Meter (poetry)

Meter (British English spelling: metre) describes the linguistic sound patterns of a verse. Scansion is the analysis of poetry's metrical and rhythmic patterns. Prosody is sometimes used to describe poetic meter, and indicates the analysis of similar aspects of language in linguistics. Meter is part of many formal verse forms.

Fundamentals

The units of poetic meter, like rhyme, vary from language to language and between poetic traditions. They can involve arrangements of syllables into repeated patterns called feet within a line. English meter is traditionally conceived as being founded on the patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. In Latin verse, on the other hand, while the metrical units are similar, not syllable stresses but syllable lengths are the component parts of meter. Old English poetry used alliterative verse, a metrical pattern involving varied numbers of syllables but a fixed number of strong stresses in each line. Meters in English verse, and in the classical Western poetic tradition on which it is founded, are named by the characteristic foot and the number of feet per line. Thus, for example, blank verse is unrhymed "iambic pentameter," a meter composed of five feet per line in which the kind of feet called iambs predominate. The origin of this tradition of metrics is ancient Greek poetry from Homer, Pindar, Hesiod, Sappho, and the great tragedians of Athens.

Technical terms

• caesura: (literally, a cut or cutting) refers to a particular kind of break within a poetic line. In Latin and Greek meter, caesura refers to a break within a foot caused by the end of a word. In English poetry, a caesura refers to a sense of a break within a line. Caesurae play a particularly important role in Old English poetry.
• Inversion: when a foot of poetry is reversed with respect to the general meter of a poem.
• Headless: a meter where the first foot is missing its first syllable.
• Quantitative: see Quantitative#Use in prosody and poetry

Meter in various languages

Greek and Latin

The metrical "feet" in the classical languages were based on the length of time taken to pronounce each syllable, which were categorized as either "long" syllables or "short" syllables (also known as "heavy" and "light" syllables, respectively, to distinguish from long and short vowels). The foot is often compared to a musical measure and the long and short syllables to whole notes and half notes. In English poetry, feet are determined by emphasis rather than length, with stressed and unstressed syllables serving the same function as long and short syllables in classical meter.

The basic unit in Greek and Latin prosody is a mora, which is defined as a single short syllable. A long syllable is equivalent to two moras. A long syllable contains either a long vowel, a diphthong, or a short vowel followed by two or more consonants. Various rules of elision sometimes prevent a grammatical syllable from making a full syllable, and certain other lengthening and shortening rules (such as correption) can create long or short syllables in contexts where one would expect the opposite.

The most important Classical meter is the dactylic hexameter, the meter of Homer and Virgil. This form uses verses of six feet. The first four feet are dactyls, but can be spondees. The fifth foot is almost always a dactyl. The sixth foot is either a spondee or a trochee. The initial syllable of either foot is called the ictus, the basic "beat" of the verse. There is usually a caesura after the ictus of the third foot. The opening line of the Æneid is a typical line of dactylic hexameter:

Ármă vĭrūmquě cănō, // Trōiǽ quī prímŭs ăb óris

("I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy. . . ")

The first and second feet are dactyls; their vowels are grammatically short, but long in poetry because both are followed by two consonants. The third and fourth feet are spondees, with two long vowels, one on either side of the caesura. The fifth foot is a dactyl, as it must be, with the ictus this time falling on a grammatically long vowel. The final foot is a spondee with two grammatically long vowels.

The dactylic hexameter was imitated in English by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem Evangeline:

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic,

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Also important in Greek and Latin poetry is the dactylic pentameter. This was a line of verse, made up of two equal parts, each of which contains two dactyls followed by a long syllable. Spondees can take the place of the dactyls in the first half, but never in the second. The long syllable at the close of the first half of the verse always ends a word, giving rise to a caesura.

