1. Lyric Poetry: It is any poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who
expresses strong thoughts and feelings. Most poems, especially modern ones,
are lyric poems.
2. Narrative Poem: It is a poem that tells a story; its structure resembles the
plot line of a story [i.e. the introduction of conflict and characters, rising action,
climax and the denouement].

3. Descriptive Poem: It is a poem that describes the world that surrounds the
speaker. It uses elaborate imagery and adjectives. While emotional, it is more
"outward-focused" than lyric poetry, which is more personal and introspective.

In a sense, almost all poems, whether they have consistent patterns of sound
and/or structure, or are free verse, are in one of the three categories above. Or,
of course, they may be a combination of 2 or 3 of the above styles! Here are
some more types of poems that are subtypes of the three styles above:

Elegy: It is a lyric poem that mourns the dead. It has no set metric or stanzaic
pattern, but it usually begins by reminiscing about the dead person, then laments
the reason for the death, and then resolves the grief by concluding that death
leads to immortality. It often uses "apostrophe" as a literary technique.

Sonnet: The sonnet is a lyric poem.

Ballad: It is a narrative poem that has a musical rhythm and can be sung.

Epic: It is a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a

legendary or historical hero.    

Qualities of an Epic Poem:

 narrative poem of great scope; dealing with the founding of a nation or

some other heroic theme requires a dignified theme requires an organic
unity requires orderly progress of the action always has a heroic figure or
figures involves supernatural forces
 written in deliberately ceremonial style
 
 

Ode: It is usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a serious subject, an

elevated style, and an elaborate stanza pattern.
 
SOUND PATTERNS
Three other elements of poetry are rhyme scheme, meter (ie. regular rhythm)
and word sounds (like alliteration). These are sometimes collectively called
sound play because they take advantage of the performative, spoken nature of
poetry.
 

RHYME
 

Rhyme is the repetition of similar sounds. In poetry, the most common kind of
rhyme is the end rhyme, which occurs at the end of two or more lines. It is
usually identified with lower case letters, and a new letter is used to identify each
new end sound. Take a look at the rhyme scheme for the following poem :
 

I saw a fairy in the wood,

He was dressed all in green.
He drew his sword while I just stood,
And realized I'd been seen.
 

The rhyme scheme of the poem is abab.

Internal rhyme occurs in the middle of a line, as in these lines from Coleridge,
"In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud" or "Whiles all the night through fog-smoke
white" ("The Ancient Mariner"). Remember that most modern poems do not have
rhyme.

NOTE: Rhyme (above) and rhythm (below) are two

totally different concepts!
RHYTHM AND METER
Meter: the systematic regularity in rhythm; this systematic rhythm (or sound
pattern) is usually identified by examining the type of "foot" and the number of
feet.

1. Poetic Foot: The traditional line of metered poetry contains a number of

rhythmical units, which are called feet. The feet in a line are distinguished as a
recurring pattern of two or three syllables ("apple" has 2 syllables, "banana"
has 3 syllables, etc.). The pattern, or foot, is designated according to the number
of syllables contained, and the relationship in each foot between the strong and
weak syllables.Thus:

__ = a stressed (or strong, or LOUD) syllable

U = an unstressed (or weak, or quiet) syllable
 

In other words, any line of poetry with a systematic rhythm has a certain number
of feet, and each foot has two or three syllables with a constant beat pattern
.

a.     Iamb (Iambic) - weak syllable followed by strong syllable. [Note that the
pattern is sometimes fairly hard to maintain, as in the third foot.]

b.     Trochee (Trochaic): strong syllable followed by a weak syllable.

c.     Anapest (Anapestic): two weak syllables followed by a strong syllable.

e.g.
In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed...

From "The Writer", by Richard Wilbur

d.     Dactyl (Dactylic): a strong syllable followed by two weak syllables.

DD

Here's another (silly) example of dactylic rhythm.

DDDA was an / archer, who / shot at a / frog
DDDB was a / butcher, and / had a great / dog
DDDC was a / captain, all / covered with / lace
DDDD was a / drunkard, and / had a red / face.
 

e.     Spondee (Spondaic): two strong syllables (not common as lines, but
appears as a foot). A spondee usually appears at the end of a line. 

2. The Number of Feet: The second part of meter is the number of feet
contained in a line.

Thus:
one foot=monometer
two feet=dimeter
three feet=trimeter
four feet=tetrameter
five feet=pentameter
six feet=hexameter (when hexameter is in iambic rhythm, it is called an
alexandrine)

Poems with an identifiable meter are therefore identified by the type of feet (e.g.
iambic) and the number of feet in a line (e.g. pentameter). The following line is
iambic pentameter because it (1) has five feet [pentameter], and (2) each foot
has two syllables with the stress on the second syllable [iambic].

That time | of year | thou mayst | in me | behold

Thus, you will hear meter identified as iambic pentameter, trochaic tetrameter,
and so on.
  

3. Irregularity: Many metered poems in English avoid perfectly regular rhythm

because it is monotonous. Irregularities in rhythm add interest and emphasis to
the lines. In this line:

The first foot substitutes a trochee for an iamb. Thus, the basic iambic
pentameter is varied with the opening trochee.
 

4. Blank Verse: Any poetry that does have a set metrical pattern (usually iambic
pentameter), but does not have rhyme, is blank verse. Shakespeare frequently
used unrhymed iambic pentameter in his plays; his works are an early example
of blank verse.

