Meter (poetry)

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Meter (poetry)

In poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literature art in which language is used for its aesthetics and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning ....
, the meter (or metre) is the basic rhythmic structure

Rhythm

Rhythm is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events....
of a verse

Verse (poetry)

A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....
. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse meter, or a certain set of meters alternating in a particular order. Prosody is a more general linguistic

Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
term, that includes poetical meter but also the rhythmic aspects of prose

Prose

Prose is writing that resembles everyday Speech communication. The word "prose" is derived from the Latin prosa, which literally translates to "straightforward"....
, whether formal or informal. The scansion
Systems of scansion

A system of scansion is a way to mark the meter patterns of a line of poetry. In classical poetry, these patterns are based on the different lengths of each vowel sound, and in English poetry, they are based on the different stresses placed on each syllable....
of a poem is the analysis of its metrical structure.

meter usually depends on acoustic

Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of sound, ultrasound and infrasound . A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician....
properties of the spoken words

Speech

Speech is the human faculty of speaking.It may also refer to:* Public speaking, the process of speaking to a group of people* Manner of articulation, how the body parts involved in making speech are manipulated...
, such as the length or stress of their syllable

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of Speech communication sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter....
s, independently of their meaning.

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Encyclopedia

In poetry

Poetry

Rhythm

Rhythm is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events....
of a verse

Verse (poetry)

Linguistics

Prose

Fundamentals

The meter usually depends on acoustic

Acoustics

Speech

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of Speech communication sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter....
s, independently of their meaning. The sound attributes that determine the meter may vary from language to language, and sometimes between poetic traditions.

Feet

In most Western

Western world

The term Western world, the West or the Occident can have multiple meanings dependent on its context . Accordingly, the basic definition of what constitutes "the West" varies, expanding and contracting over time, in relation to various historical circumstances....
classical poetic traditions, the meter of a verse can be described as a sequence of feet
Foot (prosody)

In Poetry, many Meter use a foot as the basic unit in their description of the underlying rhythm of a poem. Both the quantitative meter of History of poetry#Classical and early modern Western traditions and the accentual-syllabic verse meter of most poetry in English use the foot as the fundamental building block....
, each foot being a specific sequence of syllable types—such as unstressed/stressed (the norm for English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
poetry) or long/short (as in most classical Latin and Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
poetry).

The most common meter in English poetry, the so-called iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a type of meter that is used in poetry and drama. It describes a particular rhythm that the words establish in each Line ....
, is a sequence of five iambic feet
Iamb

An iamb or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody : a short syllable followed by a long syllable ....
or iambs, each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one ("da-DUM") :

This approach to analyzing and classifying meters originates from ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
tragedians and poets such as Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
, Pindar

Pindar

Pindar , was an Ancient Greek Lyric poetry poet.Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is by far the best preserved, and critics in antiquity tended to regard him as the greatest....
, Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
, Sappho

Sappho

Sappho...
.

Caesurae

Another component of a verse's meter are the caesura

Caesura

In Meter , caesura is a term to denote an audible pause that breaks up a line of Poetry. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a dash, etc....
e (literally, cuts), which are pauses or other breaks inserted between certain syllables of the verse. In Latin and Greek poetry, a caesura is a break within a foot caused by the end of a word. In English poetry, a caesura refers to a break within a line.

Metric variations

Poems with a well-defined overall metric pattern often have a few lines that violate that pattern. A common variation is the inversion of a foot, which turns an iamb ("da-DUM") into a trochee

Trochee

A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of a stressed syllable syllable followed by an unstressed syllable one....
("DUM-da"). Another common variation is a headless verse, which lacks the first syllable of the first foot. Yet a third variation is catalexis

Catalectic

A catalectic line is a Metre incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete Foot . One form of catalexis is headless rhyme, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line....
, where the end of a line is shortened by a foot, or two or part thereof - an example of this is at the end of each verse in Keats' 'La Belle Dame sans Merci':

'And on thy cheeks a fading rose (4 feet)

Fast withereth too' (2 feet)

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 according to their weight

Syllable weight

In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segment s in the syllable rime....
as either "long" syllables or "short" syllables (indicated as daa and duh below). These are also called "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

Mora (linguistics)

Mora is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight in some languages. Like many technical linguistics terms, the exact definition of mora varies....
, 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

Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
, or a short vowel followed by two or more consonants. Various rules of elision