Dactylic pentameter is never used in isolation. Rather, a line of dactylic pentameter follows a line of dactylic hexameter in the elegiac distich or elegiac couplet, a form of verse that was used for the composition of elegies and other tragic and solemn verse in the Greek and Latin world, as well as love poetry that was sometimes light and cheerful. An example from Ovid's Tristia:

Vérgĭlĭūm vīdī // tāntúm, něc ămāră Tĭbúllŏ

Témpŭs ămī cĭtĭáe // fātă dĕdḗrĕ mĕáe.

("I only saw Vergil, greedy Fate gave Tibullus no time for me.")

The Greeks and Romans also used a number of lyric meters, which were typically used for shorter poems than elegiacs or hexameter. One important line was called the hendecasyllabic, a line of eleven syllables. This meter was used most often in the Sapphic stanza, named after the Greek poet Sappho, who wrote many of her poems in the form. A hendecasyllabic is a line with a never-varying structure: two trochees, followed by a dactyl, then two more trochees. In the Sapphic stanza, three hendecasyllabics are followed by an "Adonic" line, made up of a dactyl and a trochee. This is the form of Catullus 51 (itself a translation of Sappho 31):

/ x / x / x x/ x / x

Ille mi par esse deo videtur;

/ x / x / x x / x / x

ille, si fas est, superare divos,

/ x / x / x x / x / x

qui sedens adversus identidem te

/ x x / x

spectat et audit. . .

("He seems to me to be like a god; if it is permitted, he seems above the gods, he who sitting across from you gazes at you and listens to you.")

The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English by Algernon Charles Swinburne in a poem he simply called Sapphics:

Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,

Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled

Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;

Saw the reluctant. . .

English

Most English meter is classified according to the same system as Classical meter with an important difference. English is an accentual language, and therefore beats and offbeats (stressed and unstressed syllables) take the place of the long and short syllables of classical systems. In most English verse, the meter can be considered as a sort of back beat, against which natural speech rhythms vary expressively.

The most common characteristic feet of English verse are the iamb in two syllables and the anapest in three. (See Foot (prosody) for a complete list of the metrical feet and their names.)

The number of metrical systems in English is not agreed. The major four types are: Accentual verse, Accentual-syllabic verse, Syllabic verse and Quantitative verse. The Alliterative verse of Old English could also be added to this list, or included as a special type of Accentual Verse. Accentual verse focuses on the number of stresses in a line, while ignoring the number of offbeats and syllables; accentual-syllabic verse focuses on regulating both the number of stresses and the total number of syllables in a line; syllabic verse only counts the number of syllables in a line; quantitative verse regulates the patterns of long and short syllables, this sort of verse is often considered alien to English.

The most frequently encountered line of English verse is the iambic pentameter, in which the metrical norm is five iambic feet per line, though metrical substitution is common and rhythmic variations practically inexhaustible. John Milton's Paradise Lost, most sonnets, and much else besides in English are written in iambic pentameter. Lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter are commonly known as blank verse. Blank verse in the English language is most famously represented in the plays of William Shakespeare, although it is also notable in the work of Tennyson (e.g. Ulysses, The Princess).

A rhymed pair of lines of iambic pentameter make a heroic couplet, a verse form which was used so often in the eighteenth century that it is now used mostly for humorous effect (although see Pale Fire for a non-trivial case).

Another important meter in English is the ballad meter, also called the "common meter", which is a four line stanza, with two pairs of a line of iambic tetrameter followed by a line of iambic trimeter; the rhymes usually fall on the lines of trimeter, although in many instances the tetrameter also rhymes. This is the meter of most of the Border and Scots or English ballads. It is called the "common meter" in hymnody (as it is the most common of the named hymn meters used to pair lyrics with melodies) and provides the meter for a great many hymns, such as Amazing Grace:

Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me;

I once was lost, but now am found;

Was blind, but now I see.

Another poet who put this form to use was Emily Dickinson:

Great streets of silence led away

To neighborhoods of pause;

Here was no notice — no dissent —

No universe — no laws.