5. Free Verse: Most modern poetry no longer follows strict rules of meter or
rhyme, especially throughout an entire poem. Free verse, frankly, has no rules
about meter or rhyme whatsoever! [In other words, blank verse has rhythm, but
no rhyme, while free verse has neither rhythm nor rhyme.] So, you may find it
difficult to find regular iambic pentameter in a modern poem, though you might
find it in particular lines. Modern poets do like to throw in the occasional line or
phrase of metered poetry, particularly if they’re trying to create a certain effect.
Free verse can also apply to a lack of a formal verse structure.

How do I know if a poem has meter? How do I determine the meter?

To maintain a consistent meter, a poet has to choose words that fit. For
example, if a poet wants to write iambic poetry, s/he has to choose words that
have a naturally iambic rhythm. Words like betray and persuade will work in an
iambic poem because they are naturally iambic. They sound silly any other way.
However, candle and muscle will work best in a trochaic poem, because their
natural emphasis is on the first syllable. (However, a poet can use trochaic words
if s/he places a one syllable word in front of them. This often leads to poetic feet
ending in the middle of words - after one syllable - rather than the end.) It's not
surprising that most modern poetry is not metered, because it is very restrictive
and demanding.

Determining meter is usually a process of elimination. Start reading everything in

iambic by emphasizing every second syllable. 80 to 90% of metered poetry is
iambic. If it sounds silly or strange, because many of the poem's words do not
sound natural, then try trochaic, anapestic or dactylic rhythms. If none of these
sounds natural, then you probably do not have metered poetry at all (ie. it's free
verse).

If there are some lines that sound metered, but some that don't, the poem has an
irregular rhythm.
WORD SOUNDS
 
Another type of sound play is the emphasis on individual sounds and words:

Alliteration: the repetition of initial sounds on the same line or stanza - Big bad
Bob bounced bravely.
Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds (anywhere in the middle or end of a
line or stanza) - Tilting at windmills
Consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds (anywhere in the middle or end
of a line or stanza) - And all the air a solemn stillness holds. (T. Gray)
Onomatopoeia: words that sound like that which they describe - Boom! Crash!
Pow! Quack! Moo! Caress...

MEANING and POETRY

I said earlier that poetry is not always about hidden or indirect meanings
(sometimes called meaning play). Nevertheless, if often is a major part of
poetry, so here some of the important things to remember:

CONCRETENESS and PARTICULARITY

In general, poetry deals with particular things in concrete language, since our
emotions most readily respond to these things. From the poem's particular
situation, the reader may then generalize; the generalities arise by implication
from the particular. In other words, a poem is most often concrete and particular;
the "message," if there is any, is general and abstract; it's implied by the images.

Images, in turn, suggest meanings beyond the mere identity of the specific
object. Poetry "plays" with meaning when it identifies resemblances or makes
comparisons between things; common examples of this "figurative" comparison
include:

 ticking of clock = mortality

 hardness of steel = determination 
 white = peace or purity

Such terms as connotation, simile, metaphor, allegory, and symbol are aspects
of this comparison. Such expressions are generally called figurative or
metaphorical language.

 
DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

Word meanings are not only restricted to dictionary meanings. The full meaning
of a word includes both the dictionary definition and the special meanings and
associations a word takes in a given phrase or expression. For example, a tiger
is a carnivorous animal of the cat family. This is the literal or denotative meaning.
But we have certain associations with the word: sinuous movement, jungle
violence, and aggression. These are the suggestive, figurative or connotative
meanings.

 
FIGURATIVE/CONNOTATIVE DEVICES

1. Simile is the rhetorical term used to designate the most elementary form
of resemblances: most similes are introduced by "like" or "as." These
comparisons are usually between dissimilar situations or objects that have
something in common, such as "My love is like a red, red rose."
2. A metaphor leaves out "like" or "as" and implies a direct comparison
between objects or situations. "All flesh is grass." For more on metaphor,
click here.
3. Synecdoche is a form of metaphor, which in mentioning an important
(and attached) part signifies the whole (e.g. "hands" for labour).
4. Metonymy is similar to synecdoche; it's a form of metaphor allowing an
object closely associated (but unattached) with a object or situation to
stand for the thing itself (e.g. the crown or throne for a king or the bench
for the judicial system).
5. A symbol is like a simile or metaphor with the first term left out. "My love
is like a red, red rose" is a simile. If, through persistent identification of the
rose with the beloved woman, we may come to associate the rose with her
and her particular virtues. At this point, the rose would become a symbol.
6. Allegory can be defined as a one to one correspondence between a
series of abstract ideas and a series of images or pictures presented in
the form of a story or a narrative. For example, George Orwell's Animal
Farm is an extended allegory that represents the Russian Revolution
through a fable of a farm and its rebellious animals.
7. Personification occurs when you treat abstractions or inanimate objects
as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings (e.g.,
"nature wept" or "the wind whispered many truths to me").
8. Irony takes many forms. Most basically, irony is a figure of speech in
which actual intent is expressed through words that carry the opposite
meaning.

o Paradox: usually a literal contradiction of terms or situations

o Situational Irony: an unmailed letter
 o Dramatic Irony: audience has more information or greater
perspective than the characters
o Verbal Irony: saying one thing but meaning another
 Overstatement (hyperbole)
 Understatement (meiosis)
 Sarcasm

Irony may be a positive or negative force. It is most valuable as a mode of

perception that assists the poet to see around and behind opposed attitudes, and
to see the often conflicting interpretations that come from our examination of life. 

