LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

BBI 3207

Metre and Rhythm• In order to understand English metre, it is first

necessary to understand the two aspects of English words that are controlled by metres:

i. syllables, ii. relative stress on syllables.

• Syllables can be thought of as ‘beats’ in speech, e.g. ‘umbrellas’ = three beats

• In English, a syllable is usually based around a vowel or diphthong (two vowels spoken together) or triphthong (three together), which is called the ‘nucleus’ of the syllable.

Monosyllables1 syllable : in, up, man, heart, score, feet, words, smelt, death, wheatPolysyllables2 syllables : ready, pieces, upset, apple, without, ending, fearsome3 syllables : readiness, undertake, manicure, randomness4 syllables : monstrosity, repulsiveness, menagerie, telescopic5 syllables : unreality, fortification, structuralism, nationality6 syllables : encyclopaedia, psychotherapeutic7 syllables : environmentalism, autobiographical

Organise the following sentences into syllables

The rain is raining all aroundIt falls on field and tree,It rains on the umbrellas here,And on the ships at sea.

(Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘Rain’)

Stress on syllables

• Some syllables carry greater ‘stress’ than others• The syllable with greater stress is experienced as

more prominent (e.g. louder). • In dictionaries of English the syllable with greatest

stress relative to other syllables has an inverted comma put before it in its representation of pronunciation

e. g. r’eady, r’eadiness, monstr’osity, unre’ality, encyclop’aedia, environm’entalism.

Stress on syllables

• Stress is also manifested as higher pitch and greater length, and these may also be audible on the stressed syllables in addition to greater loudness.

• Syllables with very weak or no stress are often reduced in ‘vowel quality’ such that they are no longer clearly distinguishable from other vowels and may also be shortened.

Underline the stressed syllables

Underline the stressed syllables

Rhythm

• The regular periodic beat.• “a unit which is usually larger than the syllable, and

which contains one stressed syllable, marking the recurrent beat, and optionally, a number of unstressed syllables” (Leech (1969): 105).

• It may involve a succession of weak and strong stress; long and short; high and low and other contrasting segments of utterance. Rhythm can occur in prose as well as in verse.

Meter (Rhythm)

• A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.• Meter occurs when the stressed and unstressed

syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern.

• When poets write in meter, they count out the number of stressed (strong) syllables and unstressed (weak) syllables for each line.

• A measurable, patterned unit (a set) of poetic rhythm is called a “foot.”

Meter• Meter is a type of rhythm of accented and unaccented

syllables organized into feet, aka patterns. • It is determined by the character and number of syllables in a

line. Meter is also dependent on the way the syllables are accented.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18”)

• The above line consists of ten syllables that show a pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables: 1st syllable unstressed, 2nd syllable stressed, 3rd syllable unstressed…. 10th syllable. The unstressed syllable is underlined while the stressed syllable is in bold (Cumming 2006).

Foot – stress patterning

• A foot is made up of a pair of unstressed and stressed syllables. Thus, the above line altogether contains five feet (see below):

1 2 3 4 5 Shall I..|.. compare |.. thee to..|.. a sum..|.. mer’s day?

14

Stress patterningStress patterning

• Iamb: 2 syllables, unstressed + stressed• Trochee: 2 syllables, stressed + unstressed• Anapest: 3 syllables, 2 unstressed + stressed• Dactyl: 3 syllables, stressed + 2 unstressed• Spondee: 2 stressed syllables• Pyrrhic: 2 unstressed syllables

5 types of Feet

Iamb (Iambic)

Unstressed + Stressed Two Syllables"To be or not to be" (Shakespeare’s Hamlet)

Trochee (Trochaic)

Stressed + Unstressed Two Syllables

"Double, double, toil and trouble." (Shakespeare’s Macbeth)

Spondee (Spondaic)

Stressed + Stressed Two Syllables“heartbreak”

Anapest (Anapestic)

Unstressed + Unstressed + Stressed

Three Syllables

"I arise and unbuild it again" (Shelley's Cloud)