Elision

Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce. Sometimes, sounds may be elided for euphony effect....
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

Dactylic hexameter

Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek language and Latin, and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry....
, the meter of Homer and Virgil. This form uses verses of six feet. The first four feet are dactyl

Dactyl (poetry)

A dactyl is a type of Meter . In quantitative verse, such as Greek language or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight....
s (daa-duh-duh), but can be spondee

Spondee

In poetry, a spondee is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables, as determined by syllable weight in classical meters, or two stressed syllables, as determined by stress in modern meters....
s (daa-daa). The fifth foot is almost always a dactyl. The sixth foot is either a spondee or a trochee

Trochee

A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of a stressed syllable syllable followed by an unstressed syllable one....
(daa-duh). The initial syllable of either foot is called the ictus, the basic "beat" of the verse. There is usually a caesura

Caesura

In Meter , caesura is a term to denote an audible pause that breaks up a line of Poetry. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a dash, etc....
after the ictus of the third foot. The opening line of the Æneid
Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
is a typical line of dactylic hexameter:

In this example, the first and second feet are dactyls; their first syllables, "Ar" and "rum" respectively, contain short vowels, but count as long because the vowels are both followed by two consonants. The third and fourth feet are spondees, the first of which is divided by the main caesura

Caesura

In Meter , caesura is a term to denote an audible pause that breaks up a line of Poetry. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a dash, etc....
of the verse. The fifth foot is a dactyl, as is nearly always the case. The final foot is a spondee.

The dactylic hexameter was imitated in English by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an United States educator and poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride ", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline"....
in his poem Evangeline
Evangeline

Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie is a poem published in 1847 by the United States poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem follows an Acadian girl named Evangeline and her search for her lost love Gabriel, set during the time of the Great Upheaval....
:

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

Dactylic pentameter

Dactylic pentameter is a form of meter in poetry. It is normally found the second line of the classical Latin or Greek elegiac couplet, following the first line of dactylic hexameter....
. This was a line of verse, made up of two equal parts, each of which contains two dactyls followed by a long syllable, which counts as a half foot. In this way, the number of feet amounts to five in total. 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

Caesura

In Meter , caesura is a term to denote an audible pause that breaks up a line of Poetry. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a dash, etc....
.

Dactylic pentameter is never used in isolation. Rather, a line of dactylic pentameter follows a line of dactylic hexameter in the elegiac

Elegy

An elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive Poetry#Elegy, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead....
distich or elegiac couplet

Elegiac couplet

Elegiac couplets are a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than those of epic poetry. The ancient Romans frequently used elegiac couplets in love poetry, as in Ovid's Amores....
, a form of verse that was used for the composition of elegies and other tragic

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of The arts based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific Poetic tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture....
and solemn verse in the Greek and Latin world, as well as love poetry that was sometimes light and cheerful. An example from Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
's Tristia
Tristia

Tristia is a work of poetry, in five books, written by the Roman poet Ovid at some time after he was banished from Roman Empire in AD 8. It uses the elegiac couplet, a meter suitable for lamenting the misery of exile on the bleak edge of the Black Sea, and holds out the poet's hopes for alleviation of his punishment....
:

Tempus a | miciti | ae || fata de | dere me | ae.

The Greeks and Romans also used a number of lyric

Lyric poetry

Lyric poetry refers to a usually short poem that expresses personal feelings, which may or may not be set to music. Aristotle, in Poetics , contrasted lyric poetry with drama and epic poetry....
meters, which were typically used for shorter poems than elegiacs or hexameter. In Aeolic verse

Aeolic verse

Aeolic verse is a classification of Ancient Greek lyric poetry referring to the distinct verse forms characteristic of the two great poets of Archaic Greece Lesbos, Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, who composed in their native Aeolic dialect....
, one important line was called the hendecasyllabic

Hendecasyllabic verse

The hendecasyllabic verse is a quantitative Meter used in Ancient Greek Aeolic verse, in scolia, and later by the Roman poet Catullus. Each line has eleven syllables, hence the name....
, a line of eleven syllables. This meter was used most often in the Sapphic stanza

Sapphic stanza

The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form spanning four lines .The form is two hendecasyllabic verses, and a third verse beginning the same way and continuing with five additional syllables ....
, named after the Greek poet Sappho

Sappho

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

Stanza

In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "Verse " ....
, three hendecasyllabics are followed by an "Adonic" line, made up of a dactyl and a trochee. This is the form of Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Roman poet of the 1st century BC. His work remains widely studied, and continues to influence poetry and other forms of art....
51 (itself an homage to Sappho

Sappho

Sappho...
31):

Ille | mi par | esse de | o vi | detur;

ille, | si fas | est, supe | rare | divos,

qui se | dens ad | versus i | denti | dem te

spectat et | audit

The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English

English language

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, controversial in his own day....
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...

