The Rhythm of Poetry All writing has a type of cadence, but for some types of writing, writers might make the rhythm fairly constant to create a musical effect that complements the meaning of the words. Sometimes poets create a pattern of rhythm simply because that’s the convention for the type of poem they’ve chosen to write. For example, a poet might choose to tell a story in the sing-song rhythm of a ballad. Since a ballad often has a set rhythm, the poet may choose to follow this tradition so it sounds like an old legend which may appeal to the listener. Here’s an excerpt of an actual old folk ballad called “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet”:

The horse fair Annet rode uponHe ambled like the windWith silver he was shod before,With burning gold behind

The ballad would continue on to tell the rest of the story in a rhythmical manner. Now, read the lines aloud and clap them out! If you clap out the syllables of the words, you

notice the excerpt has a regular rhythm like a song. Have you ever heard a ballad? If you have, how is hearing a story this way different from reading a short story or a novel?

Another type of poem that has a regular rhythm is a sonnet. A sonnet doesn’t typically tell a story, but usually expresses an emotion or idea. It’s “a little song.” A poet might choose to write a sonnet, using the rhythm or “meter” that sonneteers traditionally used. Here’s an excerpt from an old sonnet by John Milton called “On His Blindness”:

When I consider how my light is spentEre half my days, in this dark world and wideAnd that one talent which is death to hideLodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

Read these lines from a sonnet aloud and clap out the syllables again. As you do, put a little pause at the end of each line. Did you pick up the regular pattern of sounds? Did you notice an equal number of syllables in each line? If you did, you are noticing the rhythm that the poet created deliberately. The poet was using the sound of the reading as a percussive accompaniment to the meaning of the words. In simpler terms, the syllables of the words are the rhythmic drumbeat of a poem. Some may say it’s the “heartbeat.”

Now, read the two examples again and clap out the syllables. Don’t worry too much about what the words say; just think about how the two different rhythms make you feel. What is the difference between the two examples in terms of the mood the rhythms put you in, or the way the rhythms make you feel? What is the difference between the pace (speed) the rhythm sets? Your answers to these questions tell you what makes poetry different from typical prose: the rhythm is a really important element in metered poetry while rhythm in prose is usually negligible or used here and there for stylistic effect.

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Feet

Rhythm is broken down into units called feet. How can you tell what kind of feet make up a poem?

Step 1: Become conscious of the sounds of the syllables in words. Become sensitive to which syllables are stressed (sound a little more forceful) and which are not stressed.

For example, when you pronounce my name the English way—Rachel—and clap the syllables, you’d clap louder on the first syllable and softer on the second: RAchel, LOUD-soft, STRESSED-unstressed. When you pronounce it the French way—Rachelle—you’d clap softer on the first syllable and louder on the second: raSHELL, soft-LOUD, unstressed-STRESSED.

In English, words have set pronunciations, so if you’re not sure where the stress belongs in a word, you can find that out in a dictionary that has a pronunciation key.

Try detecting where the stress belongs in these words. Encode them with the scansion markings: A u over a syllable means it’s an unstressed syllable; an x or / over a syllable means it’s a stressed syllable.

pencil pumpkin umbrella

paper Halloween raincoat

binder costume rubber boots

Step 2: Now read a series of words, being sensitive to which syllables are stressed and which are unstressed. Use the scansion codes to identify the stressed and unstressed syllables.

I got myself some pencils, paper, and binders for school.

He’s going to dress up in a Dracula costume on Halloween.

The above sentences are regular sentences written in prose. Do you see any regular pattern in the rhythm, or is the distribution of stressed and unstressed syllables fairly random?

Now let’s try a line of lyric poetry: “I wandered lonely as a cloud”. Read it aloud. Now read it aloud and try clapping it out to sort out the stressed and unstressed syllables. Try it yourself before you look at the answer on the next page!

I wandered lonely as a cloud.I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils... (Excerpt of poem by W. Wordsworth)

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Use the scansion codes taught in class to encode the stressed and unstressed syllables.

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You might have noticed this pattern:

(If you came up with something slightly different, don’t panic! Sometimes seeing the line in the context of the whole poem affects our scansion of single-syllable words like “I” and “as”.)

Some whole words are stressed (“as” and “cloud”), and some parts of words are stressed (“wan” in the word “wandered” and “lone” in the word “lonely”). What we see as we look at the rhythmic pattern over the course of the whole line is a series of pairs: unstressed-stressed, unstressed-stressed, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

There are only two common types of two-syllable meters to worry about: one starts with the unstressed syllable and alternates, and the other starts with the stressed syllable and then alternates:

“So Romeo,” “Hokey pokey”

So Ro me o Ho key po key

unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed, STRESSED... AND STRESSED, unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed...

Here’s a foot!................Here’s the next foot. Here’s a foot!.......And here’s the next foot.

I’ve drawn a vertical line to separate the partners in the patterns above. The two-syllable units in these examples are called feet. The pattern shown on the left has two feet, each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Similarly, the pattern shown on the right also has two feet, but now each foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

Which series above is the pattern in the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”? Is it the series on the left or the series on the right? (Does each line start with an unstressed syllable or a stressed syllable?)

Use the scansion codes to encode the stressed and unstressed syllables in the lines below. It helps to say the words aloud and clap them out.

1. I always thought the rain would drown the sun.2. You always have to pay so don’t forget.3. Be here, live now, wake up, calm down.4. Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide.5. Sally got a coat but lost it.6. Jack and Jill should play inside now.7. Never ever waste a moment.

I WANdered LONEly AS a CLOUD.

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Take a look at your work. Can you see any patterns?

Draw a vertical line to separate the feet so you can see how the lines are composed rhythmically.

