“Classical” English Poetics–Rhyme and Meter
In the Western academic tradition, the word Classical properly refers to the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. Using the term more loosely, what might we think of as the “classic” patterns of English poetry? More importantly, how can they help us make sense of verse? As we approach this daunting enterprise, let’s recall our advice:
Tips on Reading Poetry
- Read aloud, listening for rhythms, patterns.
- Recognize the plain sense of the words before looking for hidden meanings.
- Who talks to whom about what? Clearly seeing this dynamic can open many poems.
- Track themes and patterns of meaning that flow from the above.
OK, so what makes poetry poetic? Rhythm, always. And when people think of English verse, they most instinctively think of Rhyme, a pattern of repeated sounds, usually the final syllable in the ends of verse lines. Where do you hear rhyme in Yeats’ poem?
William Butler Yeats (1889): “Down by the Salley Gardens”
Down by the salley[1] gardens
my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
with her would not agree.
In a field by the river
my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
as the grass grows on the weirs[2];
But I was young and foolish,
and now am full of tears.
You’ll notice that not all of these lines end in rhyme. (Note: lines 1 and 3 end in a repeated word, generally not considered a rhyme.) English speakers’ ears are attuned to rhyme, but we often don’t really pay much attention to what words rhyme. Let’s notice:
- Meet … Feet: the lovers meet in the gardens, but the elusive beloved’s “snow-white feet” will soon carry her away.
- Tree … Agree: the leaves on a tree which annually come and go contrast with the lover’s stubborn refusal to “take love easy”
- Stand … Hand: the lover stands stolidly in place, touched only by the beloved’s hand which rests lightly on his shoulder—and nothing more
- Weirs … Tears: a weir is designed to control water and the lover’s resolution to remain steadfast dissolves into tears, the body’s fluids
When listening to poetic rhythms, always ask how they support the poem’s Themes. In fine poetry, these effects are subtle, but fascinating and enlightening to notice.
Now notice something else. The Rhyme in the poem forms a pattern that divides the verse into Stanzas, something like the paragraphs in prose. We Scan or analyze a Rhyme Scheme using letters. When lines don’t rhyme, we use X. I’ll bet you can do this for our poem: X-A-X-A; X-B-X-B; X-C-X-C; X-D-X-D-X-D.
So what have we got? Yeats composes 4 Stanzas, each consisting of 4 lines with the second and fourth lines rhyming. Literary folk have names for the possibilities:
- Couplet: 2 lines
- Tercet: 3 lines
- Quatrain: 4 lines
- Sestet: 6 lines
- Octave: 8 lines
But not all English poetry rhymes. Elizabethan drama, including Shakespeare’s plays, and major English epics such as Milton’s Paradise Lost (1674) are written in Blank Verse which lacks rhyme and is not divided by rhyme schemes into Stanzas. So what makes them poetry?
This is where it gets a bit tricky. Rhyme is fairly easy to recognize. But whether English verse rhymes or not, most of it is strictly controlled with a subtle rhythm that can be tricky to hear:
Believe it or not, native English speakers are almost all deeply familiar with meter in children’s stories and traditional nursery rhymes. Have you heard this one?
his wife could eat no lean.
And so betwixt them both, you see,
The licked the platter clean.
You may well know the nursery rhyme and you almost certainly recognize the metrical pattern: ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA// ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA. I’ll bet you can comfortably play that beat in your mind. Countless verses in songs, on greeting cards, and in poems you may have been asked to read use this metrical pattern.
The meter is called Ballad Stanza because it is common in popular songs. If you listen, you’ll begin to recognize it in many songs you love:
I know. We just got really technical. Let’s see if we can make sense out of this by defining some metrical terms:
- Metrical Foot: a repeated metrical unit of stressed and unstressed syllables that comprise a line of verse
- Iambic foot: in English meter, a 2-syllable foot in which the unstressed note comes first: ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da.
- Trimeter: 3 feet per line
- Tetrameter: 4 feet per line
- Pentameter: 5 feet per line
We now have the tools to understand the Ballad Stanza. At least in a simple case like Jack Spratt, it’s not really that hard to grasp:
- Iambic Tetrameter: ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA
- Iambic Trimeter: ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA
- Iambic Tetrameter: ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA
- Iambic Trimeter: ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA.