Old English

The metric system of Old English poetry was different from that of modern English, and more related to the verse forms of most of older Germanic languages. It used alliterative verse

Alliterative verse

In meter , alliterative verse is a form of poetry that uses alliteration as the principal structuring device to unify lines of poetry, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme....
, a metrical pattern involving varied numbers of syllables but a fixed number (usually four) of strong stresses in each line. The unstressed syllables were relatively unimportant, but the caesurae played a major role in Old English poetry.

Modern 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

Iamb

An iamb or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody : a short syllable followed by a long syllable ....
in two syllables and the anapest in three. (See Foot (prosody)

Foot (prosody)

In Poetry, many Meter use a foot as the basic unit in their description of the underlying rhythm of a poem. Both the quantitative meter of History of poetry#Classical and early modern Western traditions and the accentual-syllabic verse meter of most poetry in English use the foot as the fundamental building block....
for a complete list of the metrical feet and their names.)

Metrical systems

The number of metrical systems in English is not agreed upon. The four major types are: accentual verse

Accentual verse

Accentual verse has a fixed number of stresses per line or stanza regardless of the number of syllables that are present. It is common in languages that are stress-timed language such as English language as opposed to syllabic verse, which is common in syllable-timed languages such as classical Latin....
, accentual-syllabic verse

Accentual-syllabic verse

Accentual-syllabic verse is an extension of accentual verse which fixes both the number of stresses and syllables within a line or stanza. Accentual-syllabic verse is highly regular and therefore easily scannable....
, syllabic verse

Syllabic verse

Syllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed number of syllables per line or stanza regardless of the number of stresses that are present. It is common in languages that are syllable-timed language such as Japanese or modern French language or Finnish language, as opposed to accentual verse, which is common in stress-timed languages such as...
and quantitative verse. The alliterative verse

Alliterative verse

In meter , alliterative verse is a form of poetry that uses alliteration as the principal structuring device to unify lines of poetry, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme....
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. It is to be noted, however, that the use of foreign metres in English is all but exceptional.

Frequently-used meters

The most frequently encountered line of English verse is the iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a type of meter that is used in poetry and drama. It describes a particular rhythm that the words establish in each Line ....
, in which the metrical norm is five iambic feet per line, though metrical substitution is common and rhythmic variations practically inexhaustible. John Milton

John Milton

John Milton II was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his Epic poetry Paradise Lost and for his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica....
's Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century England poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books....
, most sonnet

Sonnet

The sonnet is one of the Poetry that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe.The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian language word sonetto, both meaning "little song"....
s, and much else besides in English are written in iambic pentameter. Lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter are commonly known as blank verse

Blank verse

Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter , but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter ....
. Blank verse in the English language is most famously represented in the plays of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
and the greater works of Milton, though Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and remains one of the most popular English poets.Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, including "In the valley of Cauteretz", "Break, break, break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade ", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar"....
(Ulysses
Ulysses (poem)

"Ulysses" is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian era poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson , written in 1833 and published in 1842 in Tennyson's well-received second volume of poems....
, The Princess
The Princess (poem)

The Princess is a serio-comic blank verse narrative poem, written by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, published in 1847. Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1850 to 1896 and remains one of the most popular English poets....
) and Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major England Romantic poetry poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
(The Prelude
The Prelude

The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind is an autobiographical, "philosophical" poem in blank verse by the England poet William Wordsworth....
) also make notable use of it.

A rhymed pair of lines of iambic pentameter make a heroic couplet

Heroic couplet

A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English literature poetry, commonly used for epic poetry and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines....
, 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

Pale Fire

Pale Fire is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a poem titled "Pale Fire" by John Shade, a fictional author, with an introduction and commentary by a fictional friend of his....
for a non-trivial case). The most famous writers of heroic couplets are Dryden

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of English Restoration to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden....
and Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope is generally regarded as the greatest England poet of the eighteenth century, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer....
.

