Information concerning English meter

Unlike Classical Greek poetry, in which the basic metrical patterns were quantity-based (cf. handout, pp. 17-20), poetry in English has tended to use stress-based metrical patterns. (Much twentieth and also twenty-first century poetry in English, though, has not utilized any very obvious metrical patterns of any sort.)

As illustrations of stress-based rhythm in poetry in English, the following examples from Tennyson, Yeats, and Dryden, all in iambic pentameter, may be helpful. The basic pattern of iambic pentameter is as follows:

¯ ´ ¯ ´ ¯ ´ ¯ ´ ¯ ´

Beginning of Tennyson, Ulysses (H & P, p. 1033):

It líttle prófits thát an ídle kíng,
By thís still heárth, amóng these bárren crágs,
Mátch'd with an ágèd wífe, I méte and dóle
Unéqual láws untó a sávage ráce,
That hóard, and sleép, and feéd, and knów not mé.

Beginning of Yeats, Leda and the Swan (H & P, p. 1035):

A súdden blów: the greát wings beáting stíll
Abóve the stággering gírl, her thíghs caréssed
By the dárk wébs, her nápe cáught in his bíll,
He hólds her hélpless bréast upón his bréast.

Both of the preceding illustrate some variations on the simple iambic pentameter pattern. For example, in the third line from Yeats, a "normal" scansion as "By thé dark wébs ..." would not really sound right. Such variation serves to avoid metrical monotony, somewhat as the use of dactyls and spondees in Greek poetry does. On the other hand, some poets in English seem to have aimed at almost a 100% regularity in their use of iambic pentameter. An example of this is provided by Dryden's translation of the Aeneid. A section from this which we will be reading later in the term is in Book 2, in which Vergil deals with the Trojans' reaction to the apparent departure of the Greeks (of course, the Greeks are merely "softening up" the Trojans for the ruse of the wooden horse):

In síght of Tróy lies Ténedós, an ísle
(While Fórtune díd on Príam's émpire smíle)
Renówn'd for wéalth; but, sínce, a fáithless báy,
Where shíps expós'd to wínd and wéather láy.
Thére was their fleét concéal'd. We thóught, for Greéce
Their sáils were hóisted, ánd our féars reléase.

In contrast to Tennyson, Yeats, Dryden, and others, Kingsley's Andromeda (handout, p. 18) aims at an English version of dactylic hexameter, with a pattern of dactyls and spondees, more or less similar to what one finds in Homer and other Greek authors. Simply in terms of "stress", one could scan the first eight lines of Andromeda more or less as follows:

Óver the séa, pást Créte, on the Sy´rian shóre to the soúthward,
Dwélls in the wéll-tílled lówland a dárk-háired Aéthiop péople,
Skílful with neédle and loóm, and the árts of the d‚er and cárver,
Skílful, but feéble of heárt; for they knów not the lórds of Ol‚mpus,
Lóvers of mén; neither bróad-brówed Zeús, nót Pállas Athéne,
Téacher of wísdom to héroes, bestówer of míght in the báttle;
Sháre not the cúnning of Hérmes, nor líst to the sóngs of Apóllo,
Féaring the stárs of the sky´, and the róll of the blúe sált wáter.