S&S Chapter 12 Notes

Prathit Kadam

Mr. George

AP English Language and Literature

9 January 2013

Chapter Twelve—Rhythm and Meter

There is a strong appeal for us in language that is rhythmic:

-          Rhythm -- any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound. In speech it is the natural rise and fall of language. Language varies considerably in the degree to which it exhibits rhythm.

-          Accented -- something that is given more prominence in pronunciation than the rest.

The major difference between prose and verse is that in prose, accents occur more innately; in verse, the poet may arrange them to occur at regular intervals, thus giving off a rhythmic appeal.

The rhythmic effects depend almost entirely on what a statement means—different intended meanings will produce different rhythms even in identical statements.

-          Ex// “I don’t believe YOU” vs. “I don’t beLIEVE you”

-          Rhetorical Stresses -- device that makes our intentions clear. Recognizing the meaning of a line is primarily more important than determining its rhythm.

In addition to accent or stress, rhythm is based on pauses.

-          End-Stopped Line­ -- the end of the line corresponds with a natural speech pause.

-          Run-On Line -- the sense of the line moves on without pause into the next line.

There are also pauses that occur within lines, either grammatical or rhetorical.

-          Caesuras -- pauses that occur within lines, and they are another resource for varying the rhythm of lines.

-          Free Verse -- the predominating type of poetry that contains everyday forms of syntax.

There is another sort of poetry that depends entirely on ordinary prose rhythms:

-          Prose Poem -- a form of poetry that depends heavily on prose rhythms.

People often think of the two branches of poetry—free verse and metrical verse:

-          Meter -- the identifying characteristic of rhythmic language that we can tap our feet to.

Even though the terms rhythm and meter are sometimes used interchangeably, they mean different things. Rhythm designates the flow of actual, pronounced sound whereas meter refers to the patterns that sounds follow when a poet has arranged them into metrical verse.

The word meter comes from a word meaning “measure”. To measure something, a unit of measurement must be present.

-          Foot -- basic unit of meter—consists normally of one accented syllable plus one or two unaccented syllables, though occasionally there may be no unaccented syllables. To determine which syllable in a foot is accented, we compare its sound with that of the other syllables within the foot.

There are three units of measurements for meters: foot, line, and stanza.

-          Stanza -- consists of a group of lines whose metrical pattern is repeated throughout the poem.

Metrical form is normally uniform in its regularity; however, poets may introduce metrical variations. There are three forms of metrical variations:

-          Metrical Variations -- call attention to some of the sounds because they depart from what is regular.

1.      Substitution -- replaying the regular foot with another one.

2.      Extrametrical Syllables -- addition of extra metrical lines at the beginning or ending of lines.

3.      Truncation -- the omission of an unaccented syllable at either end of a line.

How do we define metrical form?

-          Scansion -- the process of defining the metrical form of a poem. Rhythm is the actuality in sound, not the pattern or blueprint of meter.

General rule: a noun usually receives more stress than an adjective that modifies it, a verb more than its adverbs, and an adjective more than an adverb that modifies it.

-          Expected Rhythm -- silent drumbeat that is set up in our minds.

-          Heard Rhythm -- the actual rhythm of the words.