This video now includes Spanish as well as English subtitles. For a full list of dual-language videos in our series, please see the following site: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/oregon-state-guide-english-literary-terms
It seems to me that the meter breaks on the word "Disobedience". Just as Man deviates from the rules and commits his first disobedience, so too does the poet in this moment of the line. The word in itself serves as a symbol of Adam and Eve's transgression, while the the break in metrical pattern signals to the ear that something is off-kilter. Loved the video and found it very helpful! Please make more!
Nice work, Tribe of Levy! We think this is a great interpretation of the opening line. The other way to read that line is to employ something called "syneresis," which is to contract that 5-syllable word into 4-syllables, which also is a form of disobedience.
@@SWLF can you just focus and explain the word "Disobedience" and how it breaks on the meter line, please? Honestly, I do not understand your explanation at all. Iambic pentameter has 5 unstressed and stressed syllables. The poem starts with "Of," which is UNSTRESSED, man's is STRESSED, then "First" is UNSTRESSED, so how does Disobedience break on the meter? I am very confused. Please, help me.
TRIBE OF LEVY. Can you just focus and explain the word "Disobedience" and how it breaks on the meter line, please? Honestly, I do not understand your explanation at all. Iambic pentameter has 5 unstressed and stressed syllables. The poem starts with "Of," which is UNSTRESSED, man's is STRESSED, then "First" is UNSTRESSED, so how does Disobedience break on the meter? I am very confused. Please, help me.
@@maryanderson4870 No problem, Stella. Iambic Pentameter contains 5 iambs, and each iamb contains one unstressed and one stressed syllable. So a line of iambic pentameter contains 10 syllables (5 stressed + 5 unstressed). The word disobedience contains 5 syllables and sounds like this DIS-o-BEE-DEE-ence. As you'll see, the sound pattern and the total number of syllables in this line is wrecked right here.
@@SWLF Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.I want to be sure I understood you clearly. So which means DIS-o-BEE-DEE-ence does not contain the 5 iambs that have the UNStressed, Stressed, UNStressed, Stressed, UNstressed? Am I right, please?
I teach English 12 and I use this video once a year in my classes. They ALL perk up when he starts dropping those Migos bars 🔥🔥🔥 Thanks for the awesome resource!
These sort of video lectures are extremely important for we Indian students'. Our top most exams ask us basic terms and concepts. Your entire team deserves all praise for enabling us to understand literature in a unique way. It is an honour to be your pupil.
Many thanks for your kind words, Zakir. We're delighted to hear that our videos have been useful to you as you study for your exams. Stay healthy and good luck with your exams!
[June 2021 update: Thanks for all the comments, everybody! Here's a new challenge: Check out Robert Herrick's 17th century poem "Delight in Disorder" and share your thoughts on any metrical disorders you might spot.] Please drop us a comment to let us know what you thought of our video! Doing so will help us to build a rich digital learning environment around the topic of poetic meter.
Meter describes rhyme ( or pattern of beat ) in line of poetry. There are five poetic meters are stressed in English poetry employs five basic rhythms of varying stressed (/) and unsterile ( x) Syllables meters are iambs , trochese , sponsees, Ana pests , ind actyis . Meter counting feet one foot line per line , called mono meter . Two feet called dimeter. Three feet= trimeter. Four feet =tetrmeter. Five feet= pentameter. Six feet=hexameter or , Alex . Seven feet = heptameter . Thank you for your wonderful educational literary channel.
Thank you so much! I actually was drawn here by reading (and loving) "Paradise Lost" and not understanding why everyone praised Milton's meter. I feel like I'll gain a much richer understanding now!
Same! I could read it in the right meter, naturally enough before I took my first college English class. However, I didn’t know they followed a pantomètre for any reason, other than cadence/the sound, (I wish I had paid more attention in class and now, I cannot fathom how I passed! 🤦♀️ I deprived myself of so much education by route without really reasoning with conscientious objective. Now I want to dig out my Milton and read it, again! It’s fascinating, his clever little tricks of meter are like hidden messages of inside jokes. I wonder has anyone ever sent secret messages this way - by poetry, manipulating the meter? I think I’d like to try...
You might be interested in hearing from one who is a total novice when it comes to meter. I'm 82 and have done writing all my life. I've never studied it, taken one writing class or had any kind of other training or experience. Even so, in almost all that I have written, whether it me short stories, prose, poetry or my "Pandemic Ponderings" ( philosophical quotes basically) I've always put meter into most of it. I do it by slowly reading what I've written to the tap of my foot. Sometimes it is a real challenge to find the words to clearly express your thought and keep it in meter. Is frustrating but carries great joy when you find it. If one line is out of meter it's kinda like for me a wholesome choir with a tin ear somewhere in its ranks. So it was interesting for me to hear, for the first time ever, a knowledgeable discussion of what I always try to do. I've always intuitively felt that when a work is in meter it corresponds with how the human brain operates, making it much easier for a reader to absorb and "feel" the truth of your words. Kinda makes it like you're swimming downstream. You're in sync with the power of the flow. Well... those are just some thoughts and experiences of one with no study or training in this joyous addiction of writing.
Wow, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, Bob! We agree with you that meter--particularly iambic meters in English--are pleasing to the ear in prose as well as poetry, and your method of composition sounds quite interesting. What does everyone else out there think of this model of composition?
Thanks so much for your kind words, Katherine. And thanks as well for sharing the video with your students! We'll be putting up a few more literary terms videos soon, and if you have any suggestions for what you'd like us to cover, please let us know.
I’m honestly shocked at how often Drake incorporates dactyls in his songs. I know this video briefly touched on his use of it in “Versace,” but he also uses it briefly in “Chicago Freestyle.” “Truck to the plane to the truck Truck to the hotel lobby.” Obviously, it gets interrupted once he gets to “hotel lobby,” but regardless, I’m impressed with Drake’s incorporation of this poetic meter in his music.
Nice work here, Hans! And it isn't just Drake. Check out Kendrick Lamar's "Swimming Pools," for more examples of that "triplet" / dactyl form. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
Thank you for this easy-to-understand explanation of meter in poetry. I've watched a good number before coming upon this one, and it is the best so far. I will search no further, and I will be sharing this with my students. If I understood correctly, I believe the iambic pentameter broke on the word disobedience because I'm finding the iambic everywhere else but there. It also makes sense to me because the deviation of sound compliments the idea of man's stray from God by not adhering to his word. This was fun!
Thanks so much for your kind words, Teacher Dowrich! We're delighted to hear that you'll be sharing the lesson with your students, and we hope the other videos in our series will be useful to you as well. And great work with the reading of Paradise Lost! We agree completely.
I recently came across an interesting meter in a Welsh Christmas carol, "O Deued Pob Cristion" - I think the basic pattern is triplets of bacchiac dimeter, but with a spondee added to the end of the third line. These triplets are paired by rhyming of the spondees to form sextet stanzas, so each stanza looks like this: meter rhyme - / / - / / a - / / - / / a - / / - / / / / a S - / / - / / b - / / - / / b - / / - / / / / b S (I don't consider the ending spondees to be separate lines because of the logical flow and the normal reading if not singing. Feel free to disagree with me on this.) If you are interested to see what this sounds like, this has been recorded in a song so you don't have to able to read Welsh aloud in order to appreciate the scansion: ruclips.net/video/LV6HdzVQphk/видео.html Welsh songs (and probably Welsh poetry in general) are full of interesting rhythms as well as internal rhyme and alliteration. It's one of the reasons to learn Welsh if you've got the time.
Larry, thank you so much for bringing our attention to this strange metrical form! We've certainly come across our fair share of spondees in our time, but the bacchiac foot is entirely new to us. What a strange sound pattern that must create! We're excited to check out the video (though the fact that it is in Welsh will raise some challenges.) Thanks again for this incredible post! We hope it will inspire others to share the strange metrical patterns that they've encountered in their reading adventures.
