In poetry, metre (Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to the basic rhythm pattern of a line or lines in a poem. Many traditional poetry styles require a specific metre or a set of metres that follow a particular order. The study and use of metres and poetry forms are called prosody. In linguistics, the term "prosody" has a broader meaning, including the rhythm of both poetry and prose, which can differ across languages and poetic traditions.
Characteristics
样的
</think>
When classifying poetry and its metre, many different features can be identified.
The metre of most poetry from the Western world and other places is based on patterns of syllables. In English-language poetry, a common type of metre is called qualitative metre, where stressed syllables appear at regular intervals, such as in iambic pentameter, where every even-numbered syllable is stressed. Many Romance languages use a similar scheme, but only one particular stressed syllable, such as the last one, needs to be in a fixed position. Old Germanic poetry, such as Old Norse and Old English, used a different type of metre called alliterative metre, which was still based on stress patterns.
In contrast, some classical languages used a different scheme known as quantitative metre, where patterns were based on syllable weight rather than stress. For example, in the dactylic hexameters of Classical Latin and Greek, each of the six feet in a line was either a dactyl (long-short-short) or a spondee (long-long). A "long syllable" was one that took longer to pronounce, such as a syllable with a long vowel or diphthong or followed by two consonants. The stress pattern of the words did not affect the metre. Other ancient languages, such as Sanskrit, Persian, Old Church Slavonic, and Classical Arabic, also used quantitative metre, but not Biblical Hebrew.
In non-stressed languages with little or no syllable length differences, such as French or Chinese, verses are based only on the number of syllables. In French, the most common form is the Alexandrin, with twelve syllables per verse. In classical Chinese poetry, each verse typically had five characters, which corresponded to five syllables. Because each Chinese character is pronounced with one syllable in a specific tone, classical Chinese poetry had strict rules, such as thematic parallelism or tonal antithesis between lines.
In many Western classical poetic traditions, the metre of a verse can be described as a sequence of feet, each foot being a specific sequence of syllable types—such as unstressed/stressed (common in English poetry) or long/short (as in Latin and Greek poetry).
Iambic pentameter, a common metre in English poetry, is based on a sequence of five iambic feet, each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. This approach to analysing and classifying metres comes from Ancient Greek poets such as Homer, Pindar, Hesiod, and Sappho.
However, some metres have an overall rhythmic pattern that cannot easily be described using feet. This is found in Sanskrit poetry, such as in Vedic and Sanskrit metres, and in some Western metres, such as the hendecasyllable used by Catullus and Martial. In these cases, the rhythm is described using symbols for long and short syllables.
In classical Greek and Latin, the term "iambic trimeter" refers to a line with six iambic feet.
Sometimes, a natural pause occurs in the middle of a line rather than at the end. This is called a caesura. An example is from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, where the caesurae are marked by "/":
It is for you we speak, / not for ourselves: You are abused / and by some putter-on That will be damn'd for't; / would I knew the villain, I would land-damn him. / Be she honour-flaw'd, I have three daughters; / the eldest is eleven
In Latin and Greek poetry, a caesura is a break within a foot caused by the end of a word.
Each line of traditional Germanic alliterative verse is divided into two half-lines by a caesura. This can be seen in Piers Plowman:
A fair feeld ful of folk / fond I ther bitwene— Of alle manere of men / the meene and the riche, Werchynge and wandrynge / as the world asketh. Somme putten hem to the plough / pleiden ful selde, In settynge and sowynge / swonken ful harde, And wonnen that thise wastours / with glotonye destruyeth.
Enjambment is different from a caesura. Enjambment is when the syntax is incomplete at the end of a line, and the meaning continues into the next line without a punctuation mark. An example from The Winter's Tale is:
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are; the want of which vain dew Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have That honourable grief lodged here which burns Worse than tears drown.