Old English poetry has a different metrical system. In Old English poetry, each line must contain four fully stressed syllables, which often alliterate. The unstressed syllables are less important. Old English poetry is an example of the alliterative verse found in most of the older Germanic languages. It is to be noted, however, that the use of foreign metres in English is all but exceptional

French

In French poetry, meter is determined solely by the number of syllables in a line. A silent 'e' counts as a syllable before a consonant, but is elided before a vowel (where "h aspiré" counts as a consonant). At the end of a line, the "e" remains unelided but is hypermetrical (outside the count of syllables, like a feminine ending in English verse). The most frequently encountered meter in French is the alexandrine, composed of two hemistichs of six syllables each. Classical French poetry also had a complex set of rules for rhymes that goes beyond how words merely sound. These are usually taken into account when describing the meter of a poem.

Spanish

In Spanish poetry, meter is determined mainly by the position of the last accent in a line. Interestingly, a line whose last accent falls in the seventh syllable is invariably called an "octosyllable", regardless of whether it contains seven, eight or nine syllables.

Syllables in Spanish metrics are determined by consonant breaks, not word boundaries; thus a single syllable may span multiple words. For example, the line De armas y hombres canto consists of 6 syllables: "Dear" "ma" "syhom" "bres" "can" "to." Note how the vowel sounds in adjacent words combine into a single unit, as in the third syllable of the line: De armas y hombres canto.

Some common meters in Spanish verse are:

• Septenary: A line with the last accent on the sixth syllable.
• Octosyllable: A line with its last accent on the seventh syllable. This meter is commonly used in romances, narrative poems similar to English ballads, and in most proverbs.
• Hendecasyllable: A line with its last accent in the tenth and accents either in the sixth, or the fourth and the eighth. This meter plays a similar role to pentameter in English verse. It is commonly used in sonnets, among other things.
• Alexandrines: A line consisting of two heptasyllables.

Italian

In Italian poetry, meter is determined solely by the position of the last accent in a line. Syllables are enumerated with respect to a verse which ends with a paroxytone, so that a Septenary (literally, 'having seven syllables') is defined as a verse whose last accent falls on the sixth syllable: it may so contain eight syllables (Ei fu. Siccome immobile) or just six (la terra al nunzio sta). Moreover, when a word ends with a vowel and the next one starts with a vowel, they are considered to be in the same syllable: so Gli anni e i giorni consists of only four syllables ("Gli an" "ni e i" "gior" "ni"). Because of the mostly trochaic nature of the Italian language, verses with an even number of syllables are far easier to compose, and the Novenary is usually regarded as the most difficult verse.

Some common meters in Italian verse are:

• Septenary: A line whose last stressed syllable is the sixth one.
• Octosyllable: A line whose last accent falls on the seventh syllable. More often than not, the secondary accents fall on the first, third and fifth syllable, especially in nursery rhymes for which this meter is particularly well-suited.
• Hendecasyllable: A line whose last accent falls on the tenth syllable. It therefore usually consists of eleven syllables; there are various kinds of possible accentations. It is used in sonnets, in ottava rima, and in many other works. The Divine Comedy, in particular, is composed entirely of hendecasyllables.

Ottoman Turkish

In the Ottoman Turkish language, the structures of the poetic foot (تفعل tef'ile) and of poetic meter (وزن vezin) were indirectly borrowed from the Arabic poetic tradition through the medium of the Persian language.

