Saturday, December 16, 2017

Rhythm and Meter

Rhythm and Meter in Poetry

Rhythm

In Poetry, Rhythm refers to the way the sound of a poem moves in a general sense either in part or through its whole length (Wainwright, 2004; 58)
Rhythm is refers to any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound. (Perrine, 1977; 180)
Most often when we speak of the rhythm of a poem we mean the recurrences of stresses and pauses in it (Kennedy and Gioia 2002; 189)
Syllables: Stressed and Slack 
Words come with syllables in the speaking. A stress (or accent) is a greater amount of force given to one syllable in speaking than is given to another (a slack) (Kennedy and Gioia 2002; 189)
Meter/Metre
Metre is more specific (than rhythm) and refers to a set pattern which recurs line by line (Wainwright, 2004; 58).
Meter is the kind of rhythm we can tap our foot to (Perrine, 1977; 180).
Metre (is) the rhythmic pattern (Lennard 2006; 3).
Prosody
Prosody is the study of metrical structures in poetry.
In prosody, we try to be aware of the meter. To be aware of the meter, we need only listen to a poem or sound its words to ourselves.
If we want to understand what the poet is trying to say, we scan a line or a poem by indicating the stresses in it. This is Scansion. 
Scansion
Scansion is not just a matter of pointing the syllables; it is also a matter of listening to a poem and making sense of it.
The idea in scanning a poem is to make a diagram of the stresses and the slacks we find in it.
The marks are ᵕ and ‘ .

Types of Meter
The iamb, consisting of two syllables, only the second accented (as in "good-bye")
The trochee, two syllables, only the first accented (as in "awful")
The anapest, three syllables, with only the third stressed (as in "Halloween")
The dactyl, one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed (as in "wonderful")
The spondee, two consecutive syllables that are both stressed (as in "big deal")

Lengths of Quantitative Line
Monometer   one foot
Dimeter   two feet
Trimeter   three feet
Tetrameter   four feet
Pentameter   five feet
Hexameter   six feet
 

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