Now let’s put names to these types of patterns:

The style that goes unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed, STRESSED... as in the “I wandered lonely as a cloud” example below, is called iambic. The feet are called iambic because they are two-syllable feet in which you have an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

The line “I wandered lonely as a cloud” is written in iambic meter.

However, the style that goes STRESSED, unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed... as in the “Double, double” example below, is called trochaic. The feet are called trochaic because they are two-syllable feet in which you have a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

The line “Double, double, toil and trouble” is written in trochaic meter.

You now know

1. what feet are when you’re talking about poetry,2. two types of meter used in poetry (iambic and trochaic), and3. how to notice and identify these types of meter.

I WANDERED lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but theyOut-did the sparkling waves in glee:A poet could not but be gay,In such a jocund company:I gazed--and gazed--but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.

by William Wordsworth

ALL:

Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch:

Fillet of a fenny snake

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

from Macbeth by William Shakespeare

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More Rhythms

So far you’ve been looking at language that is written in series patterns of two-syllable units. Now...

The poem might have feet that have three syllables each instead of two! Check it out:

Never again will he ever drink coffee here.

This rhythm has a completely different feeling because it has an extra syllable in each foot. In musical terms, this rhythm feels like a waltz.

Try to ignore what the words say and just clap out the rhythm!

Which syllables are stressed and which are unstressed?

Here you go:

This is the pattern:

STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED unstressed, unstressed.

As you can see, the pattern seems to have three parts in each unit—in each “foot”—rather than the two-part toggle on-off, back-and-forth pattern in the ballad example from before.

To help visualize the pattern, draw a vertical line to separate the units, or “feet” in the pattern below:

STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED unstressed, unstressed.

If you did it correctly, you have a vertical line just before the word STRESSED at the start of each foot.

Now let’s look at the line with the words again!

Never again will he ever drink coffee here.

1. Use the scansion codes taught in class to identify the stressed and unstressed syllables in the line.

2. Draw a vertical line to separate the feet.

NEver aGAIN will he Ever drink COffee here.

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Good job!

Exercise: Work on gaining an awareness of the rhythm of language. LET’S CLAP!

Clap out the lines and use the scansion codes taught in class to encode the stressed and unstressed syllables in the following lines.

1. Sally will always remember to look for it.

2. See if the dog left his bone in the flowerbed.

3. Jason would never believe he could do this thing.

4. What an astounding remarkable thing you did.

Look at what you did. Can you see a pattern?

I’m hoping you’re noticing this type of pattern:

STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed, STRESSED, unstressed, unstressed.

Draw a vertical line to separate the feet in the pattern above and in all four lines in the exercise above.

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This style of foot is called dactylic. Dactylic meter involves three-syllable feet in the pattern of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

There are all kinds of rhythms, but we’re going to stop here and take stock.

You now know that

1. Words have syllables. 2. When we speak, English words have fairly consistent ways of pronouncing words. We place

emphasis on certain syllables.3. Some poets use this knowledge to create a regular rhythm in their poems. To do this they

consider which words they’re going to use, and in what order they’re going to put them.4. The rhythm poets create through the choice and placement of words is called meter.5. There are different styles of meter that poets use; e.g., iambic, trochaic, dactylic, anapestic, etc.6. Different styles of meter evoke different feelings, moods, and associations in the reader just like

different rhythmic drumbeats cause different feelings in a listener.

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Now for Numbers

Here is the last leg in the journey to understanding meter in poetry.

Number of Feet

Not only does a poet decide what style of rhythm he or she will use, but also how long the lines will be. At some point in time, someone somewhere decided to give the different lengths of lines their own names. (Great!) You will see from the chart below, though, that the terms are not that hard to remember because they all end the same way: meter. Now, if you’re thinking it’s all Greek to you, you’re right! The Greek prefix of each of the terms is the part that indicates the number! Mono means one, di means two, tri means three, etc.

One foot = monometerTwo feet = dimeterThree feet = trimeterFour feet = tetrameterFive feet = pentameterSix feet = hexameterSeven feet = heptameterEight feet = octameter

Here’s an example:When in the chronicle of wasted time,I see descriptions of the fairest wights,And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,...

(from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 106)We can see that the style of the rhythm is iambic because the pattern goes unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed, etc. The two-part unstressed-stressed iambic unit occurs five times. You could say, then, “The line consists of five iambs,” “The lines are five iambic feet each,” or “The meter is iambic pentameter,” with the “pent” prefix standing for the number five.

Let’s practise identifying the meter of excerpts of poems:

(1) Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, What’s the type of rhythm? ________________And sorry I could not travel both How many feet per line? _________And be one traveler, long I stood So, what is the meter called?And looked down one as far as I could _______________________________________To where it bent in the undergrowth.

(from Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”)

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(2) Half a league, half a league,(first line of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”)NOTE: You say it with the same rhythm as “Hickory, dickory...”.

What’s the type of rhythm?______________How many feet are in this line? ____________So, what do you call the meter of this line?_______________________________________

(3) ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the houseNot a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

(From “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore)

What’s the type of rhythm?______________How many feet are in this line? ____________So, what do you call the meter of this line?_______________________________________

(4) Be thy mouth or black or white,Tooth that poisons if it bite;Mastiff greyhound, mongrel grim,Hound or spaniel, brach or him,Or bobtail tyke or trundle-tail,Tom will make him weep and wail;For with throwing thus my head,Dogs leap the hatch and all are fled.

(Edgar as Poor Tim in Shakespeare’s King Lear)

What’s the type of rhythm?______________How many feet are in each line? ____________So, what do you call the meter?_______________________________________

(5) Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten loreWhile I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door“Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber doorOnly this and nothing more.” (From Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”)

So, what do you call the meter? _______________________________________

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