Meter (poetry)

Metre (American spelling: meter) describes the regular linguistic sound patterns of verse. Scansion is the analysis of poetry's metrical and rhythmic patterns; prosody is sometimes used to describe poetic meter, and sometimes indicates the analysis of similar aspects of language in linguistics. Meter is part of many formal verse forms.

English poetry

Most English meter is classified according to the same system as Classical meter with an important difference: beats and offbeats take the place of long and short syllables. In most English verse, the meter can be considered as a sort of back beat, against which natural speech rhythms vary expressively.

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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 sonnets, and much else besides in English are written in iambic pentameter. Stanzas 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).

Related Topics:
Iambic pentameter - John Milton - Paradise Lost - Sonnet - Blank verse - William Shakespeare - Tennyson - Ulysses - The Princess

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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).

Related Topics:
Heroic couplet - Verse form - Eighteenth century - Pale Fire

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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 rhymes 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 hymnody (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:

Related Topics:
Ballad - Tetrameter - Trimeter - Rhyme - Hymn - Amazing Grace

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Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound

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That saved a wretch like me;

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I once was lost, but now am found;

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Was blind, but now I see.

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Another poet who put this form to use was Emily Dickinson:

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Great streets of silence led away

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To neighborhoods of pause;

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Here was no notice — no dissent —

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No universe — no laws.

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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 languages.

Related Topics:
Old English poetry - Alliterative verse - Germanic language

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