Ottoman poetry, also known as Dîvân poetry, was generally written in quantitative, mora-timed meter. The moras, or syllables, are divided into three basic types:

• Open, or light, syllables (açık hece) consist of either a short vowel alone, or a consonant followed by a short vowel
  • Examples: a-dam ("man"); zir-ve ("summit, peak")
• Closed, or heavy, syllables (kapalı hece) consist of either a long vowel alone, a consonant followed by a long vowel, or a short vowel followed by a consonant
  • Examples: Â-dem ("Adam"); kâ-fir ("non-Muslim"); at ("horse")
• Lengthened, or superheavy, syllables (meddli hece) count as one closed plus one open syllable and consist of a vowel followed by a consonant cluster, or a long vowel followed by a consonant
  • Examples: kürk ("fur"); âb ("water")

In writing out a poem's poetic meter, open syllables are symbolized by "." and closed syllables are symbolized by "–". From the different syllable types, a total of sixteen different types of poetic foot—the majority of which are either three or four syllables in length—are constructed, which are named and scanned as follows:

	fa‘ (–)	fe ul (. –)	fa‘ lün (– –)	fe i lün (. . –)
	fâ i lün (– . –)	fe û lün (. – –)	mef’ û lü (– – .)	fe i lâ tün (. . – –)
	fâ i lâ tün (– . – –)	fâ i lâ tü (– . – .)	me fâ i lün (. – . –)	me fâ’ î lün (. – – –)
	me fâ î lü (. – – .)	müf te i lün (– . . –)	müs tef i lün (– – . –)	mü te fâ i lün (. . – . –)

These individual poetic feet are then combined in a number of different ways, most often with four feet per line, so as to give the poetic meter for a line of verse. Some of the most commonly used meters are the following:

• me fâ’ î lün / me fâ’ î lün / me fâ’ î lün / me fâ’ î lün
  . – – – / . – – – / . – – – / . – – –

Ezelden şāh-ı ‘aşḳuñ bende-i fermānıyüz cānā Maḥabbet mülkinüñ sulţān-ı ‘ālī-şānıyüz cānā

Oh beloved, since the origin we have been the slaves of the shah of love Oh beloved, we are the famed sultan of the heart's domain

—Bâkî (1526–1600)

• me fâ i lün / fe i lâ tün / me fâ i lün / fe i lün
  . – . – / . . – – / . – . – / . . –

Ḥaţā’ o nerkis-i şehlādadır sözümde degil Egerçi her süḥanim bī-bedel beġendiremem

Though I may fail to please with my matchless verse The fault lies in those languid eyes and not my words

—Şeyh Gâlib (1757–1799)

• fâ i lâ tün / fâ i lâ tün / fâ i lâ tün / fâ i lün
  – . – – / – . – – / – . – – / – . –

Bir şeker ḥand ile bezm-i şevķa cām ettiñ beni Nīm ṣun peymāneyi sāḳī tamām ettiñ beni

At the gathering of desire you made me a wine-cup with your sugar smile Oh saki, give me only half a cup of wine, you've made me drunk enough

—Nedîm (1681?–1730)

• fe i lâ tün / fe i lâ tün / fe i lâ tün / fe i lün
  . . – – / . . – – / . . – – / . . –

Men ne ḥācet ki ḳılam derd-i dilüm yāra ‘ayān Ḳamu derd-i dilümi yār bilübdür bilübem

What use in revealing my sickness of heart to my love I know my love knows the whole of my sickness of heart

—Fuzûlî (1483?–1556)

• mef’ û lü / me fâ î lü / me fâ î lü / fâ û lün
  – – . / . – – . / . – – . / – – .

Şevḳuz ki dem-i bülbül-i şeydāda nihānuz Ḥūnuz ki dil-i ġonçe-i ḥamrāda nihānuz

We are desire hidden in the love-crazed call of the nightingale We are blood hidden in the crimson heart of the unbloomed rose

—Neşâtî (?–1674)

Sanskrit

Classical Sanskrit and Vedic Sanskrit use meters for most ancient treatises that are set to verse. Prominent Vedic meters include Gayatri, Ushnik, Anushtubh, Brhati, Pankti, Tristubh and Jagati.

The Bhagavad Gita is mainly written in anustubh interspersed with some tristubh. For example, when Krishna reveals his divinity to Arjuna the meter changes to tristubh. Tristubh is the most prevalent meter of the ancient Rigveda, accounting for roughly 40% of its verses.

Notes

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