For more on irony, read the FVDES Notes on Irony.

For more about words used for "sound play," see the Open School Notes on
Figurative Language.
 

POETRY AS A LANGUAGE OF INDIRECTION

Thus, if we recognize that much of the essential quality of our experience is more
complex than a simple denotative statement can describe, then we must
recognize the value of the poet's need to search for a language agile enough to
capture the complexity of that experience. Consider this four-line stanza:

O Western wind, when wilt thou blow

That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!

The center of the poem is the lover's desire to be reunited with his beloved (lines
3 and 4). But the full meaning of the poem depends on the first two lines also.
Obviously, the lover associates his grief with the wind and rain, but the poet
leaves to implication, to indirection, just how the lover's situation and the wind
and rain are related. We note that they are related in several ways: the need for
experiencing and manifesting love is an inherent need, like nature's need for rain;
in a word, love, like the wind and rain, is natural. Secondly, the lover is living in a
kind of drought or arid state that can only be slaked by the soothing presence of
the beloved. Thirdly, the rising of the wind and the coming of the rain can neither
be controlled nor foretold exactly, and human affairs, like the lover's predicament,
are subject to the same sort of chance.

Undoubtedly, too, there are associations with specific words, like "Western" or
"small rain" that the reader is only half aware of but which nonetheless contribute
to meaning. These associations or connotations afford a few indirections that
enrich the entire poem. For example, "small rain" at once describes the kind of
rain that the lover wants to fall and suggests the joy and peace of lover's tears,
and "small" alone might suggest the daintiness or femininity of the beloved.
 

Introduction to Meter

TIMOTHY STEELE

nglish-language poetry is written mostly in iambic meters. “Meter” (from the

Greek metron) means “measure” and denotes the rhythmical organization of
verse lines. “Iambic” refers to a specific kind of rhythm that alternates between
relatively lightly stressed syllables and relatively heavily stressed ones. Because
iambic rhythm suits English speech more naturally and flexibly than other
rhythms, it has been the principal mode of English poetry from the time of
Geoffrey Chaucer (14th c.) to the present day.

Below are short passages from poems (the final one is actually a complete two-
line epigram) that illustrate the chief meters of English verse. All the selections
feature iambic rhythm. The lines, however, differ in length. The shortest has two
feet and four syllables. The longest has five feet and ten syllables. (A “foot” is the
basic rhythmical unit of a verse line; in an iambic line, this unit consists of a
metrically unaccented syllable followed by a metrically accented one.) As Robert
Frost once remarked, prefacing a proposed collection of his work for younger
readers, poets follow “The measured way, … so many feet to the line, seldom
less than two or more than five in our language” (Frost: Collected Poems, Prose,
and Plays, edited by Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson [New York: Library of
America, 1995], 847).

Who knows his will?

Who knows what mood
His hours fulfil?
His griefs conclude?
      (J.V. Cunningham, “Meditation on a Memoir,” 1-4)

How frightened you were once

—And not so long ago—
When late one night we took
Our pathway homeward through
The churchyard where you saw
Grey gravestones row on row.
      (Dick Davis, “Mariam Darbandi,” 1-6)

This youth too long has heard the break

Of waters in a land of change.
He goes to see what suns can make
From soil more indurate and strange.
      (Louise Bogan, “A Tale,” 1-4)

I rang them up while touring Timbuctoo,

Those bosom chums to whom you’re known as Who?
       (X. J. Kennedy, “To Someone Who Insisted I Look Up Someone”)

To clarify the structure of these selections, we can scan them. (“Scan” comes
from the Latin scandere, “to climb”; the etymology of the word suggests the process of
moving up or along, and analyzing step by step, a verse line.) Scanning lines involves
dividing them into their component feet and assigning a metrical value to each syllable. A
metrically unaccented syllable is conventionally noted with an “x,” a metrically accented
syllable with a “/.” Lines are named with reference to their prevailing rhythm and number
of feet.

 
 

We should bear in mind several points about scansion. First, scansion divides
lines according to units of rhythm, not units of sense. Scansion, in other words,
treats a line merely and abstractly as a row of syllables. It does not consider the
ways in which the syllables are clustered into words, phrases, clauses, or
sentences. Hence, though we sometimes find lines in which divisions between
feet coincide with divisions between words,

He goes | to see | what suns | can make

we just as often find lines in which they do not. For instance, in the second line of
Kennedy’s epigram, “touring” crosses the boundary between the third and fourth
feet and “Timbuctoo” crosses the boundary between the fourth and fifth feet:

I rang | them up | while tour <|> ing Tim <|> buctoo

Another point is that the only requirement of an iambic foot is that its second
syllable be weightier than its first. The exact degree of difference is, for purposes
of scansion and metrical analysis, irrelevant. Hence some iambs may consist of
two relatively light syllables (as long as the second still is heavier than the first)
and other iambs may consist of two relatively weighty syllables (again, as long as
the second still is heavier than the first).

We can make this point clearer by supplementing the conventional two-level

notation of scansion with a numerical four-level register, using 4 to stand strong
stress, 3 to stand for semi-strong stress, 2 for semi-weak stress, and 1 for weak
stress. With this supplementary notation, we can indicate that, though all the feet
in the following tetrameter are iambs, the second foot is lighter than the others:

Similarly, we can demonstrate that the first foot in the following iambic trimeter is
fairly heavy. (The second foot is perhaps relatively heavy, too.)

