ENGL Wk6 – Sounds in texts 1
Metre
Stress
•Basic underlying structure / arrangement of syllables and
•Tends to be higher in pitch, and louder.
stressed patterns (feet) in a poem
E.g. Unaccountability (bi: Primary stress)
•Scansion: Actual arrangement of feet in a poem (Interplay
•Within one word, stresses are always alternating while
of different kinds of feet in each line)
unstressed syllables can exist consecutively
•Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman: 1st text that
ostentatiously abandoned the traditional metrical form of
English poetry that had governed them for centuries
•Free-verse poem: Not characterized by any formal metrical
structure
Feet
•Basic unit of metre
Double Feet (Adj)
•Iamb: u x (Metrical unit in which an unstressed syllable is
ux – Iamb (Iambic)
followed by a stressed syllable), E.g. Police
xu – Trochee (Trochaic)
Iambic: Dominant pattern in English poems
xx – Spondee (Spondaic)
-
uu – Pyrrhic
Iambic pentameter: 5 iambic feet in each line
Triple Feet (Adj)
-
Blank verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter
•Trochee: x u (Metrical unit in which a stressed syllable is
uux – Anapaest (Anapaestic)
xuu – Dactyl (Dactylic)
followed by an unstressed syllable), E.g. Certain
-
Trochaic tetrameter: 4 trochaic feet in each line
Metre (Adj: __metric)
1 foot: Monometer
2 feet: Dimeter
•Dactyl: x u u (Stressed syllable followed by 2 unstressed)
3 feet: Trimeter
-
4 feet: Tetrameter
Dactylic dimeter: 2 dactylic feet in each line
5 feet: Pentameter
6 feet: Hexameter
7 feet: Heptameter
8 feet: Octameter
•Anapaest: u u x (2 unstressed followed by 2 stressed)
•Catalexis: Omitting final unstressed syllable from a foot