Class Agenda 4.13

1. Papers back Wednesday

2. Quiz: Based on the poems we read for today, which one interested you the most and why?

3. Poetry terms:

Line: A basic structural component of a poem. Lines can be written in free form, in syllabic form (e.g. haiku) or in metrical form. In the official classification, metrical lines can vary in length from the monometer (one foot) to the octameter (eight feet).

Meter, feet stress: Is the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that make up a line of poetry. Meter gives rhythm and regularity to poetry.

However, the English language does not always fit exactly into metrical patterns so many poems employing meter will exhibit irregularities.

In English verse the most common meters are: iambic, dactylic, trochaic and anapestic. Other meters are occasionally used, such as spondaic and pyrrhic. There are also a number of classical Greek meters which are very rare indeed - such as amphibrachic, amphimacer and choriambic.

Iambic meter
An end stressed two syllable foot e.g. from In Memoriam by Lord Tennyson

I DREAMED | there WOULD| be SPRING | no MORE
This example is an iambic tetrameter - i.e. it has four iambic feet and therefore the total number of syllables in the line is eight. Iambic is an example of rising meter.

Trochaic meter
A front stressed two syllable foot.
e.g. The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

BY the  | SHORES of | GIT chee | GUMee,
This example is trochaic tetrameter - i.e. four two syllable feet. Therefore the total line has eight syllables. Trochaic meter is less commonly used than iambic meter. Trochaic is an example of falling meter.
Anapestic meter
An end stressed three syllable foot e.g. The Destruction of the Sennacherib by Byron:
And the SHEEN | of their SPEARS | was like STARS | on the SEA,
This line is an anapestic tetrameter i.e. it has four feet containing three syllables each. Therefore the total number of syllables in the line is twelve.

Dactylic Meter
A front stressed three syllable foot e.g. The Lost Leader by Robert Browning
WE that had | LOVED him so, | FOLlowed him | HONoured him,

This line is an example of dactyllic tetrameter  i.e. it has four feet containing three syllables each. Therefore the total number of syllables in the line is twelve.
Each of the above meters can be used in lines with varying numbers of feet. The number of feet in a line is usually classified as follows:  monometer (one foot), dimeter (two feet), trimeter (three feet), tetrameter (four feet), pentameter (five feet), hexameter (six feet), heptameter (seven feet) and octameter (eight feet).

Free Verse: Verse without formal meter or rhyme patterns. Free verse, instead, relies upon the natural rhythms of everyday speech. The American poet Walt Whitman was a pioneer of free verse (see Song of Myself). However, it was fellow Americans T.S.Eliot and Ezra Pound who are generally regarded as the major instigators of free verse in English. Free verse is particularly associated with both the imagist and modernist movements. See also vers libre.