Basic guide to ENGLISH Prosody

Sources:

B&P Brooks, Cleanth, and Robert Penn. Understanding Poetry. London: Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, 1968.

P&B Preminger, Alex, and T. V. F. Brogan. The New Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Shapiro, K. A Prosody Handbook. New York: Harper & Row 1965

Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics. London: Longman, 1991.

first definitions

Prosody: the study of the laws that govern the ways in which the regular patterns of sound and beats in poetry are arranged (B&W )

“the traditional term for what is now called verse theory, which is the study of verseform, i.e. structures of sound patterning in verse, chiefly meter, rhyme, and stanza” (P&B 982)

Rhythm: - the quality of sounds or movements happening at regular periods of time

- a regularly patterned flow of sounds or of movements (Brooks & Warren 493)

Metre: arrangement of sound elements into strong and weak beats or accents.

We say that a work is written in verse, that is, in meter, when the rhythm has been regularized and systematized (B&W 494)

We examine regularized rhythm both at the level of the verse line, and at the level of groups of lines or stanzas

Rhythm in verse lines

Kinds of metre in English:

- stress or accentual verse : rhythm based on the regular number of stresses in a line

- accentual-syllabic verse : rhythm based on the regular number of stresses and syllables in a line (the standard versification in English poetry since the 14th century)

- syllabic verse : rhythm based on the number of syllables per line (as in French prosody)

— free verse : rhythm provided without a fixed number of stresses and syllables

Accentual-syllabic verse

Its pattern is based not only on the number of syllables in a line, but also on the relation to each other of the accented and unaccented syllables (B&W 496)

We count stresses and syllables

Its basic unit of measure is a combination of syllables and stresses (or in other words, of unaccented or less accented syllables and stressed or more stressed syllables). Each unit is called a foot.

Kinds of feet (a dash - means unaccented syllable; acute accent ´ indicates stressed syllable)

Iamb (iambic) : / - ´ / one unstressed followed by a stressed syllable: ‘alone’

Trochee (trochaic): / ´ - / a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable: ‘only’

Spondee (spondaic): / ´ ´ / two stressed syllables :

Pyrrhus (pyrrhic): / - - / two unstressed syllables

Anapest (anapestic) : / - - ´ / two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable: ‘intervene’

Dactyl (dactylic): / ´ - - / one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables: ‘happily’

Line lengths

one foot -> monometer

two feet -> dimeter

three feet -> trimeter

four feet -> tetrameter

five feet -> pentameter

six feet -> hexameter (also alexandrine)

seven feet -> heptameter

Line lengths combined with the dominant kind of feet constitute line metrical patterns that characterise a kind of verse line:

Examples of line metrical patterns:

iambic trimeter: / - ´ / - ´ / - ´ /

anapestic tetrameter: / - - ´ / - - ´ / - - ´ / - - ´ /

Examples:

“My mother thinks us long away;

‘Tis time the field were mown. ....”

(A. Housman)

“My mother thinks us long away;

(scanned as ‘My mó/ther thínks/ us lóng/ awáy/’ -> iambic tetrameter)

‘Tis time the field were mown. ....” ( -> iambic trimeter)

“It was night in the lonesome October” (Poe’s “Ulalume”)

(scanned as “It was níght / in the lóne/some Octóber/ -> anapestic trimeter

“This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks”

(H. W. Longfellow, Evangeline)

(scanned as “Thís is the/ fórest pri/méval, the/ múrmuring/ pínes and the/ hémlocks” -> dactylic hexameter

Sprung rhtyhm

A term coined by Gerard Manly Hopkins (1844 - 1889)

“measured by feet of from one to four syllables, regularly, and for particular effects any number of weak or slack syllables may be used. It has one stress, which falls … if there are more [than one syllable] on the first” (Hopkins, in P&B 1208-9)

“To speak shortly, [it] consists in scanning by accents or stresses alone” (Hopkins) -> thus he envisaged sprung rhythm “as a pure-stress metre … whose stresses are sense-stresses or rather than metrical, expressive rather than purely rhythmic. Sprung rhythm also shares with [Old English] verse a cultivation of alliteration, though not raised to a metrical principle, and other echoic patterns (assonance, internal rhyme)” (P&B 1209)

For Hopkins, sprung rhythm is the rhythm of natural speech in everyday language, prose, nursery rhymes, etc.