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

Iambic tetrameter

Iambic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of four iamb foot . The word "tetrameter" simply means that there are four feet in the line; iambic tetrameter is a line comprising four iambs....
followed by a line of iambic trimeter

Iambic trimeter

Iambic trimeter is a Meter consisting of three iambic units per line.In Ancient Greek, iambic trimeter was a quantitative meter in which a line consisted of three iambic metra; and each metron consisted of two iambi....
; the rhyme

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes....
s 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. In hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity/deities, a prominent figure or an epic tale....
ody it is called the "common meter", as it is the most common of the named hymn meters

Meter (hymn)

A hymn meter or metre indicates the number of syllables for the lines in each stanza of a hymn. This provides a means of marrying the hymn's text with an appropriate hymn tune for singing....
used to pair many hymn lyrics with melodies, such as Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace

"Amazing Grace" is a well-known Christian hymn by Englishman John Newton and first appeared in print in Newton's Olney Hymns ....
:

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.

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life....
is famous for her frequent use of ballad meter:

Great streets of silence led away

To neighborhoods of pause;

Here was no notice — no dissent —

No universe — no laws.

French

In French poetry

French poetry

French poetry is a category of French literature. It may include Francophone literature poetry composed outside France and poetry written in other languages of France....
, 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

French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
is the alexandrine

Alexandrine

An alexandrine is a line of Meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the German literature of the Baroque period and in List of French language poets of the early modern and modern periods....
, composed of two hemistich

Hemistich

A hemistich is a half-line of verse, followed and preceded by a caesura, that makes up a single overall prosodic or verse unit. In Classical poetry, the hemistich is generally confined to drama....
es of six syllables each. Classical French poetry also had a complex set of rules for rhymes

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery 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

Spanish poetry

Spanish poetry is the poetry tradition of Spain. It may include elements of Spanish literature, and literatures written in languages of Spain other than Spanish language, such as Catalan literature....
the meter is determined by the number of syllables the verse has. Still it is the phonetic accent in the last word of the verse that decides the final count of the line. If the accent of the final word is at the last syllable, then the poetic rule states that one syllable shall be added to the actual count of syllables in the said line, thus having a higher number of poetic syllables than the number of grammatical syllables. If the accent lies on the second to last syllable of the last word in the verse, then the final count of poetic syllables will be the same as the grammatical number of syllables. Furthermore, if the accent lies on the third to last syllable, then one syllable is subtracted from the actual count, having then less poetic syllables than grammatical syllables. Interestingly, Spanish poetry uses poetic licenses, unique to Romance languages, to change the number of syllables by manipulating mainly the vowels in the line. For example:

Cuando salí de Collores,

fue en una jaquita baya,

por un sendero entre mayas,

arropás de cundiamores...

This stanza from Valle de Collores by Luis Llorens Torres

Luis Lloréns Torres

Luis Llorens Torres born in Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico, was a Puerto Rico poet, playwright, and politician. He was also an advocate for the Puerto Rican Independence....
, uses eight poetic syllables. Given that all words at the end of each line have their phonetic accent on the second to last syllables, no syllables in the final count is either added or subtracted. Still in the second and third verse the grammatical count of syllables is nine. Poetic licenses permit the union of two vowels that are next to each other but in different syllables and count them as one. "Fue en..." has actually two syllables, but applying this license both vowels unite and form only one, giving the final count of eight syllables. "Sendero entre..." has five grammatical syllables, but uniting the "o" from "sendero" and the first "e" from "entre", gives only four syllables, permitting it to have eight syllables in the verse as well. This license is called a synalepha

Synalepha

A synalepha is the elision of two syllables into one.Examples:* "Apollo's priest to th'Argive fleet doth bring" Spanish and Italian use the synalepha very frequently....
(Spanish: sinalefa). There are many types of licenses, used either to add or subtract syllables, that may be applied when needed after taking in consideration the poetic rules of the last word. Yet all have in common that they only manipulate vowels that are close to each other and not interrupted by consonants.