@@SWLF Wow, quick response!.. you must be up late. It might be easier to hear the pattern if you know what you're looking for.. putting parentheses around rhyming bacchii and brackets around rhyming spondees components on the first verse: O deued (pob Cristion) i Fethlem (yr awron) i weled (mor dirion) [yw'n Duw] O ddyfnder (rhefeddod) fe drefodd (y Duwdod) Dragwyddol (gyfamod) [I fyw] sounds correct when scanned in the song as a Bacchus ( - / / ).
your way of explanation is superb and you deserve lots of salute Sir. As an Indian I want to say thank u so much for this wonderful work ,thanks from India .. Jai Shri Ram🙏
Well, as you mentioned to put more emphasis on the line and to compare it with the regular metres that come before and after it or it could be simply a tension in the work. I haven't read the work though. Thank you for explaining metre accurately, it's thought provoking and illuminating indeed.
Wonderful introductory lecture (exactly what I need) to meter. I love your slides-they were very helpful. Thanks for the examples…time for research and the older poems are free. Thank you.
Wow, thanks so much, @richardglady3009. We're delighted to hear you found the lesson useful and we hope you'll check out more from the series if you have the time!
Milton On man's first disobedience which is a blank verse, According to me, he'd break the metrical pattern or without an endstopping for readers to emphasize the main idea of "Pardise lost" without which the reader wouldn't notice or would move on. That's why we can see Of Man's First Disobedience till this day the most revered idea all over world of Milton. His main purpose was Theodicy. That's why most of the writers like Wordsworth, Blake, Hardy, John Dryden were inspired by him. Milton for me is one of the greatest poets of all. These days I observe that there are people around increasingly using free verse or prose poetry which is really difficult to engage in enjoying rhythm, ideas, deftness. People have reduced using metres in their poems and I feed remorsed. I'm a man who has been a readed of Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, pope, Shelley, Shakespeare, Keats, Yeats and more. But today all kinds of digressions are going on and people are enjoying too. Looks like poetry is taking a new form ignoring it's few classical rules and format. I do recommend people to read books like - " the ode less travelled by Stephen Fry". Incredible book!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Adi! We plan on putting together a lesson on free verse, and it certainly is a thriving contemporary form, but we agree that Milton is pretty special. In fact, he inspired two of our more recent videos--"What is blank verse?" and "What is an elegy?" Check them out if you have the time, and thanks again for moving the conversation forward!
Great question, Stella! Online dictionaries should include pronunciation at the start of the definition of a multi-syllable word like compare. Look for a tiny stress mark that looks like an apostrophe above the stressed syllable if they are using the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). Once you have those stresses marked, you should be able to infer the pattern of the stresses in the single-syllable words. Does that help?
How do you know what syllables are stressed and unstressed in a word: "I", "a", "the" these words stressed or unstressed, and how would you exactly know
Great question, Bobby! The answer is it depends. You can make this call by looking at the words that surround these ones (especially the ones the are polysyllabic) and figuring out their metrical pattern and then fitting those words into that general form, sort of like filling in pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Once you've assigned those stresses, double-check the line by reading it in a manner that exaggerates the stresses (as Prof Malewitz does in the beginning of this video). You should then be good to go!
@@SWLF Thank you for the reply 🙏😊 You know how I can exactly know the stresses or words instead of guessing. For the dictionary never indicates what's stressed for most one and three letter words like "I" "The" "A"
@@strenuousbobbykushner You're very welcome, Bobby! You can also think of those words as variables that poets can use however they need to in order to fit the dominant metrical pattern.
@@SWLF Interesting! So those one or two syllable words possess flexible use. Sometimes they stressed and sometimes not. This sound like what your saying? Thank you for replying to my comments. I'm grateful!
@@strenuousbobbykushner Yes, the one-syllable words in particular are flexible in terms of stresses. It all depends on the pattern into which they are placed. Thanks again for that great question! We're delighted that you've kept the conversation going!
Be like a Moon in thousand Stars! Don't follow stars to shine Thou are the moon and all the Light is thine Don't look around to find inspiration Thou are unique, who only deserves attention The way thou Enlight the all Thousands of stars can't demolish the night fall Thou are irreplaceable ever, whom stars envy And the world adores in lovely way So! Be like Moon in thousand Stars! Enlight all and proud thine scars! Maria~ How is this? Please guide me
One point that still has to be made is that the ways the cesura corroborated an addition within the poem, which also personifies dissonance- a kind of "disobediance" to the strict recognizable repeating metrical feet form established in the first three places of the presented excerpt. In this understanding, a Theological renting of an ancient story reveals complexities that poetry might convey. Of course in identiying a dominate metrical compass (Iamb, Trochee, etc...) For example, The prose choreopoem 'Typescenes' (September 11) personifies Black American mental health experiences while at the same time analyzing how poetry scsnscion can be life saving in the Black world. The book uses scanscion to push against the oppressive forces of [Black] reality and tease out new tools that may be used to dismantle the "master's house." In an acknowledgement of difference - rap - hip hop - eurocentric as opposed to dialectic poetry (Paul Lawrence Dunbar) orsouthern syllabic traditions. The disruption from the recognizable poetic form signals a rupture between God and humanity. As Paradise Lost presents Biblical ( and other sacred text) interpretation.
Thanks so much for sharing your take on the passage, rodney! We're not familiar with the choreopoem, but it sounds like it is doing similar work in conveying the way that sound and sense work together to build poetic experiences.
@@SWLF Because African American voices have been systematically left out of writing, literature, film and particularly, poetry. I invite you and your students to study Typescenes as it is a metrical work voicing Blackness as point of view, and means of invention in scanscion. The metrical compass of Typescenes is immediately instructive enactment.
How are we meant to know which meter a poem has. Particularly with the shift towards free verse. I find it very challenging to instantly figure out what type of meter I should read the poem in
Free verse (unmetered or irregularly metered poetry) is certainly a challenge to read aloud, b_am_wayne. We're going to put together a video on this very subject soon. The big advice we have now is to be sure to read the poem aloud in a variety of different ways to test out what sounds the best to your ear. As you become familiar with older metered forms, you'll gain confidence in that ear--trust us.
@@SWLF thanks I was also wondering if you could explain the difference between poems and lyrics. Is songwriting poetry? What about lyrical rap like Nas?
I'd been through many videos to understand metre. All are talking about stressed and unstressed syllables without reading a sentence loudly in rhythmic way what I was looking for. Your video really made me understood. But sometimes it tough to find syllables correctly whether they are stressed or unstressed. For example in "Shall I Compare thee to a summer's day".... How is "thee" unstressed and "to" stressed? While I'm finding it opposite. Could you please explain it to me Sir?
Thanks so much, Pankaj! Spotting stresses in monosyllabic (1-syllable) words is always a challenge. The big thing to keep in mind is that these words are sort of like variables in math--they become stressed or unstressed depending on the context. In this case, we know that "compare" has the stress on the second syllable (com-PARE) so we can work outwards from there to see if that iambic patterning works for the words before and after it. We know it can be frustrating at first, but the more you practice the easier it gets!
We call others bad Not myself . . We are rose scent Not rose . We have fed this rose . we are gardener Not orchard . . . . in Urdu . . . . ہم دوسروں کو برا کہتے ہیں . خود کو نہیں ہم گلاب کی خوشبو ہیں گلاب تو نہیں . یہ پھول ہم نے کھلائے ہیں مالی ہیں ہم باغ تو نہیں
Excellent! We're so happy to hear that it is starting to make sense, tupaxamarumakavelishakur2505! Elsewhere in this comments section, we offer some tips for determining stressed and unstressed syllables, and we hope they prove useful to you as well!
You are not stupid, Barnabus! It is certainly challenging to listen for the stresses, but it gets easier with practice. In this comments thread, we've also added a few suggestions that make hearing these stresses easier, and members of the community have added their takes as well. Feel free to check out the comments for more info and feel free to join the conversation. Thanks for watching!