A third point—it’s related to and implicit in the second—is that we determine

whether a syllable is metrically unaccented or accented by comparing it solely to
the other syllable or syllables in the foot in which it appears. We do not weigh it
against all the other syllables in the line or the poem. Consequently, a metrically
unaccented syllable at one point in a line may actually carry more speech
emphasis than a metrically accented syllable at another point. Consider, for
example, this line:

Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat

      (Frost, “Hyla Brook,” 11)

Here “leaves,” the metrical off-beat of foot two, actually has more speech stress
than “by” the metrical beat of foot four:

The line, however, remains conventionally iambic, since the poet maintains the
fundamental lighter-to-heavier fluctuation and since the syllables in each
individual foot reflect the lighter-to-heavier relationship characteristic of iambs.

As these observations suggest, the fluctuation between lighter and heavier

syllables in iambic verse is rarely a uniform ka BOOM, ka BOOM, ka BOOM,  ka
BOOM, ka BOOM. Instead, the fluctuation involves a much more subtle and fluid
lighter-to-heavier movement. Sometimes the difference of stress levels between
syllables is great; sometimes it is only slight. And what good poets do, when they
write iambic verse, is to maintain the fluctuating pattern while continually
modulating it from within. They stick to the basic form, but realize it in ever-
varying ways.

It is from this interplay between the unchanging metrical pattern and the many-
shaded rhythms of natural speech—this interplay between the steady underlying
pulse of the meter and the variable phrases, clauses, and sentences riding over it
—that iambic verse draws its vitality and delight.

AN INTERESTING SIDE NOTE

From time to time, we will encounter in iambic verse two adjacent feet whose
syllables represent four rising degrees of stress:
Strictly speaking, the analyzed feet remain iambic, since the second syllable in
each is stronger than the first. However, because we have a light iamb followed
by a heavy one, the overall rise and fall of the line is briefly suspended in favor of
continuous ascent.

THE EFFECT OF VERBAL, GRAMMATICAL,

AND RHETORICAL CONTEXT ON ENGLISH METER

In ancient Greek and Latin prosody, which measures syllable length rather than
syllable stress, the metrical nature of syllables can be determined, for the most
part, on the basis of phonemics and phonetics. If a syllable has a long vowel or a
diphthong, it is long. If it has a short vowel but is “closed” by a consonant, it is
also long. Otherwise, it is short. Things are not so simple, however, with our
stress-based English meters. We cannot abstractly categorize the metrical
values of syllables to the degree that the ancients could, since verbal,
grammatical, and rhetorical context can affect stress, especially as it relates to
monosyllabic words, in all sorts of ways.

An illuminating instance of the effect of rhetorical context appears in

Shakespeare’s comment (Sonnets, 129.13-14) about the destructive
consequences of yielding to illicit sexual passion. (Though I shall focus on the
first of the lines below, I should mention with regard to the second that, in
Shakespeare's time, "heaven" was said as a monosyllable and could be treated
metrically as a monosyllable or a disyllable. Hence, though the last line seems for
us to have an extra syllable, for Shakespeare it does not.)

All this | the world | well knows | but none | knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell

Here the third foot of the divided line consists of the adverb “well” plus the verb
“knows”; then, two feet later, Shakespeare gives us another foot with the same
words, transposed. And, paradoxically, both feet are iambs. Shakespeare initially
perceives that everyone knows that lust is wrong, and then sadly adds that such
knowledge is not always sufficient to prevent dishonorable conduct:

All this | the world |well knows, | but none | knows well
(Shakespeare’s line also illustrates one advantage of understanding metrical
structure. It enables us to hear more readily, accurately, and sensitively than we
otherwise could what the poet is saying.)

Another illustrative case—this one involving grammatical rather than rhetorical

context—appears in Frost’s description (“The Egg and the Machine,” 5-6) of a
railroad-hating man who regrets not having sabotaged some track when he had
the chance:

He wished when he had had the track alone

He had attacked it with a club or stone

In the third foot of the first line of this couplet, “had” changes its metrical nature
because the poet is writing in the past perfect tense. The first “had” is merely
auxiliary, whereas the second “had”—the past participle of “have”—is the main
verb:

Some readers may note that, in the couplet’s second line, the auxiliary “had”
occupies a metrical beat, and this results from its verbal context or environment.
At this point, “had” is flanked fore and aft by relatively weak syllables—the
pronoun “He” and the unaccented syllable of “attacked.” As linguists tells us, it is
difficult to say a succession of syllables with exactly the same degree of stress,
and when we speak three light syllables in a row, we tend to “promote” the
middle one a little. To be sure, the auxiliary “had” doesn’t take as much actual
speech stress as the accented second syllable of the main verb “attacked.” But
the auxiliary has more stress than its immediate neighbors and therefore takes a
metrical beat:

Something similar occurs in the following line, where the relatively light
preposition “to” is promoted to a metrical beat as a result of being preceded by
the unaccented syllable of “turnip” and followed by the article “the”:

Conversely, a weighty word may be metrically “demoted” if flanked by other

weighty words. In the following line, for example, “warm” is a metrical off-beat
because it’s preceded the verb “think” and followed by the noun “days”:
 THE PRINCIPAL METRICAL VARIATIONS IN IAMBIC VERSE

Historically, there are two main metrical variations in iambic verse. The first
involves the “substitution” of a trochee (a foot consisting of a metrically accented
syllable followed by a metrically unaccented one) at the beginning of the line:

Trochaic substitutions can also appear elsewhere in the line, though such
substitutions are less frequent than those that occur in the first foot. The most
common place that these latter substitutions appear is in the third or fourth foot,
usually following a pause in sense, which may or may not be marked by
punctuation:

The second common variation is the so-called feminine (or “hypermetrical”)

ending—the addition or appearance of an extra unaccented syllable at the end of
a line:

Now and then, we’ll encounter a line with both a trochaic first foot and a feminine
ending:

Roman Jakobson once suggested that these variations evolved because,

situated at the beginnings and endings of line, they do not really disrupt the
rhythm. At the beginning of the line, there’s generally a grammatical juncture or a
pause in movement, and consequently the reader’s ear can assimilate a variation
there without too much trouble: no developing pattern of rhythm is broken.
Similarly, the extra unaccented syllable at the line end does not interrupt the
fluctuating iambic rhythm, but rather just continues it one syllable beyond where it
customarily ends.

However these two variations evolved, they have proved of great practical
assistance to poets. Many English words of two or more syllables start with a
heavy syllable or end with a light one. Though such words can be integrated into
the middle of the iambic line, it is useful also to have the option of setting them at
the head of the line or at the end of it. The conventions of the trochaic first foot
and of the feminine ending allow poets these alternative placements. Consider
the following line (115) from Frost’s “Generations of Men”:

Making allowance, making due allowance

This line twice features the fore-stressed disyllabic word “making” and the
middle-stressed trisyllabic word “allowance.” The second time “making” appears,
it is integrated iambically into the interior of the line; however, the convention of
the trochaic first foot lets Frost position the word at the line-beginning as well.
When “allowance” first appears, Frost merges it into the iambic rhythm of the
line’s interior; but the convention of the feminine ending permits Frost to employ
the word at the line-ending, too:

LOOSE IAMBIC

“All that can be done with words is soon told. So also with meters— particularly in
our language where there are virtually but two, loose iambic and strict iambic.”
           Frost, Collected Poems, Plays, and Prose, 776

Loose iambic is iambic verse that features, within its lines, occasional extra
metrically unaccented syllables. To put it another way, loose iambic involves
iambic verse in which anapestic feet are here and there substituted for iambic
feet. (An anapest is a foot with two metrically unaccented syllables, followed by a
metrically accented syllable.)

Loose iambics have been used mostly in rhymed verse in shorter measures.
Shorter measures are less likely than longer ones to be undermined or confused
by extra unaccented syllables, because the identity of the line can be maintained
by the rhyme, by the regular beat-count, and by the tight compass in which both
are operating. Hardy’s “The Wound,” which has an iambic dimeter base,
exemplifies the loose iambic mode:
Though six of this poem’s sixteen feet are anapests, the iambic current is clear.
And because the ear can easily locate the two metrical beats in each line, and
because rhymes point the line-endings, the additional light syllables do not
obscure the measure.

Other outstanding poems in loose iambic dimeter include Louise Bogan’s

“Knowledge” and Mark van Doren’s “Good Night.” Fine poems in loose iambic
trimeter include William Butler Yeats’s “Fiddler of Dooney” and Wilbur’s “The
Ride.” Excellent poems in loose iambic tetrameter include Robert Browning’s
“Meeting at Night” and “Parting at Morning,” Yeats’s “The Song of the Old
Mother,” Frost’s “Need of Being Versed in Country Things,” and Janet Lewis’s
“No-Winter Country.” Loose iambic poems which mix lines of different length
include Walter Scott’s “Proud Maisie” (trimeters and dimeters), Elizabeth Barrett
Browning’s “A Musical Instrument” (tetrameters and trimeters), Hardy’s “The
Oxen” (tetrameters and trimeters), and Gavin Ewart’s amusing “2001: The
Tennyson/Hardy Poem” (tetrameters and dimeters). Generally, poets have
avoided adding extra syllables to the pentameter. The line is so flexible to begin
with that accessory elements may cause it to sag. Still, loose iambic pentameters
are interestingly employed by Frost in “Mowing,” “On Looking Up by Chance at
the Constellations,” and “Wilful Homing.” And Hardy’s extraordinary “Afterwards”
features a cross-rhyming quatrain whose first and third lines are loose iambic
hexameters and whose second and fourth lines are loose iambic pentameters.

A NOTE ON ELISION

“Elision” refers to the contracting or slurring, for the sake of metrical convenience,
of two syllables into one. This practice occurs chiefly under one of two conditions.
The first involves adjacent vowels, which may be either within the same word or
facing one another across the gap between words. (In the scansions below, an
arrow marks where the two syllables are blended together.)
The second condition under which elision chiefly takes place concerns pairs of
lightly stressed vowels that appear in the same trisyllabic or polysyllabic word
and that are separated by one of the liquid consonants (“l” or “r”) or by one of the
nasal consonants (“n” or “m”). In such cases, poets may, if they wish, syncopate
away the first light vowel:

As the examples above indicate, earlier poets frequently note elisions

orthographically, by means of a metrical apostrophe. One reason we need to
understand elision is that contemporary editions of such poets often feature
modernized spellings that remove the original apostrophes; and unless we’re on
our toes, the alterations may leave us confused as to metrical structures of lines
involved. Unless we understand elision, we might mistakenly think, when reading
in a contemporary anthology line 61 of Gray’s “Elegy,”