Some common meters in Spanish verse are:

Septenary: A line with the seven poetic syllables
Octosyllable
Octosyllable

The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a Meter of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in iambs or trochees in languages with a stress accent....
: A line with eight poetic syllables. This meter is commonly used in romances, narrative poems similar to English ballads, and in most proverbs.
Hendecasyllable
Hendecasyllable

Hendecasyllable Meter is a kind of verse used mostly in Italy poetry, defined by its having the last stress on the tenth syllable. When, as often happens, this stress falls on the penultimate syllable, the line has exactly eleven syllables ....
: A line with eleven poetic syllables. This meter plays a similar role to pentameter in English verse. It is commonly used in sonnets, among other things.
Alexandrine
Alexandrine

An alexandrine is a line of Meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the German literature of the Baroque period and in List of French language poets of the early modern and modern periods....
: A line consisting of thirteen or more poetic syllables.

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 (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"). Even-syllabic verses have a fixed stress pattern. Because of the mostly trochaic

Trochee

A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of a stressed syllable syllable followed by an unstressed syllable one....
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:

Sexenary: A line whose last stressed syllabe is on the fifth, with a fixed stress on the second one as well (Al Re Travicello / Piovuto ai ranocchi, Giusti)
Septenary: A line whose last stressed syllable is the sixth one.
Octosyllable
Octosyllable

The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a Meter of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in iambs or trochees in languages with a stress accent....
: 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
Hendecasyllable

Hendecasyllable Meter is a kind of verse used mostly in Italy poetry, defined by its having the last stress on the tenth syllable. When, as often happens, this stress falls on the penultimate syllable, the line has exactly eleven syllables ....
: 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
The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy , written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature....
, in particular, is composed entirely of hendecasyllables, whose main stress pattern is 4th and 10th syllable.

Ottoman Turkish

In the Ottoman Turkish language

Ottoman Turkish language

Ottoman Turkish is the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire. It contains extensive borrowings from Arabic language and Persian language languages and was written in a variant of the Arabic script....
, the structures of the poetic foot (???? tef'ile) and of poetic meter (??? vezin) were indirectly borrowed from the Arabic poetic tradition

Arabic poetry

Arabic poetry is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Our present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that....
through the medium of the Persian language

Persian language

Quantitative

A quantitative attribute is one that exists in a range of magnitudes, and can therefore be measurement. Measurements of any particular quantitative property are expressed as a specific quantity, referred to as a Unit of measurement, multiplied by a number....
, mora-timed meter. The moras

Mora (linguistics)

Open, or light
Syllable weight

In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segment s in the syllable rime....
, syllables (açik hece) consist of either a short vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
alone, or a consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
followed by a short vowel

Examples: a-dam ("man"); zir-ve ("summit, peak")

Closed, or heavy, syllables (kapali 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
Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve are the First man or woman created by God in the Hebrew creation story told in Genesis 1-2....
"); 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
Consonant cluster

In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
, 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 sah-i ‘as?uñ bende-i fermaniyüz cana
Ma?abbet mülkinüñ sultan-i ‘ali-saniyüz cana

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

Baki

Baki can be:* Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan * Baki, Somalia, the capital of the Baki district of the Awdal region*Baki, Afghanistan* Baki, Sukoharjo, a subdistrict in Sukoharjo Regency, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia....
(1526–1600)

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

?ata’ o nerkis-i sehladadir sözümde degil
Egerçi her sü?anim bi-bedel begendiremem

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

—Seyh Gâlib (1757–1799)

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

Bir seker ?and ile bezm-i sevka cam ettiñ beni
Nim ?un peymaneyi sa?i tamam 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

Nedîm

Ned?m was the pen name of one of the most celebrated Ottoman Empire poets. He achieved his greatest fame during the Ottoman Empire's 1718?1730 Tulip Era in the Ottoman Empire, and both his life and his work are often seen as being representative of the spirit of that time....
(1681?–1730)

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

Men ne ?acet ki ?ilam derd-i dilüm yara ‘ayan
?amu derd-i dilümi yar 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

Fuzûlî

Fuzuli was the pen name of the Azerbaijani poet, writer and thinker Muhammad bin Suleyman . Often considered one of the greatest contributors to the Ottoman poetry of Azerbaijani literature, Fuz?l? in fact wrote his collected poems in three different languages: Azerbaijani language, Persian language, and Arabic language....
(1483?–1556)

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

Sev?uz ki dem-i bülbül-i seydada nihanuz
?unuz ki dil-i gonçe-i ?amrada nihanuz

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

—Nesâtî

Nesâtî

Nesa?i was the pen name of an Ottoman Empire poet. He was a Sufism, or Islam Mysticism, of the Mevlevi Tarika, and his poetry is often considered exemplary of the "Indian style" of Poetry of the Ottoman Empire, a movement which flourished beginning in the 17th century....
(?–1674)

