Poetry: Sound, Line, Meter

This is Unit Six of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part one of two: how a poem sounds, and how to see that on the page. The five procedure units are behind you and this is the first craft unit. Here is its governing idea, and part two pays it off on a single question: sound devices are examined by precision between neighbouring terms, so every definition has to be sharp enough to exclude its neighbour. Poetry is the largest band on the exam, and its device questions offer five real devices with one correct, so knowing that a device exists is not the skill; choosing among neighbours is. We begin with meter as the glossary defines it, rhythm plus measure, and supply the foot and stress the glossary uses without defining. Then the five feet, with the glossary's own example lines. Then how a metre is named, foot then count, from pentameter to a two-beat line the anchor misprints. Then scansion as a procedure. Last the forms: blank verse against free verse, and six fixed forms from the glossary. By the end you will be able to define meter and hear stress. To name and hear the five feet. To read any metre's name. To scan a line and name a poem for its majority. And to define the forms from blank verse to the sonnet.

Five entries to start: why sound is examined, what a device question looks like, meter as the glossary defines it, and the two ideas it depends on without defining, the foot and stress.

Sound devices are the thinnest ground.

AIL 0501 Why Sound Is Examined

Poetry is the exam's largest band, and its device questions reward precision between neighbouring terms. Sound devices are the thinnest ground for most candidates because they are heard rather than read. Learning to see them on the page is what this unit does, and neighbouring terms are the whole difficulty of it.

Five real devices, one correct.

AIL 0502 What a Device Question Looks Like

The board points at a phrase and asks which device it uses, offering five real devices as options. Sample question one works this way. The skill is not recognising that a device exists but choosing correctly among neighbours, which requires definitions sharp enough to exclude, and all five options are genuine devices.

Rhythm plus measure, in one name.

AIL 0503 Meter, as the Anchor Defines It

The glossary gives meter as a term describing the rhythm and measure of a line of poetry. Rhythm is the pattern of stresses; measure is how many units the line runs to. Every metrical name on this exam combines those two ideas, and naming them separately makes the names readable; every metre name has two halves.

The foot is the repeating unit.

AIL 0504 The Foot

A foot is the repeating unit of stressed and unstressed syllables a metre is built from. The glossary has no headword for foot, though its metre entries depend on the idea. This is the standard sense, and without it the four-beat and five-beat names cannot be explained; the glossary uses the idea undefined.

Stress is relative to its neighbours.

AIL 0505 Stress

Stress is the relative emphasis a syllable carries when spoken. It is relative, not absolute: a syllable is stressed compared with its neighbours. Read the line aloud in your head and listen for where the voice presses, because English metre is built on pressure rather than length. Read aloud, in your head, always.

Seven entries on the feet: the iamb and why it dominates, the trochee, the two three-syllable feet with the glossary's gap between them, and the spondee.

Unstressed, then stressed.

AIL 0506 The Iamb

The glossary says the iambic rhythm pattern consists of one unstressed sound or beat followed by one stressed one. Its example is Gray's line: the curfew tolls the knell of parting day. The glossary prints the stresses marked, which is worth copying as a habit, since this is the default of English verse.

The iamb sounds like speech.

AIL 0507 Why the Iamb Dominates English

Ordinary English phrases fall into unstressed-stressed pairs without effort: the house, a book, to go. Iambic verse therefore sounds like speech rather than chant. When a line departs from it, the departure is audible and usually meaningful, which is what makes metrical variation examinable; departures are audible and deliberate.

Stressed, then unstressed.

AIL 0508 The Trochee

A trochee reverses the iamb: stressed then unstressed, as in garden or tiger. The glossary has no headword for trochee, so this is the standard sense. Trochaic openings are common even in iambic poems, and a reversed first foot is one of the most frequent variations in English verse. The glossary omits this term.

Two feet, three syllables each.

AIL 0509 Three-Syllable Feet

Two feet run to three syllables rather than two, and they are opposites of each other. Both produce a rolling, galloping line quite unlike iambic speech. The glossary defines one of them and refers to the other without defining it, which the next two entries repair, one from the glossary and one supplied.

Stressed, unstressed, unstressed.

AIL 0510 The Dactyl

The glossary defines dactylic metre as a series of single hard-stressed sounds each followed by two soft-stressed ones. Its example is Browning's line about a handful of silver and a man who left us. One stress, then two without, repeated, and the line rolls forward; listen for that rolling motion.

Unstressed, unstressed, stressed.

AIL 0511 The Anapest

An anapest is two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed, the dactyl reversed. The glossary describes the dactyl as the opposite of the anapestic but gives anapest no headword, and misspells the word in that entry. This is the standard definition, supplied because the anchor's is missing; the anchor names it without defining it.

Two stresses, side by side.

AIL 0512 The Spondee

The glossary calls a spondee a double-hard-stressed phrase, quoting Hopkins's shook foil from God's Grandeur. Two stresses together halt the line's momentum. A spondee rarely runs a whole poem; it appears as a deliberate interruption, and an interruption is always worth asking about, because a spondee interrupts on purpose.

Five entries on naming: foot then count, then the glossary's own lines for five beats, four beats and three, and the two-beat line the anchor spells wrongly.

Foot name, then how many.

AIL 0513 Naming a Metre

A metre's name gives its foot then its count: iambic pentameter is five iambs. Learn the counting prefixes once, from one to seven, and every metrical name on the exam becomes readable without further memorising. The foot names were the harder half and are now behind you; learn the prefixes once.

Five beats, ten syllables.

AIL 0514 Iambic Pentameter

The glossary defines iambic pentameter as a line with five beats and quotes Frost: I have been one acquainted with the night. Five iambs, ten syllables. This is the metre of the sonnet, of blank verse, and of most English dramatic verse, so it is the one to know cold; it is the exam's default metre.

Four beats, nearer to song.

AIL 0515 Iambic Tetrameter

The glossary gives iambic tetrameter as a line with four beats, quoting Wordsworth: I wandered lonely as a cloud. Four beats runs closer to song than five does, which is why ballads and hymns favour it. The anchor's own regular-verse chapter uses that poem, and ballads and hymns live in this line.

Three beats, clipped.

AIL 0516 Iambic Trimeter

Iambic trimeter is a line with three beats, and the glossary quotes Dickinson: the only news I know is bulletins all day. Three beats feels clipped and is often paired with tetrameter in alternating lines, which is the shape of the common ballad stanza, so trimeter is often alternated with tetrameter.

Dimeter, not diameter.

AIL 0517 The Two-Beat Line, and the Anchor's Spelling

A line of two beats is dimeter. The glossary's headword reads iambic diameter, and the correct word appears nowhere in the file. Use dimeter, which is the standard term the exam will use, and know that this anchor prints it wrongly. The anchor misprints this headword, and the course records it.

Three entries on scansion: the procedure in order, what to do when a line will not scan evenly, and why a variation is worth a question.

Mark the stresses, then count.

AIL 0518 Scanning a Line

The glossary has no headword for scansion. The procedure is standard: read the line aloud, mark the stresses you hear, group them into repeating units, then count the units. Marking before counting is the order that matters, because the count depends on the grouping, so group before you count.

Name the poem for its majority.

AIL 0519 When a Line Will Not Scan Evenly

Most metrical lines carry variations, and a poem is named for its prevailing pattern rather than its every line. Scan three or four lines and take the majority. A candidate who abandons the exercise at the first irregular line will misname metres that are perfectly regular overall; one odd line proves nothing.

Variation places emphasis.

AIL 0520 Why Variation Is Meaningful

A substituted foot draws attention to the words it falls on. A trochee at the head of an iambic line, or a spondee in the middle, makes the reader slow down. The exam can ask what effect a variation produces, and the answer is usually emphasis, so ask what words the variation lands on.

Eleven entries on the forms: blank verse and free verse set against each other, the anchor's chosen poems including two it names but this course does not quote, and six fixed forms from the glossary.

Unrhymed, five beats.

AIL 0521 Blank Verse

The glossary defines blank verse as unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is the metre of Shakespeare's plays and of Milton, so unit two's parsing work and this unit's counting work meet in it. The anchor's blank-verse chapter uses Frost's Birches. Blank verse is not free verse, whatever the names suggest.

Blank has metre; free has none.

AIL 0522 Blank Verse Against Free Verse

The glossary defines free verse as poetry without a set rhyme scheme or rhythm pattern. Blank verse has a strict metre and no rhyme; free verse has neither. The names sound similar and the forms are opposites in the respect that matters, which makes this a favourite distractor pairing; the names mislead.

Ten syllables, five beats, no rhyme.

AIL 0523 Frost's Birches as Blank Verse

The anchor sets Birches as its blank-verse example. Frost's line, quoted in the glossary from another poem, runs: I have been one acquainted with the night. Ten syllables, five beats, no rhyme with its neighbours. Frost published Birches in nineteen sixteen, so the text is in the public domain.

No metre, considerable rhythm.

AIL 0524 Hughes and Free Verse

The anchor's free-verse chapter uses Langston Hughes's poem about rivers, published in nineteen twenty-one. Its lines run to different lengths and fall into no repeating foot, yet it is heavily rhythmic through repetition and parallel phrasing. Free verse abandons metre, not rhythm, and free verse is not shapeless.

Named as the anchor's choices only.

AIL 0525 Two Forms Named, Not Quoted

The anchor illustrates the villanelle with Bishop and the haiku with Knight. Both poets remain in copyright, so this course names them as the anchor's choices and quotes neither, under decision D2. The forms themselves are defined from the glossary in the entries that follow; both poets are still in copyright.

Nineteen lines, five tercets, one quatrain.

AIL 0526 The Villanelle

The glossary defines a villanelle as a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and one quatrain, naming Dylan Thomas's refusal to go gentle as probably the most famous English example. The form turns on two repeated lines, and that repetition is what an exam question would ask about; repetition is the form's engine.

Five, seven, five syllables.

AIL 0527 The Haiku

The glossary describes the Japanese haiku as a brief poem consisting of a single image, in three lines of five, seven and five syllables. Note that the count is syllabic, not metrical: haiku are measured by syllable number rather than by stress pattern, so it is syllable count and not stress count.

A quatrain story, rhymed A B C B.

AIL 0528 The Ballad

The glossary defines a ballad as a narrative poem usually written in quatrains with an A B C B rhyme scheme. Narrative is the key word: a ballad tells a story. The anchor's ballad chapter uses Service's poem about a cremation, published in nineteen seven. A ballad narrates; an ode does not.

Long, formal, and reflective.

AIL 0529 The Ode

The glossary gives the ode as a long formal poem typically presenting a poet's philosophical views on subjects such as nature, art, death and human emotion. The anchor's ode chapter uses Keats on the nightingale, published in eighteen nineteen. Formality and length are the marks; an ode addresses, it does not narrate.

Written to commemorate a death.

AIL 0530 The Elegy

The glossary defines an elegy as a poem written to commemorate the death of a person who played a significant role in the poet's life. The anchor's elegy chapter uses Housman on an athlete dying young, published in eighteen ninety-six. Commemoration, not merely sadness, is the test; sadness alone does not make an elegy.

Fourteen lines, usually five beats.

AIL 0531 The Sonnet

The glossary defines a sonnet as a fourteen-line regular-verse poem usually in iambic pentameter. The anchor's sonnet chapter uses Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem counting the ways of love, published in eighteen fifty. Unit nine takes the sonnet's internal structure in full, so here it is the count and the metre only.

That is meter, the feet, the names, scansion, and the forms, with the governing idea, definitions sharp enough to exclude a neighbour, waiting for its payoff in part two. You know sound is examined by precision between neighbours, that a device question offers five real devices, and that meter is rhythm plus measure, with foot and stress supplied where the glossary uses them undefined. You can hear the iamb in Gray's curfew and in ordinary speech, the trochee in garden and tiger, the dactyl rolling through Browning's handful of silver, the anapest the anchor names without defining, and the spondee in Hopkins's shook foil. You can read a metre's name as foot then count, from Frost's five beats through Wordsworth's four and Dickinson's three to the two-beat dimeter the anchor misprints. You can scan by reading, marking, grouping and counting, name a poem for its majority, and say that a variation lands emphasis. And you can set blank verse against free verse and define the villanelle, haiku, ballad, ode, elegy and sonnet from the glossary. Part two takes the sound devices themselves.