Prosody
systematic study of versification (meter, rhyme, stanza forms)
scansion
establishing feet and pauses
stress
depends on word accent in polysyllabic words, on grammatical function (adj, verb, noun vs. article, preposition, metrical accent)
rhythm
Greek : “flow”, a term referring to a measured flow of words and signifying the basic (though often varied) beat or pattern in language that is established in stressed, unstressed syllables and pauses, close to speech patterns
meter
more or less regular pattern of accented and unaccented syllables in poetry
jamb
light – stressed
trochee
stressed-light
anapaest/anapest
light-light-stressed
dactyl
stressed-light-light
spondee
stressed-stressed
pyrrhic:
light-light
catalectic
trochee missing final unstressed or light syllable
Free verse/vers libre
lacks regular stress pattern of meter, often irregular line length and lack of rhyme, use of repetition
Number of feet per line:
monometer dimeter trimeter tetrameter pentameter hexameter (alexandrine) heptameter octameter
blank verse
unrhymed iambic pentameter
feminine rhyme
a stressed syllable is followed by one (=double rhyme, as in shatter-splatter) or two unstressed ones (=triple rhyme, as in clattering-flattering)
Masculine rhyme
Ending with an extra stressed syllable
internal rhymes
occur within a verse line
end rhyme
rhyme pairs (aabb) cross rhyme/alternating rhyme (abab) embracing rhyme/envelope rhyme (abba) tail rhyme (aabccb)
rime riche
In______ ________, the rhyming words sound identical but have a different meaning: their-there (=homophone) stare-stare (=homograph, also spelled the same way)
Eye-rhymes
look like perfect rhymes but take some poetic license: prove-love, daughter-laughter
Imperfect/slant/partial/near rhyme/para-rhyme
repetition of final consonant in a stressed syllable, preceding vowels or consonants differ, may be followed by a feminine ending (popular esp. in the 20th century): trees-rose, rocks-wax, tomb-worm, flower-destroyer-fever
Consonance
refers to a partial or total identity of consonants in words or syllables whose main vowels differ: lad-lid, pressed-past groaned-crooned-ground
stanza forms
couplet tercet/triplet quatrain quintet sestet septet octet
Special Stanza forms
Rime Royal: seven lines, iambic pentameter, rhyme: ababbcc Ottava Rima: eight lines, rhyme: abababcc Terza Rima: iambic tercets, mostly in pentameter. The rhyme scheme is aba bcb cdc ded (etc.)
run-on line
need to pass over the end of a line because the sentence moves on into the next verse (also called enjambment)
end-stopped line
a pause at the end of a line that agrees with a syntactic unit
caesura:
a comma, colon or full stop indicating a pause within a line of verse
