Rhythm

Today, we delved into the technical side of poetry. We talked a little about the history of the poetic tradition and then reviewed the following terms:

Counted line - lines have a regular number of beats
Free verse - lines have an irregular number of beats

Tercet – a stanza of three lines
Quatrain – a stanza of four lines
Cinquain – a stanza of five lines
Sestet – a stanza of six lines
Couplet – a pair of rhyming lines (often within one of these stanza forms)

We also learned to "scan" poetry, which involves identifying stressed and unstressed syllables. A stressed syllable is represented by an accent (/) and an unstressed syllable is represented by a breve (˘).

Once the stressed and unstressed syllables have been determined, we can identify how many "feet" a particular line has, and whether those feet are rising or falling (or, more specifically, whether those feet are iambic, anapestic, trochaic or dactylic).

The number of feet gives the line its name and indicates how wide the line is:

One beat or stress per line - monometer
Two beats per line - dimeter
Three beats per line - trimeter
Four beats per line - tetrameter
Five beats per line - pentameter
Six beats per line - hexameter
Seven beats per line - heptameter
Eight beats per line - octameter (See Vendler 661)

We practiced scanning on "To My Dear and Loving Husband" and will look at additional poems tomorrow, as this definitely takes some practice!