Edgar Allan Poe never wrote "The Raven," he merely claimed it in a kind of 19th-century "identity theft." The poem's premiere was submitted anonymously to "American Review" under the pseudonym "---- Quarles" by the true author, Mathew Franklin Whittier, younger brother of poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Poe, a critic for the New York "Evening Mirror," finding the poem in an advance copy of "American Review," scooped Mathew in his own paper by two days. Mathew had shared a copy of "The Raven" with Poe in early 1842, so Poe had a handwritten copy in his possession. This enabled him to convince his editor that he had permission to scoop "American Review"--but he mysteriously left the "Mirror" shortly afterwards (suggesting that he may have been fired for lying about it). It is the height of absurdity that the editor of a newly-launched monthly literary magazine like the "Review," would have given a daily newspaper this permission. The real author was not in a position to reveal his identity because of his anti-slavery work and connection with the Underground Railroad, and hence could not publicly defend himself. Concerning meter, I can prove that the meter of the Raven was Mathew Franklin Whittier's preferred meter (i.e., with variations), with several examples going back to 1839, and then a great many examples published after 1845. Poe, on the other hand, has very few, if any, before 1845. My paper, "Evidence that Edgar Allan Poe Stole 'The Raven' from Mathew Franklin Whittier," can be downloaded from the following link, or it can be read by searching for the paper's title in Academia.edu. www.ial.goldthread.com/MFW_The_Raven.pdf
This is a very enlightening video! I was wondering if you could point me to any other videos or learning guides from yourselves or others so that I can better understand :)
Thanks so much, @ZAIGHAM63 ! You are welcome to check out the transcripts for all of our videos here: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/oregon-state-guide-english-literary-terms If you are looking for more videos on meter, you may want to check out our "What is a Sonnet?", "What is Alliteration?", and "What is Blank Verse?" videos first.
Thank you for this video. Very easy to follow. But may I suggest that Milton did not break meter in this instance. Pronounce disobedience like this: DIS-oh-BEED-yence. The iambic pentameter is preserved.
Nice work here, Jonathan! This change would be called syneresis (collapsing two syllables into one), which could be a way to preserve the iambic pentameter. The result, of course, is also a slight "disobedience" or deviance from standard English. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
The iambic pentameter definitely seems stretched in "disobedience, and the fruit," but there are different ways of reading how it breaks the pattern. To me, there seem to be three stressed syllables in "disobedience." (DIS-oh_BEED-y-ENCE), making FRUIT a sixth stressed syllable and breaking the pattern at the end. Or it can be read as you suggest, in which case there are two down beats before FRUIT instead of one. Either way, it seems slightly off from the rest of the rhythm, which is a brilliant way of highlighting Adam's and Eve's disobedience ruining the perfection of Eden.
I love writing I just don’t understand how to write in that characteristic format of poems. I know the lines mean something. I’m pretty sure poets don’t just chop up sentences to make it look like a poem. But I don’t know how to do that 😢
Well, our advice is to keep working at it, Mia! We offer a short video on Stanza that you might want to check out that can help with line work, but beyond that, just read as much as you can and try things out. You can do it!
Great question, Rahma! In the comments section below, we discuss some strategies for determining stress patterns. For words with multiple syllables, you can also consult an online dictionary like dictionary.com, which will include pronunciation info.
How do we know which words with one syllable are stressed or unstressed? In one of the examples you gave, this was stressed, so could it be that perhaps in other poem it could be unstressed?
Thanks for the question, @nimratmand3318 ! We received this question in another comment, and the answer is that monosyllabic words can be either stressed or unstressed depending on the words around them. They are sort of like variables in this sense. The easiest way to figure out their stresses is to look at polysyllabic words around them, which DO have a fairly fixed stress pattern, and fit the stress pattern of the monosyllabic word into the form that matches those polysyllabic words.
Thank you sooo much for this ❤ If you don't mind, I have a question. In a poem, does all the lines have to be, for example, iambic or it can have two or more meters?
Thanks so much, Madiha! Usually, a given metered poem will tend to stick to the same metrical form, but not always. Check out Seamus Heaney's "Digging" for a good example of a poem that varies its meter (and stanzaic form). Thanks for the question!
@@SWLF Thank you so much for the reply. I have another question. When the foot of, for example, first line and second line do not match, what will be the meter of the whole poem? I mean, in what meter should I name the poem with different foots? I hope you understood.
@@madihakhan2474 Interesting! We would say that you should classify the poem based upon its dominant / most common meter. If you go to the third and fourth lines and scan their meters, the dominant meter should make itself clear.
But how do you figure out if a word is a stressed or unstressed? Wouldn't it depend on the person reading the poem aloud? I just have a hard time hearing stresses in everyday conversation.
It is certainly challenging to listen for the stresses, John, but it gets easier with practice. In this thread, we've also added a few suggestions that make hearing these stresses easier, and members of the community have added their takes as well. Feel free to check out the comments for more info and thanks for watching!
Thanks for the comment, Anne. Could you remind us of where we mentioned the other video? You can find our full playlist here: ruclips.net/p/PLSEuljLye7NTirILYGH19NVTtQh8O1wK-
@@SWLF Hi thank you for getting back!😅 I must have miss understood when the teacher was saying the next step thinking there was another video around 5:06 on the timestamp.
@@SWLF honestly to be fair I don’t really have much insight in Shakespeare so thanks for the lesson,,, also I think Towns is a true poet. Our generations Shakespeare imo.ruclips.net/video/8XCjQXsc748/видео.html&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE Towns mentions Shakespeare as his first influence
I wrote a poem before learning about meter and I'm struggling to identify the meter in my own poem. The issue is that the first line has an odd number of syllables, whereas the examples featured here (unless I missed something) feature even number of syllables which are easy to group. Is there any way to work with odd number of syllables in a foot?
Great question, Flint! The short answer is that you don't need to follow a regular metrical pattern in your poetry. Modern poets often write in "free verse," which lacks these forms. A longer answer would be that poets writing in metered verse will often add an additional, unstressed syllable to the end of their lines called a "feminine ending." You can see it used to great effect in Claude McKay's poem "Adolescence." These kinds of endings often convey uncertainty and unease because of that modification, so especially if your poem is trying to convey that mood, go for it!
Great question, crimocola_AA! We answered this one a few times in this thread, and you can find more detail there, but the general idea is that monosyllable words can operate like variables to match whatever pattern exists around them. At times they can be stressed (if the surrounding meter requires it). At other times they can be considered unstressed (if the surrounding meter requires it).
I have a question, Do all words have a definite stress or unstress n we need to memorize it? If not, how do we know by reading a poem's first line or any line that what poet wants to be read as a stress or unstress syllable in a word? How should we read it correctly?
Great question, Diksha! We answered a few similar questions in this comment thread, and you can find a more complete answer there. The short answer is that stressed and unstressed syllables are tough when you are dealing with monosyllabic words, which can be either, depending on what surrounds them. You can think of them like variables that poet's can introduce as either stressed or unstressed, depending on what the meter requires.
@@SWLF ok then, it is the fact that, a poet firstly decides about the meter in which he wants to write a poem then he chooses the words according to the number of syllables in that particular meter. Am I right?
@@dikshagupta8418 Interesting question, Diksha! We wouldn't suppose we could get inside the heads of poets, but we suspect that the rhythm of the meter would definitely constrain how a poet approaches their craft--what words they choose and how they choose to order those words..
@@SWLF After decades spent accepting that it just doesn't make sense... this video and my unsuspecting mind met at the right time! I get it. I finally f'n get it! lol
That is one reason, zainab! The other is that the 3rd and 4th syllables of "disobedience" are both stressed, which breaks the unstressed / stressed pattern.
@@zainab8296 Great question, zainab! We'd encourage you to try to answer that one for yourself (with some help from the community here). Ideally, we'd like you to be able to use the video as a launching point for your own investigations of poetry, and we hope this comment section will be an opportunity for all of us to discuss poetry together. Do you (or anyone else out there) want to give the next line a try: "Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast"?
Hi there, I have an URGENT poetic question regarding a Master's essay I am writing. I am looking at the English translation by Andrew Lang of the French poem Les Roses de Saadi (Marceline Desbordes-Valmore). The original is has an alexandrine metre - as is typical of classical French prosody - and 3 tercets. However, I am struggling to define the metre of the English translation. Could you help me? Here it is: "This morning I vowed I would bring thee my Roses, They were thrust in the band that my bodice encloses, But the breast-knots were broken, the Roses went free. The breast-knots were broken; the Roses together Floated forth on the wings of the wind and the weather, And they drifted afar down the streams of the sea. And the sea was as red as when sunset uncloses, But my raiment is sweet from the scent of the Roses, Thou shalt know, Love, how fragrant a memory can be." It seems to be a mixture of 12 and 13 syllables, but I'm not sure how to define it exactly. I recognise a strong four beat, but I am not a prosody expert at all. Any help would be appreciated, thank you!
