Musicality in Poetry: Meter
April 29, 2008 · Written by Melissa Donovan
Earlier this month I posted an introduction to poetry vocabulary and Greer asked if I wouldn’t mind taking on meter. In poetry, meter is quite complex so for now we’re going to stick with the absolute basics.
Musicality in poetry is the sum of many different elements, all of which are also found in (you guessed it) music. The two basic musical components of a poem are rhythm and meter. These are inherently tied together and are often used interchangeably. However, they refer to completely different aspects of a poem’s musical tone.
Rhythm is motion, the overall flow of a piece as a whole. Meter, on the other hand, is the pattern of recurring accent that we can tap our feet to, the beat.
Rhythm = flow
Meter = pattern
Let’s take a closer look at meter
A Very Short Song
Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.-Dorothy Parker
Scansion
Do you remember diagramming sentences back in grammar school? Well, we can do something similar with poetry, only we are diagramming for meter. This is called scansion. Scanning a poem helps us better understand its meter, rhythm, and become a more prolific reader of poetry and writer of all things.
Feet
Meter is measured in units called feet. These are not the same feet we use here in the U.S. to measure distance. In poetry, a metrical foot consists of one accented syllable plus one or two unaccented syllables. Below are some metrical examples. The syllables in all caps are the accented syllables.
da-DUM da-DUM is an example of two iambs or iambic meters
DA de DA de is an example of two trochees or trochaic meters
ra-ta-TAH is an anapest or anapestic meter
LA-da-da is a dactyl or dactylic meter
BOMP-BOMP is a spondee or spondaic meter
To start scanning a poem, we first identify the prevailing foot. We’ll use bold to denote the accented syllables.
Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Note that some accents are heavier than others, but all are equal in scansion marking. For example, in the first line, the word I is not stressed nearly as much as the words once, young, and true. If you match up the accent pattern shown in this example to the types of feet defined above, you’ll probably align most of it with trochee: DA de DA de. However, the final line in this stanza has a different meter: da-DUM da-DUM. So the last line is iambic meter.
Lines
The next step in scansion is to determine how many feet are in each line.
Once, when I was young and true, trochee 4 feet
Someone left me sad- trochee 3 feet
Broke my brittle heart in two; trochee 4 feet
And that is very bad. iamb 3 feet
You’ll notice that the feet in the first three lines seem incomplete. When a poet deviates from any pattern, it is called metrical variation. In this particular example, we would have expected the accented words true, sad, and two to be followed by an unaccented syllable. Omitting an unaccented syllable, affecting an incomplete foot, is called truncation.
Just like there are words to define the types of feet, there are also words to name different lengths of line:
monometer 1 foot
dimeter 2 feet
trimeter 3 feet
tetrameter 4 feet
pentameter 5 feet
hexameter 6 feet
Now, we can go in and replace our foot counts with proper words :
Once, when I was young and true, trochaic tetrameter (truncated)
Someone left me sad- trochaic trimeter (truncated)
Broke my brittle heart in two; trochaic tetrameter (truncated)
And that is very bad. iambic trimeter
Overall, the poem is written in truncated trochaic tetrameter with frequent metrical variations to trochaic trimeter and iambic trimeter. Wow, that sentence makes me sound pretty damn smart!
If you’re still reading at this point, can I just say I love you? Kindred spirits in poetry unite!
Summary
Meter is a tricky subject and this only scratches the surface. Entire volumes have been written on this topic. I personally find it interesting to study, otherwise I would not have spent upwards of four hours researching and writing this post for you fine poetry loving folks. There are a few more things to note about meter:
- The rules are not so hard and fast that you could not read this poem and come up with different results in a metrical scan of your own. In some cases, meters and feet are subjective.
- Meter is not always easy to scan. It took quite a search to find one simple, short poem that would lend itself well to this exercise.
- Meter is no indication of poetic skill. Many novice poets write in strict meter and plenty of advanced poets write in meter so complex, it is practically impossible to scan at all.