This rhythm “springs” loose of the common rhythm (“running” rhythm, as Hokpins called it) of accentual-syllabic verse measures by feet of two or three syllables (P&B 1209 and 1101)

Accentual verse

Its pattern is based on count of stresses disregarding the number of syllables per line. Usually, lines have a fixed number of stresses (natural speech-stresses) and a variable number of syllables)

Used in folkverse (nursery rhymes, college chants, slogans, jingles), balldas, hymns, popular song, in S. T. Coleridge’s Christabel, in T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (P&B 7)

Syllabic verse

Its pattern is based on syllable count. The number of syllables per line is fixed, while the number of stresses is variable.

Standard measure in French prosody and in Spanish prosody (until the rise of free verse)

“It is very doubtful that verse lines regulated by nothing more than identity of numbers of syllables would be perceived by auditors as verse, for there would be nothing to mark them as such except for end-of-line pauses in performance” (Brogan, in P&B 1249)

Line lengths

octosyllable

decasyllable

alexandrine: 12 syllables (a “hexameter” in English accentual-syllabic verse; in French prosody, a line of 12 syllables)

Examples of syllabic verse

Robert Bridges New Verse (1925), The Testament of Beauty (1929)

Marianne Moore

Dylan Thomas

Free verse

difficult to define. A typical free verse poem shows no formal prosodic devices, and is unrhymed throughout. It is as difficult to scan as prose. And yet it has form: the arrangement of syllables and words, the line lengths, and the distribution of pauses fit the sense at every point.

While accentual-syllabic verse regulates both stresses and syllables in a line, free verse regulates neither (P&B 1249)

Every line has its own length, its own metre and rhythm, and usually has no rhyme.

Caesura

The caesura is an internal pause marking the end of a sense unit - not a metrical unit (B&W 511). Example: “A thing of beauty | is a joy forever:” (John Keats).

Enjambment

Also called “run-on lines”: when the sense unit does not coincide with the end of the verse line. When it does, lines are called end-stopped lines.

Examples in lines 2 onwards showing different degrees of enjambment:

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever;

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower of quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health and quiet breathing ...” (John Keats)

Scansion

To scan a poem, or a line, is to measure its rhythm in order to analyse its meter by marking the rhythmical or metrical units in the line

1.- perceive the dominant rhythm (iambic, trochaic, spondaic, etc.)

“take the poem as a whole and not merely a line at a time, for the lines may not be metrically identical ... get a sense of the basic pattern. Always one should read a poem aloud, at least several times, to establish the initial acquaintance” (B&W 505)

2.- mark the natural accents in each the line, and count the number of syllables

3.- try to mark the foot divisions of the line metrical pattern that will best fit the dominant rhythm, number of accents, and number of syllables. (For instance, a dominant iambic rhythm will lead you to think of two-syllable feet; if you count five stresses and ten (or eleven, or nine) syllables, you can try the pattern of iambic pentameter)

3a. take into account sound and not writing governs rhythm, and therefore feet do not necessarily correspond to word divisions (see ‘lonesome’ in “It was níght / in the lóne/some ...”

3b. “meter cannot violate the natural accentuation of a word” (B&W 498). Never impose a preconceived hypothesized metrical pattern on the natural stresses of the line. For instance, ‘primeval’ is naturally accented ‘priméval’. You can’t accent it as ‘prímeval’ is you are trying an iambic pentameter pattern in “This ís / the fór/est prí/meval ...”

3c. not all accents in a line have equal force, but what matters is the contrast between less accented syllables and more stressed syllables

3d. A good working guidline, but not an absolute principle, is that unimportant words receive less accent while key words in the line are accented (B&W 499)

4.- when marking foot divisions, take into account accepted or expected variations or licences from the metrical pattern (see corresponding section)

5.- observe the caesura or internal pause marking the end of a sense unit - not a metrical unit (B&W 511). Note that the caesura may occur in the middle of a foot: “Its lóve/linéss/ incréa/ses | ít / will néver” (J. Keats)

6.- observe the enjambment(s) or run-on lines.