Interesting question, Toby! To our mind, the English version translates the alexandrine into a loose dactylic form with plenty of amphibrachic substitutions (those are relatively rare unstressed-stressed-unstressed feet) thrown in. We think the easier way to describe it (unless you have a reason to zoom in on individual moments in the poetic lines) is just as you have: organization by the dominant 4 stresses in each line. We'll try to check with our poetry profs as well and get back to you if they have any other insights.
@@tobybromfield3664 Ah, yes. We meant anapests, not dactyls. Apologies--it is getting towards the end of the term and we're all getting a bit sloppy here.
Great question, sathya! What we are calling "meter" here is essentially accentual syllabic meter. This phrase ("accentual syllabic meter") simply means that the rhythm of the poem is defined by accented and unaccepted syllables (hence "accentual syllabic") organized into patterns in each line of a given poem. We hope that clears things up!
Interesting question, komal! The 4 most common types are discussed in this video, but you can also find rarer feet--spondees, pyrrhic, and so on--if you really search for them.
@@MJ-on8ld Ha! OK. The song is called "Creative Solutions" by Christopher Salt and Philip Guyler. We licensed it from De Wolfe Ltd, who owns the rights to the song.
Beauty fades into the night. What once was seen, now out of sight. A bright flame flickering with endless glow., has suddenly faded, like tainted snow. Dreams never attained, left behind, for a different World, somehow not as kind, as when youth eminated from the soul. Days of yesterday leaving one bitter and cold. Should one just give up when all fades to black? And something once possessed is now something one lacks.m? Is the end of the story inevitably near? Should one wipe away the last pitiful tear? Never thinking the end one would have to face. Or really knowing the World to be such a cold place. Reality now written all over ones dreams. Wondering in life if anything is exactly as it seems? The flame has sorrowfully gone out. All your left with is anger and doubt. Dont forget memories of a time long ago. When dreams came true, like fresh fallen snow.
You have emperor of Urdu Ghazal Ie King of Urdu Poetry You must have heard the name of Mirza Asad Ullah Khan Ghalib If you don't hear, you don't know any poetry . . Listen to their Poetry . . . . . We hope to love them . . Who don't know what love is . . . . Has escaped . Was so awesome Can't see you Because it has been 150 years since
Thanks for the comment, Sharoon! The Ghalib's ghazal form has certainly informed American poetry, including, most prominently, Adrienne Rich's "Ghazals (Homage to Ghalib).” We look forward to checking out more poetry from this distinguished poet. Thanks for keeping the conversation about different poetic forms going!
The Pritchard scale is garbage. Let's learn our rhyme and meter and move on. Really? If you dissect poetry like a lab frog it looses its beauty. If you never broke the rules nothing new would ever happen.
Thanks for the comment, Robert! We certainly wouldn't agree with the fictitious Dr. Pritchard that poetry is reducible to an equation--interpretation is very much an art rather than a science. Indeed, as Prof. Malewitz suggests, the pleasure of interpreting a poem often involves speculation on the nature of poems' breaking their own rules. But in order to have that pleasure or to read a poem's rhythm, some knowledge of meter is (to our mind) necessary. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
@@SWLF I was a little harsh. And am sorry. But education is to teach you how to think not what to think. I guess meter and rhyme does help. As a musician and song writer I feel if I worried about what is supposedly proper my songs would lose something. Then again I have very little college education so what do I know. When I write a song or poem it just starts flowing. If I stopped to worry about structure, rhyme, rhythm and meter it would probably die before it got started good.
@@robertbrokus2123 No worries, Robert. Meter isn't the end-all and be-all, for sure. It instaed might be thought of as one of many ways to open up discussions of poems and songs. The important thing is that we find new and interesting ways to discuss the art that we love.
@@SWLF your right. Never to old to learn. If I had learned all of the scales of music I would be a better guitarist / pianist. I play by ear. And I know now It would have helped.
0:36 both of them sound like broken English. Please there has to be something more than cutting a syllable, if you going to teach something break down. For the simple people. Don't just keep saying words that you take from a book. I'm hear to learn not be more confused
Hmm, we're sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy the video, Sole. Listening for stressed and unstressed patterning can be challenging, which is why Prof. Malewitz exaggerated his pronouncement of the first two poetic lines. What about meter is giving you trouble?
This video now includes Spanish as well as English subtitles. For a full list of dual-language videos in our series, please see the following site: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/oregon-state-guide-english-literary-terms
Ok
Choosing Migos as an example that shows how what you're explaining is universally applied both surprised and impressed me. Glad I found this video.
Thanks so much, giokralijina! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
RIP Takeoff
It was Drakes verse though
Dactylic
It seems to me that the meter breaks on the word "Disobedience". Just as Man deviates from the rules and commits his first disobedience, so too does the poet in this moment of the line. The word in itself serves as a symbol of Adam and Eve's transgression, while the the break in metrical pattern signals to the ear that something is off-kilter.
Loved the video and found it very helpful! Please make more!
Nice work, Tribe of Levy! We think this is a great interpretation of the opening line. The other way to read that line is to employ something called "syneresis," which is to contract that 5-syllable word into 4-syllables, which also is a form of disobedience.
@@SWLF can you just focus and explain the word "Disobedience" and how it breaks on the meter line, please? Honestly, I do not understand your explanation at all. Iambic pentameter has 5 unstressed and stressed syllables. The poem starts with "Of," which is UNSTRESSED, man's is STRESSED, then "First" is UNSTRESSED, so how does Disobedience break on the meter? I am very confused. Please, help me.
TRIBE OF LEVY. Can you just focus and explain the word "Disobedience" and how it breaks on the meter line, please? Honestly, I do not understand your explanation at all. Iambic pentameter has 5 unstressed and stressed syllables. The poem starts with "Of," which is UNSTRESSED, man's is STRESSED, then "First" is UNSTRESSED, so how does Disobedience break on the meter? I am very confused. Please, help me.
@@maryanderson4870 No problem, Stella. Iambic Pentameter contains 5 iambs, and each iamb contains one unstressed and one stressed syllable. So a line of iambic pentameter contains 10 syllables (5 stressed + 5 unstressed). The word disobedience contains 5 syllables and sounds like this DIS-o-BEE-DEE-ence. As you'll see, the sound pattern and the total number of syllables in this line is wrecked right here.
@@SWLF Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.I want to be sure I understood you clearly. So which means DIS-o-BEE-DEE-ence does not contain the 5 iambs that have the UNStressed, Stressed, UNStressed, Stressed, UNstressed? Am I right, please?
I teach English 12 and I use this video once a year in my classes. They ALL perk up when he starts dropping those Migos bars 🔥🔥🔥 Thanks for the awesome resource!
Wow, thanks so much, @oldmanpoptart ! We're so happy to hear your students found the video useful! And yeah, Migos works pretty well there...
These sort of video lectures are extremely important for we Indian students'. Our top most exams ask us basic terms and concepts. Your entire team deserves all praise for enabling us to understand literature in a unique way. It is an honour to be your pupil.
Many thanks for your kind words, Zakir. We're delighted to hear that our videos have been useful to you as you study for your exams. Stay healthy and good luck with your exams!
@@SWLF Thank you very much sir !
[June 2021 update: Thanks for all the comments, everybody! Here's a new challenge: Check out Robert Herrick's 17th century poem "Delight in Disorder" and share your thoughts on any metrical disorders you might spot.]
Please drop us a comment to let us know what you thought of our video! Doing so will help us to build a rich digital learning environment around the topic of poetic meter.
Meter describes rhyme ( or pattern of beat ) in line of poetry. There are five poetic meters are stressed in English poetry employs five basic rhythms of varying stressed (/) and unsterile ( x) Syllables meters are iambs , trochese , sponsees, Ana pests , ind actyis . Meter counting feet one foot line per line , called mono meter . Two feet called dimeter. Three feet= trimeter. Four feet =tetrmeter. Five feet= pentameter. Six feet=hexameter or , Alex . Seven feet = heptameter . Thank you for your wonderful educational literary channel.
Homer and Migos of all people having even this tiny amount of similarity feels so weird not that it's a bad thing
Ha! Yeah, meter does enable some strange groupings, doesn't it? Thanks so much for keeping the conversation going!
Thank you so much! I actually was drawn here by reading (and loving) "Paradise Lost" and not understanding why everyone praised Milton's meter. I feel like I'll gain a much richer understanding now!