Sanskrit

Classical Sanskrit and Vedic Sanskrit use meters for most ancient treatises that are set to verse. Prominent Vedic meters include Gayatri, Ushnik, Anushtupa, Brhati, Pankti, Tristubh and Jagati. The basic meter for epic verse is the Sloka. Sanskrit meter is quantitative, similar in general principles to classical Greek and Latin meter. The Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is an important Sanskrit Hindu scripture. It is revered as a sacred scripture of Hinduism, and considered as one of the most important religious classics of the world....
is mainly written in anustupa (with some vasanta-tilaka sections) interspersed with some Tristubh

Tristubh

Tristubh is the name of a Vedic meter of 44 syllables , or any hymn composed in this meter. It is the most prevalent meter of the Rigveda, accounting for roughly 40% of its verses....
. For example, when Krishna

Krishna

Krishna is a deity worshiped across many traditions in Hinduism in a variety of different perspectives. While many Vaishnava groups recognize him as an avatar of Vishnu, other traditions within Krishnaism consider Krishna to be svayam bhagavan, or the supreme being....
reveals his divinity to Arjuna

Arjuna

Arjuna, Arjun or Arjunaa is one of the heroes of the Hindu epic Mahabharata, whose name means 'bright', 'shining', 'white' or 'silver' ....
the meter changes to Tristubh

Tristubh

Rigveda

The Rigveda is an ancient Indian subcontinent sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns dedicated to the Rigvedic deities . It is counted among the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism known as the Vedas....
, accounting for roughly 40% of its verses.

History

Metrical texts are first attested in early Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a Language family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau , Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ....
. The earliest known unambiguously metrical texts, and at the same time the only metrical texts with a claim of dating to the Late Bronze Age, are the hymns of the Rigveda

Rigveda

Ancient Near East

The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , Fars Province, Elam and Medes , Anatolia , the Levant , and Ancient Egypt, from the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BCE until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, or covering both th...
(Sumerian, Egyptian or Semitic) should not exhibit meter is surprising, and may be partly due to the nature of Bronze Age writing. There were, in fact, attemtps to reconstruct metrical qualities of the poetic portions of the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic....
, e.g. by Gustav Bickell

Gustav Bickell

Gustav Bickell was a Germany orientalist. He was born in Kassel, and died in Vienna.His father, Johann Wilhelm Bickell, was professor of canon law at the University of Marburg, and died as minister of justice of Hesse-Kassel ....
or Julius Ley, but they remained inconclusive (see Biblical poetry

Biblical poetry

This article is concerned with Biblical poetry, specifically poetry in the Tanakh.The question whether the literature of the ancient Hebrews includes portions that may be called poetry is answered by the ancient Hebrews themselves....
). Early Iron Age metrical poetry is found in the Iranian Avesta

Avesta

The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language....
and in the Greek works attributed to Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
and Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
.

Latin verse

Latin poetry

Latin poetry was a major part of Latin literature during the height of the Latin. During Latin literature's Golden Age of Latin Literature, most of the great literature was written in poetry, including works by Virgil, Catullus, and Horace....
survives from the Old Latin

Old Latin

Old Latin refers to the Latin language in the period before the age of Classical Latin; that is, all Latin before 75 BC. The term prisca Latinitas distinguishes it in New Latin and Contemporary Latin from vetus Latina, in which "old" has another meaning....
period (ca. 2nd c. BC), in the Saturnian meter

Saturnian (poetry)

Saturnian meter or verse is an old Latin and Italic languages poetry form, of which the principles of versification have become obscure. Only 132 complete uncontroversial verses survive....
. Persian poetry arises in the Sassanid era. Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has Official language in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore....
poetry of the early centuries AD may be the earliest known non-Indo-European metrical texts (with the possible exception of the Chinese Shi Jing
Shi Jing

Shi Jing , translated variously as the Classic of Poetry, the Book of Songs or the Book of Odes, is the earliest existing collection of Chinese poetry....
). The oldest surviving fragment of Germanic poetry is the verse on one of the Gallehus horns (ca. AD 400). Irish

Irish poetry

The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish language and the other in English language. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to categorise....
and Arabic poetry

Arabic poetry

Medieval poetry

Because most of what we have was written down by clerics, much of extant medieval poetry is Religion. The chief exception is the work of the troubadours and the minnes?nger, whose primary innovation was the ideal of courtly love....
was metrical without exception, spanning traditions as diverse as European Minnesang