The applause of listening senates to command

that the poet intended a line of 12 syllables, whereas what he originally wrote and
published was a regular iambic pentameter:
There’s a related issue. Because the metrical apostrophe has long since fallen
out of fashion, we should be alert, when we see a modern or contemporary poet
writing a line that appears to have an extra syllable, to the possibility that one of
the syllables is contractible. For instance, when Frost writes in “The Mountain,”

But what would interest you about the brook

we might guess that he is treating “interest” not in its full three-syllable form but in
its syncopated two-syllable form—”in-trist.” And in fact when we listen to Frost
read the line on the Library of Congress recording of his work, we can hear that
this is what he’s doing:

As I remark in All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing, elision is a thorny topic. It
reflects both natural speech habits (English is notoriously subject to clipping) and
conventions of a purely literary sort, which have less to do with native
pronunciation than with the practices of ancient Greek and Latin (and modern
Italian and French) poets.

Before leaving this subject, I should emphasize a point made previously. Elision
is, in English poetry, optional. English poets have historically been at liberty to
treat contractible syllables as contracted or uncontracted, according to their
metrical convenience.

NON-IAMBIC METERS

The two chief non-iambic rhythms in English poetry are trochaic and anapestic.
As has been mentioned, a trochee is a foot consisting of a metrically accented
syllable followed by a metrically unaccented one, and an anapest has two
metrically unaccented syllables followed by a metrically accented syllable.

Here is an epigram in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Charles Beeching (1859-

1919); the epigram satirizes Benjamin Jowett, the famous nineteenth-century
Oxford don and scholar of Greek:

First come I; my name is Jowett.

There’s no knowledge but I know it.
I am Master of this college:
What I don’t know isn’t knowledge.
The most famous American poem in trochaics is Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha,
which is in unrhymed trochaic tetrameters:

(3.64-67)

Poets who rhyme in trochaic verse often drop the final unaccented syllable from
the line. This procedure is called “catalexis” (a word related to the Greek
katalektikos, “incomplete”), and it spares the poet the necessity of using
disyllabic rhymes, which tend to jingle. Stopping at the seventh position, that is,
allows the poet to rhyme securely on a single metrically accented syllable.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Best,” a poem in catalectic trochaic tetrameter,
illustrates this procedure. (I’ll use a caret to indicate the omitted final syllable of
the measure.)

Poets will sometimes mix catalectic trochaic tetrameters and acatalectic (i.e.
complete) trochaic ones, as Samuel Johnson does in his “Short Song of
Congratulation”:
And sometimes poets mix iambic tetrameters with catalectic trochaic tetrameters,
as A. E. Housman does in “To an Athlete Dying Young”:

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,

And set you at your threshold down,

Indeed, because the four-beat line is so emphatic, it is possible to mix all of the
iambic-trochaic possibilities together and still maintain some sense of metrical
coherence. As evidence of this, we can cite Keats’s “Give me Women, Wine, and
Snuff,” a little six-line tour de force consisting of two catalectic trochaic
tetrameters, two acatalectic trochaic tetrameters, and two iambic tetrameters:

A longer trochaic line that English poets (particularly in the nineteenth century)
sometimes use is the trochaic octameter. Famous poems in this measure include
Alfred Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” and Robert Browning’s “A Toccata of
Galuppi’s,” in both of which the lines are regularly catalectic.
The best known poem in English in anapestic measure is probably Byron’s
“Destruction of Sennacherib,” which is written in tetrameters:

The sixth and eighth lines of Byron’s poem feature a variation common in
anapestic verse. The first syllable of the line is dropped.

Two other trisyllabic rhythms might be mentioned—the dactylic and the

amphibrachic. These, however, have figured less prominently in English verse
than the other rhythms, though in the nineteenth century Robert Southey,
Longfellow, and Arthur Hugh Clough conducted interesting experiments with
dactylic hexameters. I discuss these experiments, as well as variant verse modes
such as syllabics and free verse, in All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing.
Readers interested in these modes can consult that book, or poetry guides,
manuals, or encyclopedias such as Derek Attridge’s Rhythms of English Poetry,
Alfred Corn’s The Poem’s Heartbeat, Babette Deutsch’s Poetry Handbook, John
Drury’s Poetry Dictionary, John Hollander’s Rhyme’s Reason, Mary Kinzie’s
Poet’s Guide to Poetry, James McAuley’s Versification: A Short Introduction, Alex
Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan’s New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and
Poetics, George Saintsbury’s Historical Manual of English Prosody, Karl Shapiro
and Robert Beum’s Prosody Handbook, Lewis Turco’s New Book of Forms, and
Miller Williams’s Patterns of Poetry.

CONCLUSION: SOME OF THE

ADVANTAGES OF METRICAL COMPOSITION

It seems appropriate to end this discussion by noting a few of the particular

pleasures and benefits that meter offers the reader and writer.

Well used, meter can make a singular appeal to the ear, mind, and memory.
Meter can give language a rare elegance and tension, enabling the poet to unite
verbal fluidity with stable form. Working together, the idiosyncratic personal voice
and the normative metrical pattern continually transform and are transformed by
each other. The metrical pattern gives the personal voice a resistant grace and
solidity, while the personal voice infuses the pattern, in itself merely an abstract
schema, with vigor and suppleness. Moreover, against ground-bass of meter,
shades of accent can be more sensitively registered than is possible in non-
metrical media, and the relative weight and speed of words and phrases may be
more acutely felt. Also, because meter operates concurrently with grammar, the
poet can regulate the two in all sorts of interesting ways. For example, by making
lines end at and coincide with grammatical junctures, the poet can highlight or
emphasize meaning. Conversely, by running sentence structure on over the end
of a line—by setting metrical units at variance with syntactical ones—the poet
can surprisingly extend or shift meaning. So, too, meter can help poets to move
between different levels of style: meter can give staying power and rhythmical
interest to lower-keyed passages, and its steady undercurrent may help to
support material that features a greater elevation or dignity of tone.