Thanks so much, Thomas! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Same! I could read it in the right meter, naturally enough before I took my first college English class. However, I didn’t know they followed a pantomètre for any reason, other than cadence/the sound, (I wish I had paid more attention in class and now, I cannot fathom how I passed! 🤦♀️ I deprived myself of so much education by route without really reasoning with conscientious objective. Now I want to dig out my Milton and read it, again! It’s fascinating, his clever little tricks of meter are like hidden messages of inside jokes. I wonder has anyone ever sent secret messages this way - by poetry, manipulating the meter? I think I’d like to try...
You might be interested in hearing from one who is a total novice when it comes to meter. I'm 82 and have done writing all my life. I've never studied it, taken one writing class or had any kind of other training or experience. Even so, in almost all that I have written, whether it me short stories, prose, poetry or my "Pandemic Ponderings" ( philosophical quotes basically) I've always put meter into most of it. I do it by slowly reading what I've written to the tap of my foot. Sometimes it is a real challenge to find the words to clearly express your thought and keep it in meter. Is frustrating but carries great joy when you find it. If one line is out of meter it's kinda like for me a wholesome choir with a tin ear somewhere in its ranks. So it was interesting for me to hear, for the first time ever, a knowledgeable discussion of what I always try to do. I've always intuitively felt that when a work is in meter it corresponds with how the human brain operates, making it much easier for a reader to absorb and "feel" the truth of your words. Kinda makes it like you're swimming downstream. You're in sync with the power of the flow. Well... those are just some thoughts and experiences of one with no study or training in this joyous addiction of writing.
Wow, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, Bob! We agree with you that meter--particularly iambic meters in English--are pleasing to the ear in prose as well as poetry, and your method of composition sounds quite interesting. What does everyone else out there think of this model of composition?
Just to say, I am in awe. Such a resource for my teaching and my students! (and the videos all seem to be weirdly restful, reassuring even;)
Thanks so much for your kind words, Katherine. And thanks as well for sharing the video with your students! We'll be putting up a few more literary terms videos soon, and if you have any suggestions for what you'd like us to cover, please let us know.
Thank you so much! This helps me understand more about meters. Learning poetry alone is not easy as I thought it would be.
Thanks so much, Lovely Mendania! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Am I the only one who finds it difficult to recognize or to hear the stressed and unstressed syllables?😅
It gets easier with practice, ali. Trust us.
I’m honestly shocked at how often Drake incorporates dactyls in his songs. I know this video briefly touched on his use of it in “Versace,” but he also uses it briefly in “Chicago Freestyle.”
“Truck to the plane to the truck
Truck to the hotel lobby.”
Obviously, it gets interrupted once he gets to “hotel lobby,” but regardless, I’m impressed with Drake’s incorporation of this poetic meter in his music.
Nice work here, Hans! And it isn't just Drake. Check out Kendrick Lamar's "Swimming Pools," for more examples of that "triplet" / dactyl form. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
Great work, I think I will now go back to all the poetry I have read and the experience would be richer this time.
Thanks so much for your kind words! We hope you enjoy the other videos in out series as well!
Thank you for this easy-to-understand explanation of meter in poetry. I've watched a good number before coming upon this one, and it is the best so far. I will search no further, and I will be sharing this with my students. If I understood correctly, I believe the iambic pentameter broke on the word disobedience because I'm finding the iambic everywhere else but there. It also makes sense to me because the deviation of sound compliments the idea of man's stray from God by not adhering to his word. This was fun!
Thanks so much for your kind words, Teacher Dowrich! We're delighted to hear that you'll be sharing the lesson with your students, and we hope the other videos in our series will be useful to you as well. And great work with the reading of Paradise Lost! We agree completely.
The fact the I am learning this in my college class and you explained it better than the resources for my class did.
Thanks so much, @LizB33 ! We're delighted to hear that you found the video useful. Good luck with that class!
I recently came across an interesting meter in a Welsh Christmas carol, "O Deued Pob Cristion" - I think the basic pattern is triplets of bacchiac dimeter, but with a spondee added to the end of the third line. These triplets are paired by rhyming of the spondees to form sextet stanzas, so each stanza looks like this:
meter rhyme
- / / - / / a
- / / - / / a
- / / - / / / / a S
- / / - / / b
- / / - / / b
- / / - / / / / b S
(I don't consider the ending spondees to be separate lines because of the logical flow and the normal reading if not singing. Feel free to disagree with me on this.)
If you are interested to see what this sounds like, this has been recorded in a song so you don't have to able to read Welsh aloud in order to appreciate the scansion: ruclips.net/video/LV6HdzVQphk/видео.html
Welsh songs (and probably Welsh poetry in general) are full of interesting rhythms as well as internal rhyme and alliteration. It's one of the reasons to learn Welsh if you've got the time.
Larry, thank you so much for bringing our attention to this strange metrical form! We've certainly come across our fair share of spondees in our time, but the bacchiac foot is entirely new to us. What a strange sound pattern that must create! We're excited to check out the video (though the fact that it is in Welsh will raise some challenges.) Thanks again for this incredible post! We hope it will inspire others to share the strange metrical patterns that they've encountered in their reading adventures.
@@SWLF Wow, quick response!.. you must be up late. It might be easier to hear the pattern if you know what you're looking for.. putting parentheses around rhyming bacchii and brackets around rhyming spondees components on the first verse:
O deued (pob Cristion)
i Fethlem (yr awron)
i weled (mor dirion) [yw'n Duw]
O ddyfnder (rhefeddod)
fe drefodd (y Duwdod)
Dragwyddol (gyfamod) [I fyw]
sounds correct when scanned in the song as a Bacchus ( - / / ).
your way of explanation is superb and you deserve lots of salute Sir. As an Indian I want to say thank u so much for this wonderful work ,thanks from India .. Jai Shri Ram🙏
Wow, thanks so much, Raj! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Well, as you mentioned to put more emphasis on the line and to compare it with the regular metres that come before and after it or it could be simply a tension in the work. I haven't read the work though. Thank you for explaining metre accurately, it's thought provoking and illuminating indeed.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Vehement-Critic!
This video helps me a lot to teach the poetry class!!
Thanks so much for your kind words, Catherine! We hope you enjoy the other poetry videos in our series as well!
Wonderful introductory lecture (exactly what I need) to meter. I love your slides-they were very helpful. Thanks for the examples…time for research and the older poems are free. Thank you.
Wow, thanks so much, @richardglady3009. We're delighted to hear you found the lesson useful and we hope you'll check out more from the series if you have the time!
Milton On man's first disobedience which is a blank verse,
According to me, he'd break the metrical pattern or without an endstopping for readers to emphasize the main idea of "Pardise lost" without which the reader wouldn't notice or would move on. That's why we can see Of Man's First Disobedience till this day the most revered idea all over world of Milton. His main purpose was Theodicy. That's why most of the writers like Wordsworth, Blake, Hardy, John Dryden were inspired by him.
Milton for me is one of the greatest poets of all.
These days I observe that there are people around increasingly using free verse or prose poetry which is really difficult to engage in enjoying rhythm, ideas, deftness. People have reduced using metres in their poems and I feed remorsed. I'm a man who has been a readed of Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, pope, Shelley, Shakespeare, Keats, Yeats and more. But today all kinds of digressions are going on and people are enjoying too. Looks like poetry is taking a new form ignoring it's few classical rules and format.
I do recommend people to read books like - " the ode less travelled by Stephen Fry". Incredible book!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Adi! We plan on putting together a lesson on free verse, and it certainly is a thriving contemporary form, but we agree that Milton is pretty special. In fact, he inspired two of our more recent videos--"What is blank verse?" and "What is an elegy?" Check them out if you have the time, and thanks again for moving the conversation forward!
so many props for using rap verses as an example
Thanks Noey Sims! That triplet form seemed like a great way to talk about dactyls! Glad you enjoyed the lesson.
how do we know the right pronunciation? like, COMpare or comPARE? How do we differentiate to know the true ways to pronounce them?
Great question, Stella! Online dictionaries should include pronunciation at the start of the definition of a multi-syllable word like compare. Look for a tiny stress mark that looks like an apostrophe above the stressed syllable if they are using the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). Once you have those stresses marked, you should be able to infer the pattern of the stresses in the single-syllable words. Does that help?
rhymezone.com has meter for all words
Thanks a lot sir, this really helped... When you are clear with the Metre, you are halfway to understanding the poem 😅 I got it sir!
