Download Introduction to Poetry Versification The mechanical process of poetic

Introduction to Poetry
Versification
The
mechanical
process
of
poetic
composition
is
called
versification. A single line of poetry is called a verse. Versification
depends upon two main factors: 1. the stress of syllables, 2, the
number of stressed syllables to a line.
Rhythm
Each verse in a poetic composition is characterized by a uniform,
measured movement which results from the regular recurrence of
stressed and unstressed syllables. This characteristic, the essential
quality of all verse, is called rhythm.
And the sheen / of their spears / was little stars / on the sea
Tell me / not in
/ mournful / numbers.
From the above examples, each line, we notice, is divided into four
groups of syllables, In the first line there are three syllables in each
group; in the second group, two syllables. Each group of syllables is
called a foot. If we give accurate definitions to the two terms, they
shall be like following: meter is the recurrence, in regular units, of a
prominent feature in the sequence of speech-sounds of a language (格
律：诗歌中字词的特定安排，由一行诗中韵律单位的类型和数量而定，如
抑扬格五音步诗行); while a foot (音步) is the combination of a strong
stress and the associated weak stress or stresses which make up the
recurrent metric (韵律的) unit of a line.
There are basically four types of feet.
1. Iambic (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable)
And then / my heart / with pleas/ure fills
2. Trochaic (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed
syllable)
Shake your / chains to / earth like / dew
3. anapestic (two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed
syllable)
For the moon / never beams / without bring/ing me dreams
4. dactylic (a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed
syllables)
Slowly the / mist o’er the / meadow was / creeping.
Usually, poetic lines contain different numbers of feet. English
poetry includes the following eight kinds of lines: monometer line,
dimeter, trimester, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter
Examples: I trust
The wild / winds weep
The au/tumn time / has come
The lone / and le/vel sands / stretch far / away
Rime (rhyme)
In English versification, standard rime consists of the repetition
in the riming words, of the last stressed vowel and of all the speech
sounds following that vowel. End rimes, by far the most frequent type,
occur at the end of a verse line. Internal rimes occur within a verse
line (Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow.)
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white.
Glimmered the white moon-shine.
(Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
Whate’er her theme, the maiden sang
a
As if her song could have no ending
b
I saw her singing at her work
c
And o’er the sickle bending-
b
I listened, motionless and still
d
And as I mounted up the hill
d
The music in my heart I bore
e
Long after it was heard no more
e
(Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper)
Couplets, Stanzas and Popular Ballad
A group of two consecutive riming lines is called a couplet. The
most common form of couplet is the iambic pentameter, often called
the heroic couplet.
Swans sing / before / they die -- / ‘twere no / bad thing
Should cer/tain per/sons die/ before / they sing
A group of more than two riming lines is called a stanza. A common
form is the ballad stanza, made up of four iambic lines. A short
definition of the popular ballad is that it is a song, transmitted orally,
which tells a story. Ballad stanza is a quatrain (A stanza or poem of
four lines.) in alternate four and three stressed lines; usually only the
second and fourth lines rhyme.
THE king sat in Dunfermline toun,
Drinking the blude red wine:
‘Where will I get a bold sailor,
To sail this ship o mine?’
Out then spak an auld auld knicht,
Was nigh the king akin:
‘Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That ever sailed the main.’
The king’s wrote a large letter,
Sealed it with his own hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on dry land.
The first three lines he looked on,
The tears did blind his ee;
The neist three lines he looked on
Not one word could he see.
‘Wha is this,’ Sir Patrick says,
‘That’s tauld the king o me,
To set me out this time o the year
To sail upon the sea!
‘Yestreen I saw the new new mune,
And the auld mune in her arm;
And that is the sign since we were born
Even of a deadly storm.
‘
Drink about, my merry boys,
For we maun sail the morn;
Be it wind, or be it weet,
Or be it deadly storm.’