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Knowing how to utilize your metres in English is a great start to making your poetry sound better than before. It's free magic for all those poets seeking tricks. Something I learned from an old book of writers' speak.
First, understand the difference between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. You're going to want to use your voice as you read through this blog. Re-read what you have to.
Stressed syllables have a longer, more empathized, and 'higher' sound than the other syllbles in the word. For example: Bullets. Bull - ets.
Unstressed syllables are the opposite. The syllable in the word needs to be less noticable, lower pitched and shoter to be considered unstressed. For example: Beauty. B - eau - ty.
These can be harder to spot, but by the end of this blog, it should be easier to notice.
What we do with this knowledge? Create art. We use stressed and unstressed syllables every single day we speak, this phenomenon just started because somebody back in (what I assume is:) butter churning times noticed it, and now we have little ways (metres) to help us make our spoken poetry sound better than it ever had before.
Your New Best Friends In Your Poetic Endeavours:
1. Trochaic, for which the noun is Trochee, means a stressed syllable before an unstressed syllable. Read aloud with this in mind:
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
(Pretty, right?)
2. Dactylic (noun: Dactyl), a stressed syllable before TWO unstressed syllables. Read:
"Eve, with her basket, was
deep in the bells and grass"
3. Anapestic, noun being Anapest, of course, is TWO unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. Again:
"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold"
4. Iambic, Iamb as a noun, is one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. Againnn:
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day"
How to categorise your new buddies...
Rising Metre: Like how you were taught to recognise a question, the stress is at the end. These pals are Iambs and Anapests.
Falling Metre: Strong stresses at the beginning. Trochees and Dactyls.
Duple Metre: Iambs and Trochees with TWO syllables are here!
Trip Metre: Anapests and Dactyls with THREE syllables are here.
THIS Is just the tip of the iceburg, but i am #tired of this post. This should be enough to get you by, though, because I wouldn't share it if it wasn't.
Hope this helps at all or you learned something!
The next few things one might want to learn after these terms are called 'poetic feet', just in case.
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badger
ive never really been into poetry but this wss actually really interesting ngl !! im defintely gonna be looking back on this when we start doing poetry in english when i get bsck to school LMAO
EEK!! you might be ahead of your class because my older friends only learned this in college (if they were lucky in college even). you’ll do great!!!
by scarcrossed; ; Report
thank you so much for making this then imma be so smart >:)
by badger; ; Report
OF COURw :hearts::hearts:
by scarcrossed; ; Report