Rhythm, Meter, and Scansion Made Easyhttp://server.riverdale.k12.or.us/~bblack/meter.htmlI created this page as a quick reference for my students when studying rhythm. The sources I cited below were very helpful, especially X.J. Kennedy's book.

rhythm:the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line.meter:the number of feet in a line.scansion:Describing the rhythms of poetry by dividing the lines into feet, marking the locations of stressed and unstressed syllables, and counting the syllables.

Thus, when we describe the rhythm of a poem, we scan the poem and mark the stresses (/) and absences of stress (^) and count the number of feet.In English, the major feet are:iamb(^/)

^/ ^/^/ ^/^ / ^/^/

Thefallingoutoffaithfulfriends,renewingisoflove

trochee(/^)

/ ^/ ^/^/ ^

Double,doubletoilandtrouble

anapest(^^/)

^^/ ^^/^^ /

IammonarchofallIsurvey

dactyl(/^^)

/^^/ ^^

Takeheruptenderly

spondee(//)

pyrrhic(^^)

Iambicandanapesticmeters are called rising meters because their movement rises from unstressed syllable to stressed;trochaicanddactylicmeters are called falling. In the twentieth century, the bouncing meters--anapestic and dactylic--have been used more often for comic verse than for serious poetry.

Spondeeandpyrrhicare called feet, even though they contain only one kind of stressed syllable. They are never used as the sole meter of a poem; if they were, it would be like the steady impact of nails being hammered into a board--no pleasure to hear or dance to. But inserted now and then, they can lend emphasis and variety to a meter, as Yeats well knew when he broke up the predominantly iambic rhythm of Who Goes With Fergus? with the line,^^//^^//

Andthewhitebreastofthedimsea,

A frequently heard metrical description is iambic pentameter: a line of five iambs. This is a meter especially familiar because it occurs in all blank verse (such as Shakespeares plays), heroic couplets, and sonnets.Pentameter is one name for the number of feet in a line. The commonly used names for line lengths are:monometerone footpentameterfive feet

dimetertwo feethexametersix feet

trimeterthree feetheptameterseven feet

tetrameterfour feetoctametereight feet

The scansion of this quatrain from Shakespeares Sonnet 73 shows the following accents and divisions into feet (note the following words were split: behold, yellow, upon, against, ruin'd):^/^/^/^/^/

Thattime |ofyear |thoumayst |inme |behold |

^/^/^/^/^/

Whenyel |lowleaves, |ornone, |orfew, |dohang |

^/^/^/^/^/

Upon |thoseboughs |whichshake |against |thecold,|

^/^/^/^/^/

Bareru |in'dchoirs |wherelate |thesweetbirdssang |

From this, we see the rhythm of this quatrain is made up of one unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable, called an iambic foot. We also see there are five feet per line, making the meter of the line pentameter. So, the rhythm and meter are iambic pentameter.Yes, thats all very lovely, but why do we study rhythm? People have a basic need for rhythm, or for the effect produced by it, as laboratory experiments in psychology have demonstrated, and as you can see by watching a crew of workers digging or hammering, or by listening to chants and work songs. Rhythm gives pleasure and a more emotional response to the listener or reader because it establishes a pattern of expectations, and rewards the listener or reader with the pleasure that comes from having those expectations fulfilled, or the noted change in a rhythm, as in the Yeats example.

An argument might be raised against scanning: isnt it too simple to expect that all language can be divided into neat stressed and unstressed syllables? Of course it is. There are infinite levels of stress, from the loudest scream to the faintest whisper. But, the idea in scanning a poem is not to reproduce the sound of a human voice. A tape recorder can do that. To scan a poem is to make a diagram of the stresses and absence of stress we find in it. Studying rhythms, scanning, is not just a way of pointing to syllables; it is also a matter of listening to a poem and making sense of it. To scan a poem is one way to indicate how to read it aloud; in order to see where stresses fall, you have to see the places where the poet wishes to put emphasis. That is why when scanning a poem you may find yourself suddenly understanding it.

In everyday life, nobody speaks or writes in perfect iambic rhythm, except at moments: a HAM on RYE and HIT the MUStard HARD! Poets dont even write in iambic very long, although when they do, they have chosen iambic because it is the rhythm that most closely resemble everyday speech.

And even after this lengthy discussion of rhythm, it must be stated that most poems do not employ the same rhythm throughout. Variety in rhythm is not merely desirable, it is a necessity. If the beat of its words slips into a mechanical pattern, the poem marches robot-like right into its grave. Very few poets favor rhythms that go a TROT a TROT a TROT a TROT for very long. Robert Frost told an audience one time that if when writing a poem he found its rhythm becoming monotonous, he knew that the poem was going wrong and that he himself didnt believe what it was saying.