Dactyl (Dactylic

Stressed + Unstressed + Unstressed

Three Syllables

“Openly”

Basic Foot RhythmsName: Iambic Pattern: unstressed, stressed (U/) U / U / U / U / U /But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?Name: Trochaic

Pattern: stressed, unstressed (/ U) / U / U / U / U Double, double toil and trouble Name: Anapestic

Pattern: unstressed, unstressed, stressed (U U /) U U / U U / U U / And the sound of a voice that is still Name: Dactylic

Pattern: stressed, unstressed, unstressed (/ U U) / U U / U U Take her up tenderly

17

Metrical patterningMetrical patterning

• Dimetre: 2 feet• Trimetre: 3 feet• Tetrametre: 4 feet• Pentametre: 5 feet• Hexametre: 6 feet• Heptametre: 7 feet• Octametre: 8 feet

Meter depends on the type of foot and the number of feet in a line. Below are the types of meter and the line length:

Monometer One FootDimeter Two FeetTrimeter Three FeetTetrameter Four FeetPentameter Five FeetHexameter Six FeetHeptameter Seven FeetOctameter Eight Feet

    1              2               3              4              5 Shall I..|.. compare |.. thee to..|.. a sum..|.. mer’s day?

Line Length

One foot: Monometer Two feet: Dimeter Three feet: Trimeter Four feet: Tetrameter

Five feet: Pentameter Six feet: Hexameter Seven feet: Heptameter Eight feet: Octameter

U / U / U / U / U / But soft, | what light | through yon | der win | dow breaks? 1 2 3 4 55 feet = Pentameter Therefore, this line is iambic pentameter

U U /   U U / U U /  And the sound | of a voice | that is still 1 2 33 feet = TrimeterTherefore, this line is Anapestic Trimeter

Practice:

Here's an example of how a line by Shakespeare is divided into feet:

from FAIR | est CREA | tures WE | deSIRE | inCREASE

Trochaic FootTwo syllables, initial is head

The bracketed asterisk is now the initial asterisk in each foot: This is the head, the syllable most likely to be stressed

(Christina Rossetti, ‘In the bleak mid-winter’, 1872)

• In these lines we see something new: a foot at one end of the line contains one syllable when it might be expected to contain two.

• This is called ‘catalexis’; it is one of the permitted variations in English, where a foot can be ‘short’ at one end of the line.

• In trochaic metres the short foot comes at the end of the line (in iambic metres it comes at the beginning).

Anapaestic FootThree syllables, final is head

• These are three-syllable feet in which the final syllable tends to be stressed - The stressed syllables tend to be three syllables apart

• Three-syllable feet (triplets) with a final head are anapaests, so this is in an anapaestic metre (actually anapaestic tetrameter because there are four anapaestic feet in each line).

Anapaestic FootThree syllables, final is head

• Note that the initial foot in the line is sometimes one syllable, sometimes two and sometimes three, thus showing different possibilities for catalexis, which thus permits variation between lines.

• Metres are rigid systems that nevertheless open up various ‘loopholes’ for variation (in length or rhythm) in this way.

Anapaestic FootThree syllables, final is head

• While there is a general tendency for the head of the foot to be stressed, other syllables can sometimes be stressed as well, as ‘every’ in the second line shows.

Dactylitic FootThree syllables, initial is head

• In these lines, which are in dactylic dimeter (two dactylic feet in each line), the final foot in the line sometimes falls short.

• We can tell that these are dactyls, first because the stressed syllables tend to fall three syllables apart, and second because the stressed syllable comes first.

Determine the metre (type of foot and number of feet) for the following lines

The rain is raining all aroundIt falls on field and tree,It rains on the umbrellas here,And on the ships at sea.

Determine the metre (type of foot and number of feet) for the following lines

The rain is raining all aroundIt falls on field and tree,It rains on the umbrellas here,And on the ships at sea.

iambic tetrameteriambic trimeter

iambic tetrameteriambic trimeter

THANK YOU