Finally, metrical composition is fun. To be sure, the Muse can be demanding and
the craft can present difficulties; but when the challenges are successfully met,
the result is a singular and magical fusion of fixed measure with fluid idiomatic
speech—a magical reconciliation of the conflicting claims of rule and freedom,
stability and surprise, impersonal form and personal expression.

Discussing Poetry Forms:

Sound and Structure

Resources

Poetry Alive: Reflections

Larry Liffiton and John McAllister (ed.)

Canadian Writer's Companion

Luengo, Anthony

Completing this lesson will help you to:

 learn about the various forms of poetry

 
Poetry comes in a wide variety of forms, such as free verse, blank verse,

couplet, sonnet, quatrain, cinquaine, diamante, limerick, haiku, and

ballad. Many forms, such as haiku and sonnet, were originally

developed in other languages but became popular with poets writing in

English. Thus, form in poetry refers to the way words and sentences

are structured in a poem, and the kind of sounds that may come

within a given structure.

In this lesson you will review some of the terms used to distinguish

different forms of poetry. As you are learning these terms, keep in mind

that a poem's form is meant to work with its other elements to create

an underlying theme.

Categories of Poetry

Probably the most basic categories of poetic forms are narrative, lyric and
descriptive poems.

Narrative poetry tells a story. It combines poetic techniques, such as rhyme and
alliteration, with the elements of fiction, such as characters and a recognizable plot.

One common sub-type of narrative poetry is the ballad. A ballad tells a

story of a particular time and place, usually over many verses. It often

includes a refrain - lines or verses that are repeated at regular intervals. Ballads

were originally chanted or sung, so they are very structured in style.

 

Note:

Don't confuse ballad with ballade. A ballade is a traditional type of

formal lyric originally developed in France.

Lyric poetry, on the other hand, may tell about events, but the focus is on creating a
mood or recalling a feeling. Lyric poems express the character, impresssions and
emotions of the poet, and are usually short.

There are many different sub-types of lyric poems. Here are a few examples:

 Love song
 Patriotic song
 Hymn
 Elegy (a mournful poem or lament, sometimes rather long)
 Ode (usually addressed to a person, thing, or routine)
 Sonnet (a special type having fourteen lines)

Thus, a major division in poetry is between story telling and personal emotion.

For example, "Coaster-Waggon on Indian Grove", Poetry Alive: Reflections, p. 30,

is most clearly a narrative poem because it describes events as they occurred.

"Childhood" (Poetry Alive: Reflections, p. 25) is definitely a lyric poem. Although

some events are mentioned, the focus is on recalling childhood images and feelings

rather than specific events.

Sometimes you might find it difficult to distinguish between lyric and

narrative poems. 'Those Winter Sundays", Poetry Alive: Reflections,

p. 27) tells you about the father getting up and warming the house,
so you might think this is a narrative. But look more closely and you'll

see that there isn't a plot structure of "beginning, middle, and end."

The focus is on recalling images and the feelings associated with them.

That makes it a lyric poem.

Today, anthologies of poetry are likely to contain more lyric poems

than narrative poems.

A third major type of poem is the descriptive poem. A descriptive "looks outward"
and describes the world as seen by the poet. As you can imagine, it involves a great
deal of imagery and uses many adjectives to describe a scenery or a building or an
event. Because it tends to lack an inner, emotional psychology, it is not as popular as
the other two types. The Romantics, like Wordsworth, were the last to consistently
use descriptive poetry in their descriptions of the sublime elements of nature.
Features of Lyric Poetry

Lyric poems are often divided into stanzas or verses. Stanzas are

usually separated by a single blank line. Stanzas within a poem may

have the same form or may vary. The poet also tries to develop

interesting forms based on variations of rhyme, rhythm and metre

(i.e. "sound play").

Rhyme

Rhyme is the repetition of sounds in different words. Rhyme can occur

within lines (internal rhyme) or - more usually - at the end of lines (end rhyme).

A rhyme scheme is a short formula for describing the pattern of rhyme

in a poem. End words that rhyme are assigned the same letter.

For example, the rhyme scheme for this poem is aabb.

"Thoughts on Poetic Terms"

English 11, it seems to me                 

a
Has plenty of terms for poetry,              
a
I've made lots of notes and done my
b
best,    
b
I'm betting these terms are on the test.       

Obviously, not all poems follow the "aabb" rhyme scheme. If the word

at the end of a line does not rhyme with either "a" or "b" it is labeled

"c," and so on. The guided practice will allow you to identify the rhyme

scheme for several poems. Be aware that much modern poetry has no
rhyme scheme at all.

Rhythm

If you have ever studied music, or played an instrument, you will know

that music is broken into time units or a certain number of beats in a

bar or a line. This creates rhythm. Most poetry is broken up into units

or beats in a similar way.

To show a poem's rhythm, you divide the words into syllables then

decide which syllables are stressed and which are not. A stressed

syllable makes you raise your voice somewhat and linger over the

accented syllable. By reading a word aloud you will hear the natural

stress on the strong syllable.