7.- examine and explain the effect of regularities and irregularities, both those changes that are accepted or expected, and those that are not. Explain how variations “give expression and vitality to the verse” (B&P 53)

Variations or licences

In the pronunciation of words and phrases:

elision:

words pronounced with one syllable less: ‘heaven’

diphtongs may count as one vowel: ‘oil’

Inversion of first feet: this is very common: e.g. trochaic instead of iambic

Example:

“ ‘See, here’s the workbox, little wife

That I made of polshed oak.’

He was a joiner, of village life;

She came of borough folk.” (“The Workbox”)

First line: Sée hére’s / the wók/box, lít/tle lífe /

Third line: Hé was / a jóin/er of víl/lage lífe

Lines with less syllables: (with defetive feet)

Example:

“Long for me the rick will wait

And long will wait the fold,

And long will standthe empty plate

And dinner will be cold” (Housman)

The first line has one syllable less because the first foot is ‘defective’, has one unstressed syllable missing. The line is scanned “ ^ Lóng/ for mé/ the ´rick/ will wáit/”

A defecive foot can occur in mid line:

“Speech after long silence; it is right” (W.B. Yeats, “After Long Silence”)

Spéech af/ter lóng/ ^sí/lence; ít/ is ríght /

Lines with extra syllables

Feminine ending: final foot has an extra syllable at the end

“It was níght / in the lóne/some Octóber/ (last foot is an anapest with an extra syllable: - - ´ - )

Extra syllable in the first foot:

Example:

“I wish you strength to bring you pride,

And a love to keep you clean

And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,

At racing on the green” (A. Housman)

The second line has seven syllables, and is scanned “ And a lóve / to kéep / you cléan/”: the first feet is an anapest.

Extra syllable in

Example: Hé was / a jóin/er of víl/lage lífe (third foot is anapest)

Caesura

defective feet, or feet with extra syllables may occur before the caesura

RHYME

In English use, rhyme is the repetition of two syllables at the end of a line with the same medial vowel(s) and final consonant(s) and with different initial consonant(s)

“The equivalence of the rhymed syllables or words on the phonic level implies a relation of likeness or difference on the semantic level” “sound similiarty [ is a ] means to semantic and structural ends” (P&B 1053)

“internal rhyme”

when one of the rhyming words is not at the end of the line; can occur in two consecutive lines

Forms (in English)

rhyme, end rhyme, full rhyme, true rhyme, perfect rhyme = back - pack C V C

near rhyme = repetitions of vowels or consonants at line end not conforming to the strict definition of rhyme are called “near rhyme”, “imperfect rhyme”, “slant rhyme”, “half rhyme”, “oblique rhyme”, “partial rhyme”

assonance = back - rat C V C

consonance = back- neck C V C

back - buck C V C (also called frame rhyme or pararhyme)

(Not to be confused with “rima consonante” in Spanish.

Consonance is, strictly speaking, “the repetition of the sound of a final consonant or consonant cluster in stressed, unrhymed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to affect the ear, as in Pope’s ‘Ah ne’er so dire a Thirst of Glory boast,’ where st or r endsevery stressed syllable” (P&W 236-7)

reverse rhyme = back - bat C V C

rich rhyme = bat - bat C V C :

eye rhyme (visual rhyme) = cough - plough

Stanza forms

Source: K. Shapiro A Prosody Handbook Harper & Row 1965

We can identify stanzas by looking at three elements:

- number of lines: 2, 3, 4, etc. or indefinite number

- rhyme pattern or scheme: combinations of rhymes,

e.g. four lines rhyming a b b a

envelope, enclosed or enclosing rhyme : a b b a

cross or alternate rhyme : a b a b

tail rhyme or tailed rhyme a verse form in which rhymed lines such as couplets or triplets are followed by a tail—a line of different (usually shorter) length that does not rhyme with the couplet or triplet. In a tail-rhyme stanza (also called a tail-rhymed stanza), the tails rhyme with each other (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

- line length: e.g. trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter

Number

of lines

2 couplet rhyme scheme: a a

open couplet: when the syntactical unit carries over into the first line of the next couplet and there is no heavy pause at the end of its second line.

closed couplet: the syntactical unit comes to an end at the end of the second line, and there is a heavy pause or a full stop.

Heroic couplet: when lines are iambic pentameters

(It is also used for the conclusion of other stanzas)

3 tercet

triplet: a a a

Terza rima : a b a, b c b, c d c

4 quatrain

ballad stanza: 4a 3b 4a 3b ; 4x 3a 4x 3a ; iambic rhythm (4 is for tetrameter, 3 for trimeter)

Long ballad: a b a b ; x a x a ; a a b b ; all lines are iambic terameters

Short ballad: 3x 3a 4x 3a; iambic rhythm

Heroic quatrain: a b a b ; all lines are iambic pentameter, alternate rhyme

Brace stanza: a b b a; all lines iambic pentameter, brace rhyme

5 cinquain

Limerick: 3a 3a 2b 2b 3a; anapestic rhythm (3 is for trimeter, 2 for dimeter)

6 sixain

Stave of six: a b a b c c : iambic pentameter or tetrameter (quatrain + couplet)

Sestina: six pentameter sixains that repeat, each in a different and predetermined pattern, the end words of the lines of the first sixain (e.g. Sir Philip Sidney)

tail-rhyme stanza: a a b c c b, with line b having different length

7 septet

Rhyme royal (Chaucerian stanza): a b a b b c c ; pentameters. Variants have hexameters

8 octave

common octave: a b a b c d c d ; x a x a x b x b; pentameter or tetrameter

brace octave: any octave in which brace rhyme (a b b a) is used

Triolet: a b a a a b a b ; 1st, 4th and 7th lines are identical, as are lines 2 and 8

Ottava rima: a b a b a b c c; iambic pentameter

9 Spenserian stanza: a b a b b c b c c ; first eight lines are pentameters; the ninth line, a hexameter

Created by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596)

14 Sonnet (see later)

Stanzas of ten, eleven and twelve lines are rare and have no familiar name.

Villanelle: usually 19 lines in tercets and two rhymes; 1st line is repeated in line 6 and 12, and 3rd line is repeated inline 9 and 15; both 1st and 3rd lines are repeated in the final 4 lines.

The ode:

difficult definition = poem of some length which does not follow any of the other conventional forms

Stanzaic odes: follow a fixed stanzaic pattern

Horatian ode: a a b b; or unrhymed

quatrain in which the first two lines are longer than the third and fourth

Pindaric ode: consists of three stanzas, ‘strophe’, ‘antistrophe’ and ‘epode’, being the first two identical in pattern except for the rhyme sounds, and the third stanza is almost diferent from the other two.

Cowleian ode: named after Abraham Cowley, is indeterminate in form

The sonnet

Italian or Petrarchan sonnet: a b b a, a b b a, c d e, c d e ; a b b a, a b b a, c d c, d c d

14 lines: one octave + one sestet. Some have the sestet ending in a couplet.

English, Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet: three heroic quatrains + couplet

A common rhyme scheme is: a b a b, c d c d, e f e f, g g ( a b a b, b c b c, c d c d, e e)

Blank verse:

unlimited succession of unrhymed iambic pentameters

Imported from Italy, where in the Renaissance it was developed as an equivalent of the Classical hexameter, the line of epic, the “heroic” line.

In English, fFirst used by Henry Howard, Early of Surrey, in his translation of Aeneid [?1539-46].

A major versification form in English narrative and lyrical verse (especially since John Milton), and the staple meter of English dramatic verse (first used in Gorboduc [1561])

Genres: suited to long works, especially epic and drama

Verse without rhyme and without limited number of lines allows for expressing an idea at whatever length is required.

Omission of rhyme promoted continuity, sustaiend, articulation, enjamment, and relatively natural word order (P&B 138)

Characterised by rhythmic and syntactic flexibility, which makes it closer to speech