Rhythm and Meter

1. Rhythm and Meter This is not the kind of meter I am talking about

2. Rhythm • Rhythm is the pattern of stresses in a line of verse. When you speak, you stress some syllables and leave others unstressed. • When you string a lot of words together, you start seeing patterns. Rhythm is a natural thing. It's in everything you say and write, even if you don't intend for it to be.

3. Rhythm cont. • Writers also create rhythm by repeating words and phrases or even by repeating whole lines and sentences.

4. Meter • Traditional forms of verse use established rhythmic patterns called meters(meter means measure in Greek). • Meters are premeasured patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. • Types: • Anapest: duh-duh-DUH, as in but of course! • Dactyl: DUH-duh-duh, as in honestly • Iamb: duh-DUH, as in collapse • Trochee: DUH-duh, as in pizza

5. Meter cont. • Each set of stressed and unstressed syllables is a foot. • There are terms for each number of feet: • 1 foot: monometer • 2 feet: dimeter • 3 feet: trimeter • 4 feet: tetrameter • 5 feet: pentameter • 6 feet: hexameter

6. Iambic Pentameter • So the famous iambic pentameter is a string of five iambs,as in Christopher Marlowe's line from Dr. Faustus: Was this the face that launched a thousand ships Duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH

7. Example