Sources:Holman, C. Hugh and William Harmon.A Handbook to Literature. Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986.Kennedy, X.J.Literature. Scott, Foresman, and Company, 1987.

Can you scan these poem excerpts?

The morns are meeker than they were,The nuts are getting brown;The berrys cheek is plumper,The rose is out of town.--Emily Dickinson

Bats have webby wings that fold up;Bats from ceilings hang down rolled up;Bats when flying undismayed are;Bats are careful; bats use radar;--Frank Jacobs, The Bat

You know that it would be untrue,You know that I would be a liar,If I was to say to youGirl, we couldnt get much higher.Come on, baby, light my fire.Try to set the night on fire.--Jim Morrison, Light My Fire

Rhythm and Meter in English Poetryhttp://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/meter.htmlEnglish poetry employs five basic rhythms of varying stressed (/) and unstressed (x) syllables. The meters are iambs, trochees, spondees, anapests and dactyls. In this document the stressed syllables are marked in boldface type rather than the tradition al "/" and "x." Each unit of rhythm is called a "foot" of poetry.The meters with two-syllable feet are IAMBIC (x /) : Thattimeofyearthoumaystinmebehold TROCHAIC (/ x):Tellmenotinmournfulnumbers SPONDAIC (/ /):Break,break,break/ On thycoldgraystones, OSea!Meters with three-syllable feet are ANAPESTIC (x x /): And thesoundof avoicethat isstill DACTYLIC (/ x x):Thisis theforest primeval, themurmuringpinesand thehemlock (a trochee replaces the final dactyl)Each line of a poem contains a certain number of feet of iambs, trochees, spondees, dactyls or anapests. A line of one foot is a monometer, 2 feet is a dimeter, and so on--trimeter (3), tetrameter (4), pentameter (5), hexameter (6), heptameter (7), and o ctameter (8). The number of syllables in a line varies therefore according to the meter. A good example of trochaic monometer, for example, is this poem entitled "Fleas":Adam Had'em.Here are some more serious examples of the various meters.iambic pentameter (5 iambs, 10 syllables) Thattime| ofyear| thoumayst| inme| beholdtrochaic tetrameter (4 trochees, 8 syllables) Tellme |notin |mournful| numbersanapestic trimeter (3 anapests, 9 syllables) And thesound| of avoice| that isstilldactylic hexameter (6 dactyls, 17 syllables; a trochee replaces the last dactyl) Thisis the |forest pri |meval, the |murmuring |pineand the |hemlocksWhat is rhyme and meter (in poetry)?"Rhyme" in poetry means the shared sounds or ends of words in the lines. I can give you some examples but they are not necessarily from poems!

A typical rhyming pattern would be something like this:"I don't want to see a ghost,That's the thing that I fear most,I'd rather have a piece of toast"(Des'ree lyric- sorry it was the best example I could think of!)

So "ghost", "most" and "toast" have the same last syllable (the "st" sound). This would be called a syllabic rhyme but so long as you specify how it rhymes, you probably don't need to include the full technical term in your essay!

I stole this from wikipedia, it may help:

syllabic: a rhyme in which the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain vowels. (cleaver, silver, or pitter, patter)imperfect: a rhyme between a stressed and anunstressed syllable. (wing, caring)semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. (bend, ending)oblique (or slant/forced): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. (green, fiend; one, thumb)assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes used to refer to slant rhymes.consonance: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)half rhyme (or sprung rhyme): matching final consonants. (bent, ant)alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (short,ship)

Basically, if you read the lines aloud and there is any sort of similarity in sound, even if the words aren't spelt similarly then there is probably an element of rhyme in the poem.

Meter is all about the rhythm a whole line in a poem makes. You can measure the rhythm by looking at the number of syllables in a line. Clapping or tapping the line out according to each syllable might help you do this.

The most common type of poetic meter is called the "Iambic Pentameter". Shakespeare uses it a lot. The rhythm always goes: "da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum" so there's a short, light syllable followed by a heavier one.So an example would be:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,(da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum)

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.(da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum)

Usually meter is used in poetry to attract readers- we all like an easy, sing song style kid's story. The natural rhythms our ear hears are easier to listen to and more enjoyable than irregular rhythms. So if the poet is using a regular meter pattern, they are probably trying to draw the listener in. If they are using an irregular meter, they may be deliberately creating an awkward or jarring rhythm to make the listener/reader stop and consider the message behind the poem. Or they may be trying to create a feeling of unease or upset.

Hope that helps you and wasn't too complicated!