Poetry: Sound, Line, Meter

This is Unit Six of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part two of two. Part one settled meter, the feet, scansion and the forms. This part takes the sound devices themselves, and the terms for a line and a stanza. Part one's governing idea was that sound is examined by precision between neighbours, so each definition must exclude the term beside it. This part pays that off at the first trap, where the wrong option is always a device that is nearly right. First the repetition devices: alliteration and assonance, which are confused more than any other pair, one question that settles them, consonance, and onomatopoeia, which is not a repetition at all. Then rhyme and its scheme, its positions, and its imperfect and visual cousins. Then the line's endings and pauses, and the stanza with its four glossary lengths, the couplet and the refrain. Then a way to identify a form by measuring rather than remembering, the effect question that follows the naming one, and four traps. Last, a habit, a limit, and the record of what the glossary omitted and got wrong. By the end you will be able to tell the three repetition devices apart by one question. To write a rhyme scheme and name every kind of rhyme. To read a line's endings and pauses and name its groupings. To identify a form by counting and defeat four traps. And to state what this anchor left out.

Five entries on repetition: alliteration and assonance from the glossary, the one question that separates them, consonance supplied, and onomatopoeia set apart as a relation between sound and sense.

Repeated consonants, at the start.

AIL 0532 Alliteration

The glossary defines alliteration as the repetition of a consonant sound, with its own example storm strewn sea. The repeated sound falls at the beginnings of words or stressed syllables. Consonants at the start are the mark, and the letter matters less than the sound, because sound repeats and not spelling.

Repeated vowels, anywhere in the word.

AIL 0533 Assonance

The glossary defines assonance as the repetition of vowel sounds, quoting Wilfred Owen's rapid rattle. Vowels rather than consonants, and anywhere in the word rather than at the start. This pair, alliteration and assonance, is the most frequently confused on the exam, confused more than any other pair of terms.

Consonant or vowel: that is the test.

AIL 0534 Telling the Two Apart

Ask one question: is the repeated sound a consonant or a vowel. Storm strewn sea repeats the letter s, a consonant, so it is alliteration. Rapid rattle repeats the short a, a vowel, so it is assonance. The test is that direct and it is reliable; one question settles it every time.

Consonants repeated, position free.

AIL 0535 Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds anywhere in words rather than at their beginnings, as in the k sounds of struck a streak of luck. The glossary carries no headword for it. Distinguish it from alliteration by position: consonance need not fall at the start, and the glossary omits this term.

The sound suggests the meaning.

AIL 0536 Onomatopoeia

The glossary defines onomatopoeia as a word or phrase whose sound suggests its meaning, giving bang and thwack. The device names a relation between sound and sense rather than a pattern of repetition, which is what separates it from the three devices above; it is a relation, not a repetition.

Five entries on rhyme: the term the glossary omits, the scheme it defines, rhyme by position, rhyme that approaches without matching, and rhyme for the eye.

Matching from the stressed vowel on.

AIL 0537 Rhyme

Rhyme is the correspondence of sounds from the last stressed vowel of a word to its end, as in night and light. The glossary defines rhyme scheme but gives rhyme itself no headword. The match must run from the stressed vowel onward; the glossary defines the scheme and not the term.

A letter for each new rhyme sound.

AIL 0538 Rhyme Scheme

The glossary defines rhyme scheme as the rhyming pattern of a regular-verse poem. It is written by assigning a letter to each new rhyme sound: A B A B, A B C B, A A B B. The notation is worth practising, because the exam uses it without explanation, unexplained on the page.

At the line end, or inside it.

AIL 0539 End Rhyme and Internal Rhyme

End rhyme falls at the ends of lines; internal rhyme falls within a single line. The glossary has a headword for neither, so these are the standard senses. Position is the only difference, and the exam does ask which kind a quoted phrase shows; both terms are absent from the glossary.

Sounds that approach without matching.

