♥ Meter ♥

DEFINITION:

A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllable.

EXAMPLE:

....1.............. 2.................3..............4................ 5
Shall.I..|..com.PARE..|..thee.TO..|..a.SUM..|..mer’s DAY?

Types of foot:

Iamb: A foot made up of one unstressed and one stressed syllable, in that order.

Trochee: A foot made up of one stressed and one unstressed syllable, in that order.

Spondee: A foot made up of two stressed syllables.

Dactyl: A foot made up of one stressed and two unstressed syllables, in that order.

Anapest: A foot made up of two unstressed and one stressed syllable, in that order.

Caesura: (literally, a cut or cutting) refers to a particular kind of break within a poetic line. In Latin and Greek meter, caesura refers to an actual pause within the line. In English poetry, a caesura more often refers to a sense of a breakage within a line. Caesurae play a particularly important role in Old English poetry, where the number of caesurae per line is a fundamental component of meter.

Inversion: when a foot of poetry is reversed or otherwise does not obey the general meter of a poem.

Headless: a meter where the first foot is missing its first syllable.

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SIGNIFICANCE:

In poetry, the unit of stressed and unstressed syllables is called a foot, and above show several types. Meter is very important because when the poem is read out loud, it’s more interesting to have stressed and unstressed tones in order to clarify certain parts. We humans don’t speak like robots, so normally we stress on words that we want to emphasize, pause at the end of an idea or a sentence, etc; all these elements of meter combine together to give each poem a unique music.