III- Rhythm and Meter

IV- Form
 Rhyme
Rhyme occurs when the last vowel and consonant sounds of two words are identical.
In Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” Fire rhymes with desire, ice with twice and suffice, hate with
great. Rhyme refers to rhymes at the end of the line.
Other rhymes are called “internal rhymes”
Sometimes rhymes are only appropriate.(a rhyme in which the sounds are similar, but not exact,
as in home and come or close and lose) These are called near or slant rhymes.
 Some say the world will end in fire, 
Some say in ice. 
From what I’ve tasted of desire 
I hold with those who favor fire. 
But if it had to perish twice, 
I think I know enough of hate 
To say that for destruction ice 
Is also great 
And would suffice.
Emily Dickinson often employs near rhyme as in the second stanza of “I never saw a moor”
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.
 Rhyme Scheme 
It is the pattern of rhymes established by the arrangement of
rhymes in a stanza or a poem at the end of each line of a poem. It is
generally described by using letters of the alphabet to denote the
recurrence of rhyming lines:
 Some say the world will end in fire,  a
Some say in ice.  b
From what I’ve tasted of desire  a
I hold with those who favor fire.  a
But if it had to perish twice,  b
I think I know enough of hate  c
To say that for destruction ice  b
Is also great  c
And would suffice. b
An example of the “…??…..” rhyming scheme, from To Anthea, who may
Command him Anything, written by Robert Herrick:
Bid me to weep, and I will weep
While I have eyes to see
And having none, yet I will keep
A heart to weep for thee
 **********
Neither Out Far nor in Deep (By  Robert Frost)
The people along the sand            (...)
All turn and look one way.             (...)
They turn their back on the land.   (…)
They look at the sea all day.          (…)
As long as it takes to pass             (…)
A ship keeps raising its hull;         (...)
The wetter ground like glass         (…)
Reflects a standing gull.               (…)
 Meter
Meter is the “beat” of a poem. It was originally measured by “stresses” and a line ended after a specific number of accented syllables. Since the
1400’s, meter has tended to be measured by accented and unaccented syllables. The unit of meter is called the foot.
The length of lines is described by the number of repeated “meters” in the line.
Metrical lines are named for the number of feet in a line:
(1) monometer
(2) dimeter
(3) trimeter;
(4) tetrameter
(5) pentameter
(6) hexameter
(7) heptameter
(8) Octameter

Iamb is the most common foot in English . It consists of two syllables, the second one of which is accented .
Another common foot is the trochee (two syllables but with the first accented).
Here are some iambic tetrameter lines from the beginning of William Wordsworth’s “I wander lonely as a cloud”:
I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host, of golden daffodils; 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

 I wan|-dered lone|-ly as | a cloud 
That floats | on high | o’er vales | and hills.
 Ballad  meter

Ballad Meter
is the source of much debate. The debate focuses on whether you should just count 
the number of accented syllables (stresses) in lines alternating between four stresses and three
, or see these lines as containing four and three feet (usually iambic or trochaic) respectively. B
allad meter is also called hymn meter and you should be able to sing a ballad to the tune of "A
mazing Grace" or, less elegantly, to "The Yellow Rose  of Texas." 
We see the classic pattern in "Sir Patrick Spence." Notice that although the basic  rhythm 
is iambic, there are trochees(words like Drinkin') that begin and end some  of the lines. 
The king sits in Dunfermline toun, 
Drinkin' the bluid red wine 
'0 whaur will I get a skeely skipper, 
To sail this ship o' mine?' 

Then up and spak an eldern knicht, 
Sat at the king's richt knee, 
'Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor, 
That ever sail'd the sea.' 
The king sits in Dunfermline toun,
Drinking the blude-red wine o:
"O whare will I get a skeely skipper
To sail this new ship of mine o?“
O up and spake an eldern-knight,
Sat at the king's right knee:
"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That ever saild the sea."
In the "literary ballad" "La Belle Dames Sans Merci",  John Keats tends to 
shorten the fourth line, but still includes three stresses.  

Ah, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 
Alone and palely loitering; 
The sedge is wither'd from the lake, 
And no birds sing.  

Emily Dickinson uses the basic cadence of ballad meter in most of her  poems:  

There's a certain Slant of light, 
Winter Afternoons-- 
That oppresses, like the Heft 
Of Cathedral Tunes-- 

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us-- 
We can find no scar, 
But internal difference, 
Where the Meanings, are---
 Iambic Pentameter

Iambic Pentameter is defined as a line of verse consisting of

five metrical feet where each foot consists of an unstressed syllable
and a stressed syllable.
A standard line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:
da DUM / da DUM/ da DUM / da DUM / da DUM
Straightforward examples of this rhythm can be heard in the
opening line of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 12:
When I do count the clock that tells the time
Another example is in John Keats' To Autumn:
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
A standard line of iambic pentameter would look like this:
× / × / × / × / × /
The scansion of the examples above can be notated as follows:

 × / × / × / × / × /
When I do count the clock that tells the time
 × / × / × / × /× /
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
 Form

Stanza: a stanza is a division of four or more lines having a fixed

length, meter, or rhyming scheme.
It is the poetic version of a paragraph. This version is made by
arranging the lines into units separated by a blank line.
On the basis of a fixed number of lines and rhyming scheme,
traditional English language poems have the following kinds of
stanzas:
Couplet
Tercet
Quatrain
Quintain
Sestet
 Couplet

Couplet: Two successive lines of poetry usually of equal length and similar meter, with end-
word s that rhyme.
In Andrew Marvell’s “An Epitaph”, there are three couplets in the first stanza. ( a six-line
stanza is called a sestet)

ENOUGH; and leave the rest to Fame! 