AIL 0540 Slant Rhyme

A slant rhyme is an imperfect one, where the sounds approach without matching, as in soul and all. It is also called near rhyme or half rhyme. The glossary gives it no headword but does define its visual cousin, which the next entry takes; near rhyme and half rhyme are the same thing.

Looks like rhyme, is not.

AIL 0541 Eye Rhyme

The glossary defines eye rhyme as words that look as though they should rhyme but do not, giving good and mood, and notes the alternative name sight rhyme. It is a spelling relation rather than a sound one, and it appears in the glossary twice under both names. Spelling, not sound.

Seven entries on line and stanza: enjambment and its opposite, the caesura, the stanza the glossary uses without defining, its four named lengths, the couplet and the refrain.

The sentence runs past the line end.

AIL 0542 Enjambment

A line is enjambed when its sentence runs on into the next line without a pause. The glossary has no headword for it. Enjambment sets the line's shape against the sentence's shape, and the tension between them is a standard subject for an exam question: line shape against sentence shape.

The line closes with its sense.

AIL 0543 The End-Stopped Line

An end-stopped line closes with a grammatical pause, usually a mark of punctuation. A poem of end-stopped lines moves in discrete units; a poem of enjambed lines flows across them. Browning's Duke speaks in heavily enjambed verse, which is part of why his monologue sounds like talk; enjambment made him sound spoken.

A pause inside the line.

AIL 0544 Caesura

A caesura is a distinct pause within a line, usually marked by punctuation. The glossary carries no headword for it. Where a caesura falls changes the line's balance, and a caesura placed unusually late or early is the kind of detail an effect question rests on; its position is what carries meaning.

A group of lines, set off.

AIL 0545 The Stanza

A stanza is a group of lines set off by a space, the verse equivalent of a paragraph. The glossary uses the word inside three of its own definitions but gives it no headword. Stanza shape and rhyme scheme together identify most fixed forms, and the glossary uses the word undefined.

Four, six, eight, and three.

AIL 0546 Quatrain, Sestet, Octave, Tercet

The glossary defines a quatrain as a four-line stanza, a sestet as six lines, an octave as eight and a tercet as three. Those four cover the stanza lengths the exam names, and the villanelle's five tercets and one quatrain can be read straight off them. All four are glossary headwords.

Two lines, rhymed together.

AIL 0547 The Couplet

A couplet is two consecutive rhyming lines. The glossary has no headword for it, although the sonnet's closing couplet is one of the most examined features in English verse. Unit nine returns to it, because in a Shakespearean sonnet the couplet carries the argument's turn, and that turn is examined.

A line that returns at intervals.

AIL 0548 The Refrain

A refrain is a line or phrase repeated at intervals through a poem, most often at stanza ends. The glossary gives it no headword despite defining forms that depend on it. Ballads and villanelles both use refrains, and a question may ask what the repetition accomplishes; both forms need it.

Six entries on measuring, on effect, and on traps: identify a form by counting, name a device then say what it does, and then the neighbouring device, spelling, the single line, and the form that almost fits.

Count lines, beats, rhymes.

AIL 0549 A Form You Cannot Name

Count the lines, then the beats in one line, then map the rhyme. Those three measurements identify most fixed forms without recall: fourteen lines in five beats is a sonnet, nineteen lines with two refrains is a villanelle. Measurement beats memory under time pressure, so measure rather than recall.

Name it, then say what it does.

AIL 0550 Sound as Argument

A question may ask what a sound device contributes rather than what it is called. Repetition binds words together and asks the reader to compare them; harsh consonants slow a line; open vowels lengthen it. Name the device, then say what it makes the reader do; the effect question follows the naming one.

The wrong option is nearly right.

AIL 0551 Trap: The Neighbouring Device

Sample question one offers four other genuine devices. The distractor is always a device that is nearly right: assonance for alliteration, consonance for either, internal rhyme for assonance. Definitions must be sharp enough to exclude, which is why every entry above states what its term rules out. Here the governing idea pays off.

The ear decides, not the letter.

AIL 0552 Trap: Answering From Spelling

Sound devices are about sound. Two words beginning with the same letter may not alliterate, as in cat and city, and two words spelled differently may rhyme perfectly. Read with the ear rather than the eye, and the glossary's eye-rhyme entry exists to mark that trap: same letter, different sound, no alliteration.

One line establishes nothing.

AIL 0553 Trap: Naming a Metre From One Line

One irregular line does not rename a poem, and one regular line does not establish a pattern. Options may name a metre that fits the quoted line while the poem runs otherwise. Read what the question asks about: the line, or the poem, and check which of the two it names.

Count lines before judging form.

AIL 0554 Trap: The Form That Almost Fits

A fourteen-line poem in an unusual rhyme scheme is still likely a sonnet; a twelve-line poem is not, however sonnet-like. Line count is the hard constraint and rhyme the flexible one, so count first and let the count rule out the options that cannot survive it. Line count is the hard constraint.

Six entries to close: scanning by habit, the limit of what sound settles, the thirteen terms the glossary left out, the two defects, where the work pays off, and the handoff to figure.

Scan the first line, always.

AIL 0555 Scanning by Habit

Scan the first line of every poem you meet in practice, whether or not a question asks. It costs seconds and it establishes what the poem's normal is, so that a variation later in the poem registers as a variation rather than passing unnoticed. You cannot see variation without a baseline.

Form supports; it does not mean.

AIL 0556 What Sound Does Not Settle

Metre and rhyme identify a form and can support an effect claim, but they do not establish what a poem means. A candidate who answers a meaning question with a metrical observation has answered a different question. Keep the two kinds of claim apart, because a metre is not an interpretation.

Thirteen terms the glossary omits.

AIL 0557 What the Glossary Left Out

This unit supplied standard definitions for foot, trochee, anapest, scansion, consonance, rhyme, end and internal and slant rhyme, enjambment, caesura, stanza, couplet and refrain, all absent from the anchor's glossary. That is a large gap in a craft text, and it is recorded for the owner as the gap stands.

Diameter and anaepestic, both wrong.

AIL 0558 The Two Defects Found

The glossary prints iambic diameter where the standard word is dimeter, and the correct spelling appears nowhere in the file. Its dactyl entry misspells anapestic and refers to a term it never defines. Both are recorded, and this course uses the standard forms, the terms the exam will use.

Three bands rest on this unit.

AIL 0559 Where This Pays Off

Device questions are answered directly from this unit. Sonnet questions need the line count and the metre before their structure can be read. Drama in blank verse needs the metre to hear where a line breaks. The sound work underlies three of the exam's bands, not only the poetry items.

Next: what the figures claim.

AIL 0560 What the Next Unit Does

Sound and shape are settled. The next unit takes figurative language: metaphor, simile, personification and the conceit that unit three introduced, worked on Donne, Keats and Blake. Sound told you how a poem moves; figure tells you what it claims. Sound is how; figure is what.

That is the sound devices, rhyme, line and stanza, the traps, and the record, with the governing idea paid off at the neighbouring device. You can separate alliteration from assonance by asking whether the repeated sound is a consonant or a vowel, place consonance by position, and set onomatopoeia aside as a relation between sound and sense. You can define rhyme from the stressed vowel onward, write a scheme in letters, tell end from internal rhyme, slant from perfect, and eye rhyme from sound. You can read an enjambed line against an end-stopped one, hear the Duke's talk in his enjambment, place a caesura, and name the stanza, its four glossary lengths, the couplet and the refrain. You can identify a form by counting lines, beats and rhymes, name a device and then say what it does, and defeat the nearly-right neighbour, the spelling trap, the single line and the form that almost fits. You scan the first line by habit, you keep form apart from meaning, and you can state the thirteen omissions and two defects this anchor carries. Unit seven asks what the figures claim.