Excellent! Thanks so much, Hema!
Thank you so much sir, you literally saved my life!
Excellent! We're so happy to hear this, Manel, and we hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Really pleasing and lucid videos ! Thanks for this video! Maybe sometime later , you could also include the spondee and the pyrrhic.
Great suggestion, Ana! We've added those metrical forms to our list of future videos!
How do you know what syllables are stressed and unstressed in a word: "I", "a", "the" these words stressed or unstressed, and how would you exactly know
Great question, Bobby! The answer is it depends. You can make this call by looking at the words that surround these ones (especially the ones the are polysyllabic) and figuring out their metrical pattern and then fitting those words into that general form, sort of like filling in pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Once you've assigned those stresses, double-check the line by reading it in a manner that exaggerates the stresses (as Prof Malewitz does in the beginning of this video). You should then be good to go!
@@SWLF Thank you for the reply 🙏😊
You know how I can exactly know the stresses or words instead of guessing. For the dictionary never indicates what's stressed for most one and three letter words like "I" "The" "A"
@@strenuousbobbykushner You're very welcome, Bobby! You can also think of those words as variables that poets can use however they need to in order to fit the dominant metrical pattern.
@@SWLF Interesting! So those one or two syllable words possess flexible use. Sometimes they stressed and sometimes not. This sound like what your saying? Thank you for replying to my comments. I'm grateful!
@@strenuousbobbykushner Yes, the one-syllable words in particular are flexible in terms of stresses. It all depends on the pattern into which they are placed. Thanks again for that great question! We're delighted that you've kept the conversation going!
This is so helpful for my literature class. Thanks❤
Thanks so much, Jk Vibes! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Thanks for the video, it helped me in a few things.
Thanks so much, Diksha!
that was so usefull for my final examination. THANK YOU
You're welcome, MELDA! We're happy you found it useful, and we hope you like our other videos in the series as well!
This helps a lot and I hope I can get a good grade on the poetic quiz on Monday. Wish me good luck.
Thanks so much, Jiaming! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well. Good luck on that quiz!
Be like a Moon in thousand Stars!
Don't follow stars to shine
Thou are the moon and all the Light is thine
Don't look around to find inspiration
Thou are unique, who only deserves attention
The way thou Enlight the all
Thousands of stars can't demolish the night fall
Thou are irreplaceable ever, whom stars envy
And the world adores in lovely way
So! Be like Moon in thousand Stars!
Enlight all and proud thine scars!
Maria~
How is this? Please guide me
Thanks for the poem, Marina! What does everyone else think? Does someone want to give a try at identifying the meter here?
@@SWLF yes please help me to find meter here in this poem....... Regarding Structure How should we name this kind of poem?
@@SWLF teach us. let us know the answer. no one knows
Very well explained. Thank you!
Thanks so much for your kind words, Rujuta! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
One point that still has to be made is that the ways the cesura corroborated an addition within the poem, which also personifies dissonance- a kind of "disobediance" to the strict recognizable repeating metrical feet form established in the first three places of the presented excerpt. In this understanding, a Theological renting of an ancient story reveals complexities that poetry might convey. Of course in identiying a dominate metrical compass (Iamb, Trochee, etc...) For example, The prose choreopoem 'Typescenes' (September 11) personifies Black American mental health experiences while at the same time analyzing how poetry scsnscion can be life saving in the Black world. The book uses scanscion to push against the oppressive forces of [Black] reality and tease out new tools that may be used to dismantle the "master's house." In an acknowledgement of difference - rap - hip hop - eurocentric as opposed to dialectic poetry (Paul Lawrence Dunbar) orsouthern syllabic traditions. The disruption from the recognizable poetic form signals a rupture between God and humanity. As Paradise Lost presents Biblical ( and other sacred text) interpretation.
Thanks so much for sharing your take on the passage, rodney! We're not familiar with the choreopoem, but it sounds like it is doing similar work in conveying the way that sound and sense work together to build poetic experiences.
@@SWLF Because African American voices have been systematically left out of writing, literature, film and particularly, poetry. I invite you and your students to study Typescenes as it is a metrical work voicing Blackness as point of view, and means of invention in scanscion. The metrical compass of Typescenes is immediately instructive enactment.
How are we meant to know which meter a poem has. Particularly with the shift towards free verse. I find it very challenging to instantly figure out what type of meter I should read the poem in
Free verse (unmetered or irregularly metered poetry) is certainly a challenge to read aloud, b_am_wayne. We're going to put together a video on this very subject soon. The big advice we have now is to be sure to read the poem aloud in a variety of different ways to test out what sounds the best to your ear. As you become familiar with older metered forms, you'll gain confidence in that ear--trust us.
@@SWLF thanks I was also wondering if you could explain the difference between poems and lyrics. Is songwriting poetry? What about lyrical rap like Nas?
Thank you for this sir!
You're very welcome! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
I'd been through many videos to understand metre. All are talking about stressed and unstressed syllables without reading a sentence loudly in rhythmic way what I was looking for. Your video really made me understood.
But sometimes it tough to find syllables correctly whether they are stressed or unstressed. For example in "Shall I Compare thee to a summer's day".... How is "thee" unstressed and "to" stressed? While I'm finding it opposite. Could you please explain it to me Sir?
Thanks so much, Pankaj! Spotting stresses in monosyllabic (1-syllable) words is always a challenge. The big thing to keep in mind is that these words are sort of like variables in math--they become stressed or unstressed depending on the context. In this case, we know that "compare" has the stress on the second syllable (com-PARE) so we can work outwards from there to see if that iambic patterning works for the words before and after it.
We know it can be frustrating at first, but the more you practice the easier it gets!
@@SWLF Got it. Thanks for the video and further wishes🌺
Thank you so much for this sir😊
You are very welcome, Shiwani! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
We call others bad Not myself . . We are rose scent Not rose . We have fed this rose . we are gardener Not orchard . . . . in Urdu . . . . ہم دوسروں کو برا کہتے ہیں . خود کو نہیں ہم گلاب کی خوشبو ہیں گلاب تو نہیں . یہ پھول ہم نے کھلائے ہیں مالی ہیں ہم باغ تو نہیں
As fruit broke the rhythm of the verse, temptation broke the rhythm of perfection.
Nice try, J DM! We think it might be another word that breaks the meter...
Thanks a bundle..it's really useful and effective..I have learned a lot from you
Thanks so much for your kind words, Nasser! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Writers are thinkers.
Musicians are doers.
Meter is their common-law wife.
Okay I seem to understand some of this stuff. The only confusing bit for me is telling what is a stressed syllable and what isn't
Excellent! We're so happy to hear that it is starting to make sense, tupaxamarumakavelishakur2505! Elsewhere in this comments section, we offer some tips for determining stressed and unstressed syllables, and we hope they prove useful to you as well!
Am I stupid? Who says Im stressing Christmas? What if I dont? Would commas work better for stress?
You are not stupid, Barnabus! It is certainly challenging to listen for the stresses, but it gets easier with practice. In this comments thread, we've also added a few suggestions that make hearing these stresses easier, and members of the community have added their takes as well. Feel free to check out the comments for more info and feel free to join the conversation. Thanks for watching!
Edgar Allan Poe never wrote "The Raven," he merely claimed it in a kind of 19th-century "identity theft." The poem's premiere was submitted anonymously to "American Review" under the pseudonym "---- Quarles" by the true author, Mathew Franklin Whittier, younger brother of poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Poe, a critic for the New York "Evening Mirror," finding the poem in an advance copy of "American Review," scooped Mathew in his own paper by two days. Mathew had shared a copy of "The Raven" with Poe in early 1842, so Poe had a handwritten copy in his possession. This enabled him to convince his editor that he had permission to scoop "American Review"--but he mysteriously left the "Mirror" shortly afterwards (suggesting that he may have been fired for lying about it). It is the height of absurdity that the editor of a newly-launched monthly literary magazine like the "Review," would have given a daily newspaper this permission. The real author was not in a position to reveal his identity because of his anti-slavery work and connection with the Underground Railroad, and hence could not publicly defend himself.
Concerning meter, I can prove that the meter of the Raven was Mathew Franklin Whittier's preferred meter (i.e., with variations), with several examples going back to 1839, and then a great many examples published after 1845. Poe, on the other hand, has very few, if any, before 1845.