Poems with a clear overall metric pattern may sometimes have lines that break the pattern. One common variation is the inversion of a foot, which changes an iamb ("da-DUM") into a trochee ("DUM-da"). Another variation is a headless verse, which lacks the first syllable of the first foot. A third variation is catalexis, where the end of a line is shortened by one or more feet. An example of this can be found in 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)
Modern English
Most English poetry is organized using a system similar to that of Classical poetry, but with one major difference. English uses stress patterns, where strong and weak syllables replace the long and short syllables found in Classical systems. In English poetry, the rhythm often acts like a background beat, allowing natural speech patterns to vary in expression. The most common rhythmic units in English poetry are the iamb (two syllables) and the anapest (three syllables). (See "metrical foot" for a full list of these units and their names.)
There is no agreement on the exact number of metrical systems in English. The four main types are: accentual verse, accentual-syllabic verse, syllabic verse, and quantitative verse. Alliterative verse, found in Old English, Middle English, and some modern English poems, can also be included because it follows different rules than accentual verse. Alliterative verse uses two phrases (half-lines) connected by repeated sounds; each half-line usually has two stressed syllables, though the number of stresses may vary. Accentual verse focuses only on the number of stressed syllables in a line, ignoring the number of unstressed syllables or total syllables. Accentual-syllabic verse regulates both the number of stresses and total syllables in a line. Syllabic verse counts only the number of syllables in a line. Quantitative verse follows patterns of long and short syllables, a style rarely used in English. Foreign metrical systems are almost never used in English poetry.
The most common meter in English poetry is iambic pentameter, which consists of five iambic feet per line. Variations in rhythm are common, and patterns are nearly endless. Many famous works, such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost, most sonnets, and other poems, use iambic pentameter. Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter are called blank verse. This form is famously used in the plays of William Shakespeare and the works of Milton, though poets like Tennyson (Ulysses, The Princess) and Wordsworth (The Prelude) also use it.
A pair of rhyming lines in iambic pentameter forms a heroic couplet, a style widely used in the 18th century. It is now mostly used for humorous purposes, though exceptions exist, such as in Pale Fire. The most well-known writers of heroic couplets are Dryden and Pope.
Another important meter is the common meter, also called "ballad meter." This meter uses four-line stanzas with two lines of iambic tetrameter (four syllables) followed by two lines of iambic trimeter (three syllables). Rhymes typically occur in the trimeter lines, though sometimes the tetrameter lines also rhyme. This meter is common in Border and Scots or English ballads. In hymns, it is called "common meter" because it is the most frequently used hymn meter, as seen in songs like "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.
Emily Dickinson often used ballad meter in her poetry, as seen in this example:
Great streets of silence led away To neighbourhoods of pause — Here was no notice — no dissent — No universe — no laws.
Other languages
Classical Sanskrit poetry has three types of verse structure. Traditional works that explain these structures include Pingala's Chandaḥśāstra and Kedāra's Vṛttaratnākara. Modern works, like those by Patwardhan and Velankar, list over 600 different metres. This is more than any other metrical tradition.
Tamil poetry has four types of verse: Venpa, Asiriyapa, Kalipa, and Vanjipa. Sometimes, Venpa and Asiriyapa are combined to create a new form called Marutpa, which has no specific rhythm. Variations of these four metres include Thaazhisai, Thurai, and Virutham.
In classical languages, the rhythm of poetry is based on the length of time it takes to say each syllable. Syllables are grouped as "long" or "short" (called dum and di). These are also called "heavy" and "light" to avoid confusion with long and short vowels. The rhythm is often compared to a musical measure, with long syllables like whole notes and short syllables like half notes. In English poetry, rhythm is based on stress, with stressed and unstressed syllables serving the same purpose as long and short syllables in classical metres.
In Greek and Latin poetry, the basic unit of rhythm is a mora, which is one short syllable. A long syllable equals two mora. A long syllable may have a long vowel, a diphthong, or a short vowel followed by two or more consonants. Rules about how syllables are pronounced can change their length, such as when consonants are dropped or added.