Minnesang

Minnesang was the tradition of lyric and song writing in Germany which flourished in the 12th century and continued into the 14th century. People who wrote and performed Minnesang are known as Minnesingers ....
, Trouvère

Trouvère

Trouv?re , sometimes spelled trouveur, is the Northern French language form of the word troubadour . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern Languages of France....
or Bardic poetry

Bardic poetry

Bardic Poetry refers to the writings of poets trained in the Bardic Schools of Ireland and the Gaels parts of Scotland, as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century, or, in Scotland, the early 18th century....
, Classical Persian and Sanskrit poetry, Tang dynasty

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an Dynasties in Chinese history preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire....
Chinese poetry

Chinese poetry

Chinese poetry is the most highly regarded Chinese literature. Traditionally, it is divided into shi , ci and qu . There is also a kind of Prose poetry called Fu ....
or the Japanese

Japanese poetry

Japanese poets first encountered Chinese poetry when it was at its peak in the Tang Dynasty. It took them several hundred years to digest the foreign impact, make it a part of their culture and merge it with their literary tradition in their mother tongue, and begin to develop the diversity of their native poetry....
Heian period

Heian period

The is the last division of classical History of Japan, running from 794 to 1185. It is the period in Japanese history when Confucianism and other Chinese culture were at their height....
Man'yoshu. Renaissance and Early Modern poetry in Europe is characterized by a return to templates of Classical Antiquity, a tradition begun by Petrarca

Petrarca

Petrarca may refer to:* Petrarch, the English name for Francesco Petrarca , Italian scholar, poet, and Renaissance humanist* David Petrarca , director at the Goodman Theatre...
's generation and continued into the time of Shakespeare and Milton

John Milton

Dissent

Not all poets accept the idea that meter is a fundamental part of poetry. Twentieth century American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
poets Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore was a Modernism American poet and writer....
, William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was an list of American poets closely associated with Modernist poetry and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine....
, and Robinson Jeffers

Robinson Jeffers

John Robinson Jeffers was an United States poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Most of Jeffers' poetry was written in classic narrative and Epic poetry form, but today he is also known for his short verse, and considered an icon of the environmentalism movement....
, were poets who believed that meter was imposed into poetry by man, not a fundamental part of its nature. In an essay titled "Robinson Jeffers, & The Metric Fallacy" Dan Schneider

Dan Schneider (writer)

Dan Schneider is a United States poet, critic, film critic, essayist, and fiction writer best known for his criticism and literary website Cosmoetica....
echoes Jeffers' sentiments: "What if someone actually said to you that all music was composed of just 2 notes? Or if someone claimed that there were just 2 colors in creation? Now, ponder if such a thing were true. Imagine the clunkiness & mechanicality of such music. Think of the visual arts devoid of not just color, but sepia tones, & even shades of gray." Jeffers called his technique "rolling stresses".

Moore went even further than Jeffers, openly declaring her poetry was written in syllabic form, and wholly denying meter. These syllabic lines from her famous poem "Poetry" illustrate her contempt for meter, and other poetic tools (even the syllabic pattern of this poem does not remain perfectly consistent):

nor is it valid to discriminate against "business documents and

school-books": all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction

however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry

Williams tried to form poetry whose subject matter was centered on the lives of common people. He came up with the concept of the variable foot. Williams spurned traditional meter in most of his poems, preferring what he called "colloquial idioms." Another poet that turned his back on traditional concepts of meter was Britain's Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins , was an England poet, Roman Catholicism convert, and Society of Jesus priest, whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets....
. Hopkins' major innovation was what he called sprung rhythm

Sprung rhythm

Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from Foot in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables....
. He claimed most poetry was written in this older rhythmic structure inherited from the Norman side of the English literary heritage, based on repeating groups of two or three syllables, with the stressed syllable falling in the same place on each repetition. Sprung rhythm is structured around feet with a variable number of syllables, generally between one and four syllables per foot, with the stress always falling on the first syllable in a foot.

Meter (poetry)

Fundamentals

Feet

Caesurae

Metric variations

Meter in various languages

Greek and Latin

Old English

Modern English

Metrical systems

Frequently-used meters

French

Spanish

Italian

Ottoman Turkish

Sanskrit

History

Dissent

See also