My paper, "Evidence that Edgar Allan Poe Stole 'The Raven' from Mathew Franklin Whittier," can be downloaded from the following link, or it can be read by searching for the paper's title in Academia.edu.
www.ial.goldthread.com/MFW_The_Raven.pdf
The second version for edgar Allen poe, sounds like the chorus for a good rap song.
Ha! And the theme is fairly similar to Geto Boys "Mind Playing Tricks on Me."
This is a very enlightening video! I was wondering if you could point me to any other videos or learning guides from yourselves or others so that I can better understand :)
Thanks so much, @ZAIGHAM63 ! You are welcome to check out the transcripts for all of our videos here: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/oregon-state-guide-english-literary-terms
If you are looking for more videos on meter, you may want to check out our "What is a Sonnet?", "What is Alliteration?", and "What is Blank Verse?" videos first.
Thank you for this video. Very easy to follow. But may I suggest that Milton did not break meter in this instance. Pronounce disobedience like this: DIS-oh-BEED-yence. The iambic pentameter is preserved.
Nice work here, Jonathan! This change would be called syneresis (collapsing two syllables into one), which could be a way to preserve the iambic pentameter. The result, of course, is also a slight "disobedience" or deviance from standard English. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
The iambic pentameter definitely seems stretched in "disobedience, and the fruit," but there are different ways of reading how it breaks the pattern. To me, there seem to be three stressed syllables in "disobedience." (DIS-oh_BEED-y-ENCE), making FRUIT a sixth stressed syllable and breaking the pattern at the end. Or it can be read as you suggest, in which case there are two down beats before FRUIT instead of one. Either way, it seems slightly off from the rest of the rhythm, which is a brilliant way of highlighting Adam's and Eve's disobedience ruining the perfection of Eden.
Excellent work here, @@Georgek1220 ! Thanks so much for keeping the conversation going!
I love writing I just don’t understand how to write in that characteristic format of poems. I know the lines mean something. I’m pretty sure poets don’t just chop up sentences to make it look like a poem. But I don’t know how to do that 😢
Well, our advice is to keep working at it, Mia! We offer a short video on Stanza that you might want to check out that can help with line work, but beyond that, just read as much as you can and try things out. You can do it!
Thanks, much appreciated.
Thanks so much, Raboon! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
So many smart words.
Ha! We hope the lesson was easy to understand, Faltakor!
you explained this so well, thank you!
Thanks so much for your kind words, jktm. We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Still. How do I know when it’s pressed and when it’s not ?
Great question, Rahma! In the comments section below, we discuss some strategies for determining stress patterns. For words with multiple syllables, you can also consult an online dictionary like dictionary.com, which will include pronunciation info.
How do we know which words with one syllable are stressed or unstressed?
In one of the examples you gave, this was stressed, so could it be that perhaps in other poem it could be unstressed?
Thanks for the question, @nimratmand3318 ! We received this question in another comment, and the answer is that monosyllabic words can be either stressed or unstressed depending on the words around them. They are sort of like variables in this sense. The easiest way to figure out their stresses is to look at polysyllabic words around them, which DO have a fairly fixed stress pattern, and fit the stress pattern of the monosyllabic word into the form that matches those polysyllabic words.
What does mean by “combination of Poetic feet"?
Thanks
You're very welcome, phillove528! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Thank you sooo much for this ❤
If you don't mind, I have a question.
In a poem, does all the lines have to be, for example, iambic or it can have two or more meters?
Thanks so much, Madiha! Usually, a given metered poem will tend to stick to the same metrical form, but not always. Check out Seamus Heaney's "Digging" for a good example of a poem that varies its meter (and stanzaic form). Thanks for the question!
@@SWLF Thank you so much for the reply. I have another question. When the foot of, for example, first line and second line do not match, what will be the meter of the whole poem? I mean, in what meter should I name the poem with different foots? I hope you understood.
@@madihakhan2474 Interesting! We would say that you should classify the poem based upon its dominant / most common meter. If you go to the third and fourth lines and scan their meters, the dominant meter should make itself clear.
Is disobedience the correct answer?
Nice work, Rushi! Yes--you got it!
fire bars dawg
Ha! Thanks, @user-mg8pr9li2k, though Prof. Malewitz isn't likely to leave his day job for a career in music. We hope you enjoyed the lesson!
Tupac has a kind of bouncy flow that kinda relates to this. Lit
Thanks for the comment, tupaxamarumakavelishakur2505! We agree!
But how do you figure out if a word is a stressed or unstressed? Wouldn't it depend on the person reading the poem aloud? I just have a hard time hearing stresses in everyday conversation.
It is certainly challenging to listen for the stresses, John, but it gets easier with practice. In this thread, we've also added a few suggestions that make hearing these stresses easier, and members of the community have added their takes as well. Feel free to check out the comments for more info and thanks for watching!
yooo he on fire at 4:16 🔥🔥🔥
Ha! He's definitely not quitting his day job. But we hope you enjoyed the lesson!
iambic pentameter 1:44 OTHER 2:10
Hey I was wondering where is the other video that you mention about why the meter is important. If you can please share the link
Thanks for the comment, Anne. Could you remind us of where we mentioned the other video? You can find our full playlist here: ruclips.net/p/PLSEuljLye7NTirILYGH19NVTtQh8O1wK-
@@SWLF Hi thank you for getting back!😅 I must have miss understood when the teacher was saying the next step thinking there was another video around 5:06 on the timestamp.
how can we understand the stresses.
Could you give us a sense of what is giving your trouble? We offer some solutions to this trouble in the comments section of this video.
More 🙏🙏
Thanks so much, Devon! We're working on some more!
Shakespeare and Towns Van Zadnt are my favorite writers
That is a heck of a pairing, Green Manalishi!
@@SWLF honestly to be fair I don’t really have much insight in Shakespeare so thanks for the lesson,,, also I think Towns is a true poet. Our generations Shakespeare imo.ruclips.net/video/8XCjQXsc748/видео.html&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE Towns mentions Shakespeare as his first influence
I wrote a poem before learning about meter and I'm struggling to identify the meter in my own poem. The issue is that the first line has an odd number of syllables, whereas the examples featured here (unless I missed something) feature even number of syllables which are easy to group. Is there any way to work with odd number of syllables in a foot?
Great question, Flint! The short answer is that you don't need to follow a regular metrical pattern in your poetry. Modern poets often write in "free verse," which lacks these forms. A longer answer would be that poets writing in metered verse will often add an additional, unstressed syllable to the end of their lines called a "feminine ending." You can see it used to great effect in Claude McKay's poem "Adolescence." These kinds of endings often convey uncertainty and unease because of that modification, so especially if your poem is trying to convey that mood, go for it!
how come "this" is stressed and "the" is unstressed, even though they have the same amount of syllables?
Great question, crimocola_AA! We answered this one a few times in this thread, and you can find more detail there, but the general idea is that monosyllable words can operate like variables to match whatever pattern exists around them. At times they can be stressed (if the surrounding meter requires it). At other times they can be considered unstressed (if the surrounding meter requires it).
@@SWLF oh ok thanks!
I have a question, Do all words have a definite stress or unstress n we need to memorize it? If not, how do we know by reading a poem's first line or any line that what poet wants to be read as a stress or unstress syllable in a word? How should we read it correctly?
Great question, Diksha! We answered a few similar questions in this comment thread, and you can find a more complete answer there. The short answer is that stressed and unstressed syllables are tough when you are dealing with monosyllabic words, which can be either, depending on what surrounds them. You can think of them like variables that poet's can introduce as either stressed or unstressed, depending on what the meter requires.
@@SWLF ok then, it is the fact that, a poet firstly decides about the meter in which he wants to write a poem then he chooses the words according to the number of syllables in that particular meter. Am I right?
@@dikshagupta8418 Interesting question, Diksha! We wouldn't suppose we could get inside the heads of poets, but we suspect that the rhythm of the meter would definitely constrain how a poet approaches their craft--what words they choose and how they choose to order those words..
WOW! Just wow!
We hope that means you liked the video, Marcus!
@@SWLF After decades spent accepting that it just doesn't make sense... this video and my unsuspecting mind met at the right time! I get it. I finally f'n get it! lol
@@marcusomariprp2006 f'n a right! We're so happy to hear this news and we hope it'll bring more pleasure to your poetry reading!
