The Outerview Series: Part III - What is Rhythm?

       In our first two outerviews we defined poetry as verbatim speech whose audience is all but limited to song lyrics.  It makes sense to begin by learning about poetry that can most easily be converted to song.

      Over the last thousand years all successful English language poems have incorporated rhythm.  This has usually involved meter, which facilitates the addition of music to create song.

     "And what is 'meter'?"

      Meter is the quantification of something in order to segment the poem.

     "And what are those things being quantified?"
 
      It could be a number of things.  In classical Greek verse and song it is tempo--the time it takes to say or sing a line.  In the latter case, the same number of bars and beats each line.  When that drum is struck the word being spoken is highlighted.  Stressed.  Even if it wouldn't normally be.

      Let's have you read aloud the text onscreen:

      "You carry the weight of inherited sorrow from your first day till you die toward that hilltop where the road forever becomes one with the sky."

       That was a natural enunciation of these words.  It's how you'd say them in a speech or a recital.  Now let's listen to Bruce Cockburn sing these lyrics from "The Rose Above the Sky" (at top):

You carry the weight of inherited sorrow
From your first day till you die
Toward that hilltop where the road
Forever becomes one with the sky

        So, what have we learned so far?

       "With song, it's all about the beat."

       Close enough.  That need to have every line take the same length of time is called "quantitative" meter.  

       Now, going back to quantifying, here are three other things that can be counted:  alliterations, accents, and feet.  Check out these two lines from DPK's "Leaving Santiago":

We come from | a nation | of cowards | and corpses
both roll down | the river | en route to|  the ocean.

       This is alliterative verse--something that goes back to before 1066--because there are three repetitions of an initial sound of a stressed syllable in each line:  two on one side of midway, one on the other;  three hard "c" sounds in the first line, three "r" iterations in the second.

       The same two lines could be considered accentual, with the same number of stressed syllables--four, in this case--in each line.  N.B.:  In accentual meter the unstressed syllables don't matter.

       Finally, these two lines illustrate the most recent evolution of meter:  accentual-syllabic.  This deals in feet:  typically, a stressed syllable and one or two unstressed ones in a particular order.  In this case, it is a pattern of four "de-DUM-de" soundings called "amphibrachic tetrameter":

We come from a country of cowards and corpses
both roll down the river en route to the ocean.

      "Is 'amphibrachic' anything like 'iambic'?"

      Yes, in a "right church, wrong pew" way.  Iambic is a binary because it has two components:  an unstressed syllable, then a stressed one (de-DUM).  It sounds like marching.  Amphibrachs are trinary because they have three:  de-DUM-de.  It sounds like hopping.  Here is a chart of all the cadences and meter lengths, of which iambic is by far the most common:

============================  Meter Types  ===========================

 Beat   Name
   uu = Pyrrhic    (aka Dibrach)
   uS = Iamb        = Marching
   Su = Trochee     = Imperative  (aka Choree)
   SS = Spondee
  uuu = Tribrach
  Suu = Dactyl      = Waltzing
  uSu = Amphibrach  = Hopping        Metres:
  uuS = Anapest     = Galloping      Monometer = 1 foot
  uSS = Bacchic                        Dimeter = 2 feet
  SuS = Amphimacer (aka Cretic)       Trimeter = 3 feet
  SSu = Antibacchic                 Tetrameter = 4 feet
  SSS = Molossus                    Pentameter = 5 feet
 uuuu = Proceleusmatic               Hexameter = 6 feet *
 Suuu = First paeon                 Heptameter = 7 feet
 uSuu = Second paeon                 Octameter = 8 feet
 uuSu = Third paeon
 uuuS = Fourth paeon    * Hexameter = "alexandrine" if iambic.
 uuSS = Ionic a minore
 SuuS = Choriamb                       
 SSuu = Ionic a maiore              Stanzas:
 SuuS = Antispast                   2 lines = couplet
 SuSu = Ditrochee                   3 lines = tercet
 uSuS = Diiamb                      4 lines = quatrain
 uSSS = First epitrite              5 lines = cinquain
 SuSS = Second epitrite             6 lines = sestet or sixain
 SSuS = Third epitrite              7 lines = septet
 SSSu = Fourth epitrite             8 lines = octet or octave
 SSSS = Dispondee                      
uSSuS = Dochmios

 "S" = Stressed (or, more accurately, "long" in the original Greek)
 "u" = unstressed (or, more accurately, "short" in the original Greek)

======================================================================

      Some poems or songs can have more than one meter.  In fact, 4 iambs followed by 3 iambs in so common that it is literally called "common meter":

Amaz|ing grace | how sweet | the sound
that saved | a wretch | like me.
Was lost, | but now, | I'm found;
was blind, | but now | I see.

      "So we want our lines the same length or lengths."

       And durations.  Correct.  And we have names for each kind:  "isometric" if all of the lines the same length, "heterometric" if the lines come in different lengths.

      "Will this be on the test?"

Next:  Scansion