Still here? Well, that’s a miracle. I’m surprised if I haven’t bored everyone off by now with this long-winded and overly academic post. Well, you can all blame Greer. As for me, I’m going to thank Greer for motivating me to revisit this lesson, which was very much a welcome refresher.
Source: Perrine’s Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry
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Melissa;
This is awesome! I never understood meter and rhyme, until you explained it here. You’re a natural-born teacher!
I wish I had resources like this when I was studying Grade 12 English. It would have made life a lot easier.
Seriously, this should be in a textbook somewhere!
Friar, Meter is a lot of fun for a poetry geek like me
I’m glad you found this useful. I would like to write a book about poetry… hmm, maybe someday I will! Thanks for your kind words.
Great post, Melissa - really informative! I knew that iambic pentameter was 10 syllables in a line, and knew that the ‘pent-’, i.e. 5, had something to do with that number, but I didn’t know what an iamb was or that there were so many other variations…
I need to write more poetry using proper meter.
You are a good teacher, Melissa.
I try to emulate poetry techniques within my prose. I find it flows better.
I don’t think this is boring at all. Thanks for your insights. E
@Catherine, Iambic pentameter is the one we tend to hear about most often. I think that traditionally, it was the most popular meter. Each line is ten syllables, but more specifically, each line has five feet. Each foot consists of two syllables with the accent on the second syllable in each foot. This stuff can get confusing!
@Ellen, Thank you! I couldn’t agree more. I have definitely noticed that in the weeks I’ve been reading poetry and reading about poetry for this month’s theme, my other writing has taken on a certain flair. Poetry is good practice for other types of writing
I’m still here!! Melissa, this is wonderful. You have such a great way of making complex topics clear without oversimplifying.
I’m curious, when you write your own poetry do you set out to write in a certain meter?
@Greer, There you are! Sometimes I get a rhythm (or meter) in my head and I write along with that. In another life, I am a musician! Usually, I start poetry by freewriting, then I harvest the freewrites for poetic material. Other times, I just sit down and the poem pours forth. It happens all kinds of ways. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened much in recent months, which is something that really needs to change!
Thank you so much for suggesting this topic. I had a blast with it!
This all reminds me of:
I would not eat them in a box.
I would not eat them with a fox.
I would not eat them here or there
I would not eat them anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them SAM I AM!
@Friar, Be still my beating heart! That is one of my all time favorite books, EVER! I used to read it to my dog whose name of course, was Sam. And I made up all kinds of alternate rhymes and stories to tell him. Awwww… I have to go sob into a pillow now.
Awww…don’t mention dogs or you’ll get me started too, now!
Okay, I’m really late to the party. It happens on deadlines. And don’t take this wrong, but some of these names like trochees and iambs are really flirting with my giggle switch. I am really trying to read this all serious and stuff because Mrs. Polen - gotta love her for all that memorizing, but - she couldn’t get across meter if her life depended on it and these names are cracking me up. Maybe it’s the hour. Thank you for clearing it up.
Really great Melissa, really great. I’ve delicioused this so I can come back and take it one foot at a time…meter by meter.
@Friar, Okay, we’ll try to keep it cheerful in here.
@Deb (gscottage), Sorry, didn’t mean to flirt with your giggle switch *giggles* Now that you mention it, some of these words like dactyl and spondee do sound they might be the latest dance craze or some kind of romantic maneuver for tweens. Heh.
@Jay, Thanks! It’s always a pleasure to be delicioused
I came here from Ellen’s trackback and just wanted to tell you that I’m impressed. Poem’s isn’t something I ever learned in school (I come from a non English background) and this sounds all so friendly with the giggle words.
While I don’t intend to get into Poetry,(actually wrong, I’m peddling with Haiku right now) I can tell that you must have spent quite some time on this.
You certainly seem a natural making these (no doubt) complex techniques look so easy.
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@Monika, Haiku is a beautiful form of poetry! I can’t take all the credit for making these concepts seem simple. My poetry books have been a huge help. Thank you so much