Say the following words aloud. Notice where you place the stress or

emphasis.

depart    Did you hear the emphasis on "part":

remain    Did you hear the emphasis on "main":

hemlock  Did you hear the emphasis on "hem":

Indicating Stressed and Unstressed Syllables

( / ) stressed (you might like to know that the technical term for this

is ictus)

( u ) unstressed

Metre

Metre refers to the particular rhythm or pattern of stressed and

unstressed syllables in a poem.

The unit of metre in poetry is the foot. A foot contains one stressed

syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. Here are the most

common types of feet that poets can use:

Iambic:

Two syllables. The stress is on the second syllable.

gugg/
be gin

Trochaic

Two syllables. The stress is on the first syllable.

g/gggu
lone ly

Anapestic
Three syllables. Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one.

uggguggg/
con tra dict

Dactylic

Three syllables. The first syllable is stressed, followed by two unstressed ones.

g/  
lone li ness

Spondaic

Two stressed syllables. Emphasizes part of a line. Usually follows two

unstressed syllables in the previous foot.

g/gggg/
rain cloud

The name for the metre in a poem depends on the number of feet in

each line.

Monometre: one foot

Dimetre: two feet

Trimetre: three feet

Tetrametre: four feet

Pentametre: five feet

Hexametre: six feet

Heptametre: seven feet

Oxtometre: eight feet

Free Verse and Formal Verse

There is one more set of terms you need to know about the structure of

poetry: free verse and formal verse.

Free Verse

Free verse is lyric poetry that doesn't follow a particular rhyme pattern

or metre but varies in its rhythm according to the mood the poet wants

to create. "Childhood" in Poetry Alive: Reflections, p. 25 is an

example of free verse.

Free verse poetry has:

- no set rhythm that is very obvious.

- no set rhyme scheme.

- lines of irregular length.

Note:

Don't confuse free verse with blank verse. Blank verse does not rhyme,

but it does follow a regular rhythm - iambic pentametre.

 
Formal Verse

Formal verse is poetry that follows one of the traditional, named

patterns for rhythm, rhyme, and stanzas. Formal verse includes

sonnets and haikus.

 
 

Scansion: Putting It All Together

The analysis of the patterns of rhythm in poetry is known as scansion

(i.e. to "scan"). When you are asked to scan a poem, follow these steps:

1. Determine the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in

the poem.

2. Draw a line separating each foot, then count the number of

feet per line.

3. Using the information from steps 1 and 2, name the type of

metre for the poem (e.g. tetrametre).

Have a look at the example below, which is from Thomas Gray's "Elegy

Written in a Country Churchyard." The first stanza of the poem has

been written for you so you can see its metre and foot pattern.

guggg/ggguggg/    guggg/   
The cur / few tolls / the knell / of par / ting day

guggg/ggguggg/    
The low / ing herd / wind slow / ly o'er / the lea,

guggg/    ggugggg/gggg
The plow / man home / ward plods / his wear / y way

gu   g /gggggugggg/g
And leaves / the world / to dark / ness and / to me.
 

As this poem follows a pattern of one unstressed syllable and one

stressed syllable, the name of the metre is iambic.

Now, count how many feet there are. Count the number of units

divided by the vertical lines. You will see that there are five feet per line,

making it pentametre. So, the name and number of the metre of the

poem is iambic pentametre.

When you interpret a poem, you should always pay attention to the

metre. Your description of the form should describe the rhythm as

regular rhythm (following a general pattern), or irregular rhythm (no

general pattern). Where there is a regular rhythm, describe the metre

in as much detail as you can.

 
 

Guided Practice 3.2A 1:

Instructions

Below are stanzas from five different poems. Identify the rhyme

scheme for these stanzas by writing the correct letter at the end of each

line. (1 mark for each question)

1.      Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

"Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas

2.      When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide,

Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent

"On My Blindness" by John Milton

3.     Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

'The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy

 

4.      Let me take this other glove off

As the vox humana swells,

And the beauteous fields of Eden

Bask beneath the Abbey bells.

Here, where England's statesmen lie,

Listen to a lady's cry.

"In Westminster Abbey" by John Betjeman

5.      With loitering step and quiet eye,

Beneath the low November sky,

I wandered in the woods, and found

A clearing, where the broken ground

Was scattered with black stumps and briers,

And the old wreck of forest fires

"In November" by Archibald Lampman

Answer to Guided Practice 3.2A 1

1.
2.
3.
4.
5. aabbcc

 
 
 

Guided Practice 3.2A 2:

Instructions

Analyze (scan) these lines of poetry by doing the following:

1. Determine the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in

the poem.

2. Draw a line separating each foot, then count the number of

feet per line.

3. Using the information from 1 and 2, name the type of metre

for the poem.

1.      I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vale and hill

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth

2.      It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,

The holy time is quiet as a Nun

"It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" by William

Wordsworth

3.      That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

"Sonnet LXXIII: That Time Of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold"

by William Shakespeare
4.      Double, double, toil and trouble

Fire burn and cauldron bubble

"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare

5.      The Miller was a chap of sixteen stone,

A great stout fellow big in brawn and bone.

"The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer (Translated by

Nevil Coghill)

Answer to Guided Practice 3.2A 2

1. Iambic

2. Iambic

3. Iambic pentametre

4. Trochaic

5. Iambic pentametre