2:47 three
how do you know that the meter breaks at disobedience? is it because it has too many syllables?
That is one reason, zainab! The other is that the 3rd and 4th syllables of "disobedience" are both stressed, which breaks the unstressed / stressed pattern.
@@SWLF thank you! also, does the meter then resume later in the poem or does the word disobedience consequently break the rest of the pattern?
@@zainab8296 Great question, zainab! We'd encourage you to try to answer that one for yourself (with some help from the community here). Ideally, we'd like you to be able to use the video as a launching point for your own investigations of poetry, and we hope this comment section will be an opportunity for all of us to discuss poetry together. Do you (or anyone else out there) want to give the next line a try: "Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast"?
Iamb and Trochee are the common type of meter. Now Reading English poem is not just Reading
Thanks so much, elly!
Hi there, I have an URGENT poetic question regarding a Master's essay I am writing.
I am looking at the English translation by Andrew Lang of the French poem Les Roses de Saadi (Marceline Desbordes-Valmore). The original is has an alexandrine metre - as is typical of classical French prosody - and 3 tercets. However, I am struggling to define the metre of the English translation. Could you help me? Here it is:
"This morning I vowed I would bring thee my Roses,
They were thrust in the band that my bodice encloses,
But the breast-knots were broken, the Roses went free.
The breast-knots were broken; the Roses together
Floated forth on the wings of the wind and the weather,
And they drifted afar down the streams of the sea.
And the sea was as red as when sunset uncloses,
But my raiment is sweet from the scent of the Roses,
Thou shalt know, Love, how fragrant a memory can be."
It seems to be a mixture of 12 and 13 syllables, but I'm not sure how to define it exactly. I recognise a strong four beat, but I am not a prosody expert at all.
Any help would be appreciated, thank you!
Interesting question, Toby! To our mind, the English version translates the alexandrine into a loose dactylic form with plenty of amphibrachic substitutions (those are relatively rare unstressed-stressed-unstressed feet) thrown in. We think the easier way to describe it (unless you have a reason to zoom in on individual moments in the poetic lines) is just as you have: organization by the dominant 4 stresses in each line. We'll try to check with our poetry profs as well and get back to you if they have any other insights.
@@SWLF I've deduced that it might be a anapest tetrameter, but I'm not 100% sure. But it seems to be XX/, and 4 feet, consistent with that metre.
@@tobybromfield3664 Ah, yes. We meant anapests, not dactyls. Apologies--it is getting towards the end of the term and we're all getting a bit sloppy here.
@@SWLF thanks for the confirmation!
This Is awesomeee
Thanks so much, Jeth! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Yeah I believe that poetic meter is very interesting
We agree! Thanks for the comment, @johnrivers6252!
I thought the syllables are just counted.
Well, we hope the lesson gave you a new way of thinking about meter! Thanks for the comment!
Sir what is accentual syllabic meter. Please reply.
Great question, sathya! What we are calling "meter" here is essentially accentual syllabic meter. This phrase ("accentual syllabic meter") simply means that the rhythm of the poem is defined by accented and unaccepted syllables (hence "accentual syllabic") organized into patterns in each line of a given poem. We hope that clears things up!
How many types and Numbers of Poetic meter are?
Please tell me about it in comment box.
Interesting question, komal! The 4 most common types are discussed in this video, but you can also find rarer feet--spondees, pyrrhic, and so on--if you really search for them.
@@SWLF Ok Sir Thank you
interhigh?
Heyyy its ummmm good
Ha! Thanks, Illiyien. We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
In art, meter is balance.
That's a good way to think of it, Bob. Thanks for sharing!
what's the name of the background sound ?
Hmm, we're not sure we understand the question. The background music for the video?
@@SWLF yes my question is: what is the name of the music that is played in the background of the Video ? :)
@@MJ-on8ld Ha! OK. The song is called "Creative Solutions" by Christopher Salt and Philip Guyler. We licensed it from De Wolfe Ltd, who owns the rights to the song.
@@SWLF Perfect Thank you , the song is pretty calming and nice .
Beauty fades into the night. What once was seen, now out of sight. A bright flame flickering with endless glow., has suddenly faded, like tainted snow. Dreams never attained, left behind, for a different World, somehow not as kind, as when youth eminated from the soul. Days of yesterday leaving one bitter and cold. Should one just give up when all fades to black? And something once possessed is now something one lacks.m? Is the end of the story inevitably near? Should one wipe away the last pitiful tear? Never thinking the end one would have to face. Or really knowing the World to be such a cold place. Reality now written all over ones dreams. Wondering in life if anything is exactly as it seems? The flame has sorrowfully gone out. All your left with is anger and doubt. Dont forget memories of a time long ago. When dreams came true, like fresh fallen snow.
Thanks for the creative post, Vicky! Does anyone else out there want to comment on this poem's meter?
How bad is the meter? I wrote that in five minutes in my twenties.
W migos reference
We hope you enjoyed the reference, @Blend6 !
It's so hard to tell and hear the difference between stressed and unstressed jeez
It is, umbrella, but trust us-- it gets easier with practice.
Iambic pentameter
You have emperor of Urdu Ghazal Ie King of Urdu Poetry You must have heard the name of Mirza Asad Ullah Khan Ghalib If you don't hear, you don't know any poetry . . Listen to their Poetry . . . . . We hope to love them . . Who don't know what love is . . . . Has escaped . Was so awesome Can't see you Because it has been 150 years since
Thanks for the comment, Sharoon! The Ghalib's ghazal form has certainly informed American poetry, including, most prominently, Adrienne Rich's "Ghazals (Homage to Ghalib).” We look forward to checking out more poetry from this distinguished poet. Thanks for keeping the conversation about different poetic forms going!
I still remain illeterate here
Ah, we're sorry to hear that, Mohamed. Meter can be tough to spot, but trust us, it gets easier with practice.
@@SWLF I think it's bcaz it's my second language I will get better soonnn with your help
@@mohamedayyub2361 Keep practicing and good luck!
A meter is roughly three feet
Ha! Close. You are off by a quarter of a trochee.
goat
Ha! We hope this means you liked the video?
@@SWLF goat means "greatest of all time"
@@kipanator Ha! That's what we figured but wanted to be sure. Thanks,
@kipanator !
What's up with the gray beard ?
Ha! Professor Malewitz created that video in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic. It has only gotten grayer since then.
Migos sounds like Eminem, then.
Interesting. How so?
The Pritchard scale is garbage.
Let's learn our rhyme and meter and move on. Really?
If you dissect poetry like a lab frog it looses its beauty.
If you never broke the rules nothing new would ever happen.
Thanks for the comment, Robert! We certainly wouldn't agree with the fictitious Dr. Pritchard that poetry is reducible to an equation--interpretation is very much an art rather than a science. Indeed, as Prof. Malewitz suggests, the pleasure of interpreting a poem often involves speculation on the nature of poems' breaking their own rules. But in order to have that pleasure or to read a poem's rhythm, some knowledge of meter is (to our mind) necessary. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
@@SWLF I was a little harsh.
And am sorry.
But education is to teach you how to think not what to think.
I guess meter and rhyme does help.
As a musician and song writer I feel if I worried about what is supposedly proper my songs would lose something.
Then again I have very little college education so what do I know.
When I write a song or poem it just starts flowing.
If I stopped to worry about structure, rhyme, rhythm and meter it would probably die before it got started good.
@@robertbrokus2123 No worries, Robert. Meter isn't the end-all and be-all, for sure. It instaed might be thought of as one of many ways to open up discussions of poems and songs. The important thing is that we find new and interesting ways to discuss the art that we love.
@@SWLF your right.
Never to old to learn.
If I had learned all of the scales of music I would be a better guitarist / pianist.
I play by ear. And I know now It would have helped.
0:36 both of them sound like broken English. Please there has to be something more than cutting a syllable, if you going to teach something break down. For the simple people. Don't just keep saying words that you take from a book. I'm hear to learn not be more confused
Hmm, we're sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy the video, Sole. Listening for stressed and unstressed patterning can be challenging, which is why Prof. Malewitz exaggerated his pronouncement of the first two poetic lines. What about meter is giving you trouble?
is that Obi-Wan Kenobi?
Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time.
@@SWLF (The Force theme starts playing)
Oh, I thought this was important sorry!