Eighth Grade Education circa - 1895 - - (long)

[Carol]

Robert:
> 
> Ode to the West Wind and The Raven
> Authors:
> P.B. Shelley
> E.A.Poe
>  
> Iambic pentameter and something about tercets but I don't remember
how  that fits. I was an English major before I switched to veterinary
medicine a  long time ago. 

Carol responds:

Good one! Shelley's poem, "Ode to the West Wind" is composed of three
iambic pentameter tercets (three lines) followed by a couplet (two
lines). Iambic pentameter means that each line is composed of five
iambic feet or iambs (penta = five). An iamb is two syllables with the
stress on the second, like so:

Thine az'/ure sis'/ter of'/the Spring'/shall blow'

Since many words in English are accented on the second syllable,
iambic pentameter is the most natural-sounding meter in English, which
is why Shakespeare used blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) as
the primary verse form for his plays. It can also, often, sound
majestic and beautiful, as it does in Shelley's ode (though he
deliberately makes the meter irregular in places so that he avoids a
strict da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM rhythm.

Poe's, however, is extremely regular trochaic octameter, which means
that each line (except the short line at the end of the stanza)
consists of eight trochaic feet or trochees. ("Octa = eight).

once' u/pon' a/mid' night/drea' ry/while' I/pon'dered/weak' and/wea'ry

The last line is trochaic tetrameter or four trochees. ("Tetra" =
four.) A trochee is the opposite of an iamb, a two-syllable foot with
the stress on the first syllable. Trochaic octameter, in contrast with
iambic pentameter, is highly unusual and not at all natural sounding.
Poe wants the reader or listener to be fully aware of the meter, which
creates an almost pounding and insistent rhythm: DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da
DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da with only an occasional and
probably inevitable break in the pattern.

The length of a line can also be dimeter (two feet), trimeter (three
feet), hexameter (six feet), or heptameter (seven feet). The other
types of feet (besides iambs and trochees) are dactyls (one stressed
syllable followed by two unstressed: DUM da da), anapests (two
unstressed syllables followed by one unstressed: da da DUM) and
spondees (two stressed syllables: DUM DUM). Obviously, you can't have
a whole line of spondees, and the other two are relatively uncommon in
English.

Here's anapestic tetrameter:

The As syr'/ian came down'/ like a wolf'/ on the fold'
And his co'/horts were gleam'/ing in pur'/ple and gold'

Dactylic is mostly used in nursery rhymes because its effect (in
English, at least) is so jingly:

Hick' er y/dick' er y/dock' (incomplete anapestic trimeter)
(The mouse'/ran' up/ the clock' is trochaic, not anapestic, indicating
how difficult it is to sustain this meter in English.)

The only real poem I know that actually uses a sustained dactylic
meter is Longfellow's "Evangeline":

This' is the/for'est prim/e' val the/mur' mur ing/pines' and the/hem'
locks

Note that the last syllable is a trochee (DUM da).

Okay, that covers meter (the measured rhythm of a line of poetry).
I'll do rhyme scheme in a separate post.

Carol, confessing that the only way she can keep anapests and dactyls
straight is by remembering that the word anapest (AN a pest) is a
dactyl (Dactyl [DAC tyl], however, is a trochee!)