“Classical” English Poetics–Rhyme and Meter
As we are seeing, the word Classical properly refers in the Western academic tradition to the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. But, it is used in other contexts, including Classical music. Let’s ask ourselves, what are the “classic” patterns of English poetry? More importantly, how can they help us make sense of verse? As we approach this perhaps daunting enterprise, let’s recall our approach to facing the challenge of poetry:
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 (Rhyme). Where do you hear rhyme in Yeats’ poem?
William Butler Yeats (1889): “Down by the Salley Gardens”
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. (By the way, 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 thematic structure. 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), and Octave (8 lines). Thus, Yeats’ poem consists of four Quatrains. OK, you may not be used to that sort of talk, but it isn’t too hard to grasp, eh?
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: Meter a “pattern of measured sound-units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse” (Meter). In English poetry, Meter usually consists of a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Believe it or not, native English speakers are almost all deeply familiar with meter in children’s stories and traditional nursery rhymes. You know this one, right?
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. Ballad Stanza uses a strict metrical pattern: “a four-line stanza in Iambic meter in which the first and third unrhymed lines have four metrical feet and the second and fourth rhyming lines have three metrical feet” (ballad stanza).
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 group of syllables taken as a unit of poetic Meter Prosody, regardless of word-boundaries” (foot)
- Iambic foot: “a metrical unit (foot) of verse, having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable, as in the word beYOND” (Iamb).
- Trimeter: 3 feet per line; Tetrameter: 4 feet per line; Pentameter: 5 feet per line
Remember that Ballad Stanza pattern: ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA// ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA? It can help us understand these terms. The unit that keeps repeating has two syllables: ta-DA. Each of these is a metrical Foot. And in each case, the second of two syllables is stressed. Thus, each is an Iambic Foot. 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. Finally, if we count the feet in each line we get the pattern: four feet (Tetrameter)/three feet (Trimeter). At least in a simple case like Jack Spratt, it’s not really that hard to grasp.
Let’s return to Yeats’ “Down by the Salley Gardens.” And let’s do so aurally. 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 hybrid of natural language and metrical pattern.
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: a Pyrrhic Foot (two unstressed syllables) and a 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
Foot. (2015). In C. Baldick, C. (Ed.) The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press. https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.bethel.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-473.
Iamb (2015). In C. Baldick, C. (Ed.) The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-571.
Metre (U.S. Meter). (2015). In C. Baldick, C. (Ed.) The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-719.
Rhyme. (2015). In C. Baldick, (Ed.) The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press. https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.bethel.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-983?rskey=1uILGa&result=4.
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.
a pattern of repeated sounds, usually the final syllable in the ends of verse lines (Rhyme).
divisions of a poem rather like a prose paragraph. Stanzas are labelled according to their number of lines.
the practice of analyzing the Rhyme and Meter of a poem.
within a poem, the repeated pattern of rhyme that defines stanzas and shapes the poem’s themes. Designated for analysis by letters: e.g. A-B-A-B, where the end sounds of the A lines rhyme with each other as do the B lines. Yeats' short poem "A Coat" begins A-B-B-A:
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat ...
a verse stanza of 2 lines.
a verse stanza of 4 lines.
a verse stanza of 3 lines.
a verse stanza of 6 lines.
a verse stanza of 3 lines.
a poetic form, usually composed in Iambic Pentameter, which is not divided into Stanzas by a Rhyme Scheme. The metrical verse flows on in long passages in Elizabethan and Shakespearean drama and in long forms such as Milton’s Christian epic, Paradise Lost.
pattern of measured sound-units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse (Meter). In English verse, a pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables: e.g. Jack Spratt could eat no fat//his wife could eat no lean.//And so betwixt them both, you see,//The licked the platter clean.
a traditional, widespread metrical pattern common in ballads, nursery rhymes, and popular verse. “a four-line stanza in iambic meter in which the first and third unrhymed lines have four metrical feet and the second and fourth rhyming lines have three metrical feet” (ballad stanza). E.g. 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.
the study of poetic patterns and structures.
“a metrical unit (foot) of verse, having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable” (Iamb). E.g. the metrical feet in Yeats’ “Down by the Salley Gardens”: 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 English verse, a metrical pattern with 3 feet per line.
in English verse, a metrical pattern with 4 feet per line.
a metrical foot which in English has the pattern TA-da.
in English prosody, a metrical Foot with two unstressed syllables, often followed by a Spondee.
a metrical foot pairing stressed syllables: e.g. JACK SPRATT … Spondees are generally exceptions to the dominant metrical pattern and serve to slow the rhythm for emphasis.