There are other options, but the Iamb is by an enormous distance the most common metrical foot in English verse. It is actually hard to compose English in any other foot.
Let’s return to Yeats’ “Down by the Salley Gardens.” Remember: poetry should always be read aloud. It won’t take you long to read Yeats’ poem with your voice. Try butchering the normal flow and rhythm of the verse by unrealistically exaggerating the stressed syllables: Down BY the SALley GARDens … You’ll soon hear the emerging meter.
But over-hyped meter is not poetry. Meter works best when it subtly interweaves itself with more natural readings. If you over-exaggerate the meter, you butcher the flow of the verse. If you pay no attention to it, you mute its expressive force. Listen some time to a recording of a great actor playing a Shakespearean part (e.g. our Week 1 You-Tube of Kenneth Brannagh delivering the Henry V speech). You’ll hear an amazing oral balance between the rhythms of natural language and of the meter.
This is why literary folk use the term doggerel to refer to hackneyed verse that so meticulously obeys the patterns of Rhyme and Meter that it becomes impossible to avoid a sing-song awkwardness. All strong metrical verse includes subtle variations or exceptions which prevent a tiresome, sing-song regularity. Don’t let exceptions to the meter stop you: what matters is the dominant pattern in the lines and stanzas. Listen for them in Yeats’ poem.
Down by the salley gardens
my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
with her would not agree.
In a field by the river
my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish,
and now am full of tears.
You may have noticed that the initial Foot in some lines begins with a stressed syllable (TA-da, a Troche). This is very common and generally the line naturally shifts to the standard Iambic pattern. And notice the repeated expression, “as the GRASS GROWS …”
There are technical terms for these variations:
- Pyrrhic Foot: two unstressed syllables
- Spondee: two stressed syllables
Obviously, the former has a weak impact and the latter slows the Meter and gives punch and emphasis. In this poem, the repeated reference to the evanescence of grass enhances the melancholy the poem’s theme of lost love.
Expect and watch for metrical exceptions. Blend the metrical rhythm with the natural flow of the language. And watch for subtle enhancements of the poem’s themes in its Meter, its Rhyme Scheme, and its structure of Stanzas. Poetic rhythms are always meaningful if we have a sharp ear.
References
Yeats, William Butler. (May, 1889). Down by the Salley Gardens. In The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems. London: Kegan Paul & Co. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50311/down-by-the-salley-gardens
in the Euro-American tradition, a reference to the works, styles, and themes of Greek and Roman antiquity. More generally, an aesthetic valuing clarity, order, balance, unity, symmetry, and dignity, usually honoring a cultural tradition associated with some golden age of the past.
an artistic effect generally achieved by repetition of forms. In figurative language, patterns of Scheme which repeat sounds or ideas. In poetry, patterns that arise from repeated elements such as rhyme and meter. In visual art, a sense of movement arising from repeated elements in the composition
a pattern of repeated sounds, usually the final syllable in the ends of verse lines
patterns of thought, value, and reflection that are evoked in a work of art.
divisions within poems that functions as do prose paragraphs. Stanzas are labelled according to their number of lines--e.g. a 4-line quatrain-- and are often, but not always, defined by rhyme schemes.
in prosody, to analyze the Meter of a poem
within a poem, a repeated pattern of sounds that end lines, define the boundaries of stanzas, and shape a poem’s themes. Designated for analysis by letters: a-b-a-b indicates rhymes in lines 1 and 3 and in lines 2 and 4. x-b-x-b indicates rhymes in lines 2 and 4, but not in lines 1 and 3.
in the English verse tradition, long poems without stanzas or rhyme schemes composed in lines with 5 iambic feet (Iambic Pentameter): ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da-to-DA. Conventional in Elizabethan and Shakespearean drama and in long forms such as Milton’s Christian epic, Paradise Lost
a traditional, widespread metrical pattern common in ballads, nursery rhymes, and popular verse in which 4-line stanzas that alternate between 4 and 3 foot iambic feet: ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da// ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da
a disciplined pattern of sound units throughout the lines of a poem. In English verse, meter is found in the number and pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line. The most common English meter is the iamb: ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da//ta-Da-ta-Da-ta-Da.
the smallest unit of meter, that is, a repeated pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables: ta-DA, Ta-da, ta-ta-DA, etc.
a metrical foot which in English has the pattern TA-da. A very difficult pattern to sustain in English.