The most important classical metre is the dactylic hexameter, used by Homer and Virgil. This metre has six rhythmic units called "feet." A dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short ones, like "daa-duh-duh." The first four feet can be dactyls or spondees (two long syllables). The fifth foot is almost always a dactyl, and the sixth foot can be a spondee (two long syllables) or a trochee (long then short). The first syllable of each foot is called the ictus, the basic beat. A pause usually occurs after the third foot. An example from the Aeneid shows this structure:
"In this example, the first and second feet are dactyls; their first syllables, 'Ar' and 'rum,' are short vowels but count as long because they are followed by two consonants. The third and fourth feet are spondees, with the third divided by the main pause. The fifth foot is a dactyl, and the sixth is a spondee."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used this metre in his poem Evangeline:
"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks…"
The first line follows the pattern: dum diddy | dum diddy | dum diddy | dum diddy | dum diddy | dum dum.
Another important metre in Greek and Latin poetry is the dactylic pentameter, which has five feet. It is often paired with the dactylic hexameter in a form called the elegiac distich, used for serious or tragic poetry. An example from Ovid’s Tristia shows this structure.
Greek and Roman poets also used lyric metres for shorter poems. One example is the hendecasyllabic, a line of eleven syllables. This was used in the Sapphic stanza, named after the poet Sappho. The stanza has three hendecasyllabics followed by a shorter line called an Adonic. Algernon Charles Swinburne imitated this in his poem Sapphics.
In Classical Arabic poetry, rhythm is based on the weight of syllables, classified as "long" or "short." The system of Arabic poetry rhythm is called ʿarūḍ or ʿilm al-shiʿr, meaning "science of poetry." Al-Farahidi studied this system and identified 15 types of metres. A short syllable has a short vowel with no following consonants, while a long syllable has a long vowel or a short vowel followed by two consonants. These syllables are
History
Metrical texts were first recorded in early Indo-European languages. The earliest clearly metrical texts, and the only ones that may date to the Late Bronze Age, are the hymns in the Rigveda. It is surprising that texts from the Ancient Near East, such as those in Sumerian, Egyptian, or Semitic languages, do not show metre. This may be partly because of how writing worked during the Bronze Age. Some scholars, like Gustav Bickell and Julius Ley, tried to study the metre in the poetic parts of the Hebrew Bible, but their findings were not certain (see Biblical poetry). Metrical poetry from the Early Iron Age appears in the Iranian Avesta and in Greek works attributed to Homer and Hesiod. Latin verse from the Old Latin period (around 2nd century BC) uses the Saturnian metre. Persian poetry began during the Sassanid era. Tamil poetry from the early centuries AD may be the earliest known non-Indo-European metrical poetry.
Medieval poetry was always metrical, covering traditions such as European Minnesang, Trouvère, or Bardic poetry, Classical Persian and Sanskrit poetry, Tang dynasty Chinese poetry, and Japanese Nara period Man'yōshū. Renaissance and Early Modern poetry in Europe was influenced by the styles of Classical Antiquity, a tradition started by Petrarca's generation and continued through the time of Shakespeare and Milton.
Dissent
Some poets do not believe that meter is a necessary part of poetry. In the 20th century, American poets Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, and Robinson Jeffers thought that meter was a man-made rule added to poetry, not something natural to it. In an essay called "Robinson Jeffers, & The Metric Fallacy," Dan Schneider agrees with Jeffers. He says, "Imagine if someone claimed all music only used two notes or that there were only two colors in the world. Think about how clunky and mechanical such music would sound. Imagine art without colors, or even without shades of gray." Jeffers called his writing style "rolling stresses."
Moore went even further. She said her poetry used a form based on syllables, not meter. She completely rejected the use of meter. Lines from her famous poem "Poetry" show this. The pattern of syllables in this poem is not 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 wanted to write about the lives of everyday people. He created the idea of the variable foot. He avoided traditional meter in most of his poems, instead using what he called "colloquial idioms." Another poet who rejected traditional meter was Britain's Gerard Manley Hopkins. His main contribution was a style called sprung rhythm. He believed most poetry used this older rhythm, inherited from the Norman side of English literature. This rhythm is based on repeating groups of two or three syllables, with the stressed syllable in the same place each time. Sprung rhythm uses feet with a changing number of syllables, usually one to four syllables per foot, with the stress always on the first syllable in a foot.