‘Tis to commend her, but to name. 
Courtship which, living, she declined, 
When dead, to offer were unkind: 
Nor can the truest wit, or friend,         
Without detracting, her commend.

In Archibald Macleish’s “Ars Poetica”, the couplets are not of equal length but are each stanzas
A poem should be equal to: 
Not true. 

For all the history of grief 

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.  
 Quatrain & Free Verse
Quatrain: A poem, or a stanza of 4 lines of verse, usually with a rhyme scheme of
abab or its variant abcb.
Free Verse: a form of poetry that does not contain repeated rhythms or regular rhyme, but does use other sound devices like
assonance, alliteration and imagery.
Notice how these “free” verses from A. R. Ammons’ “Eyesight” are written in stanzas of similar length.

It was May before my

attention came
to spring and
my word I said

to the southern slopes

I've 
missed it, it
came and went before
I got right to see:

don't worry, said the mountain,

try the later northern slopes
or if 

you can climb, climb

into spring: but
said the mountain
it's not that way
with all things, some
that go are gone
 Blank Verse

Blank Verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is

common in Shakespeare’s plays and many longer poems,
such as John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. It begins with the
following lines:

OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit 

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, 
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top 
 Ballad

Ballad is a traditional and still popular form that is a

vehicle for narrative (story) poems which were and still
are often sung.
Originally passed on orally, they have been a literary
form since 19th c. when some of the Romantic poets used
its form for “old fashioned” narratives.
It is typically written in quatrain of alternating 8 and 6
syllable-lines rhymed abcb.
Traditional Ballads were stories of love or adventure or
both that almost always ended tragically.
One of the most famous traditional ballads,
“Sir Patrick Spens”, begins:
 “Sir Patrick Spens”
The King sits in Dunfermline town, 
Drinking the blood-red wine; 
"O where shall I get a skeely skipper 
To sail this ship or mine?" 
Then up and spake an eldern knight, 
Sat at the King's right knee: 
"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor 
That ever sailed the sea." 

The King has written a broad letter, 

And sealed it with his hand, 
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens, 
Was walking on the strand. 

"To Noroway, to Noroway, 

To Noroway o'er the foam; 
The King's daughter of Noroway, 
'Tis thou must fetch her home." 

The first line that Sir Patrick read, 

A loud laugh laughed he; 
The next line that Sir Patrick read, 
The tear blinded his ee. 
 Sonnet

A fourteen-line poem, usually composed in iambic

pentameter employing one of several rhyme
schemes.
There are three major types of sonnets, upon which
all other variations of the form are based.
“Petrarchan” or “Italian” sonnet,
 the Shakespearean or “English” sonnet, and
 the “Spenserian” sonnet.
A Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave rhymed
abbaabba and a "sestet" rhymed either cdecde,
cdccdc, or cdedce.
The octave poses a question or problem, relates a
narrative, or puts forth a proposition; the sestet
presents a solution to the problem, comments upon
the narrative, or applies the proposition put forth in
the octave.
 Shakespearean sonnet

A fourteen-line poem, usually composed in iambic

pentameter, employing one of several rhyme
schemes.
The Shakespearean sonnet is divided into three
quatrains and a couplet rhymed abab cdcd efef gg.
The couplet provides a comment on the narrative or
problem put forth in the quatrains.
 The “Spenserian” Sonnet.

It uses three quatrains and a couplet like the

Shakespearean
The Spenserian sonnet uses three quatrains and a
couplet like the Shakespearean, but links their three
rhyme schemes in this way: abab bcbc cdcd ee.
The Spenserian sonnet develops its theme in two
parts like the Petrarchan, its final six lines resolving
a problem, analyzing a narrative, or applying a
proposition put forth in its first eight lines.
 Two linguistic Devices: Inversion &Parallelism

Inversion: the reordering (inverting) of the usual

word order of a sentence, often by placing the subject
after the verb as in the lines of Philip Larkin's from
"Coming":
On longer evenings,
Light, still and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses
Parallelism is a general term that includes a number of
specific devices all of which are rooted in having different
parts of a sentence or corresponding parts in two
sentences mirror each other in structure. Parallelism is a
frequent device in prose as well as poetry. 
Tennyson’s “Break, Break , Break” includes two sentences
that parallel each other in structure.

O, well for the fisherman's boy, 

       That he shouts with his sister at play! 
O, well for the sailor lad, 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay!