Syllable and Rhythm Handout
Part I: Looking at Individual Words
2 Syllable Words
Alter
change
3 Syllable Words
convert
calculate
internet
4 Syllable Words
contemplate
transform
utilize
render
restate
computer
rodeo
superstitious
community
tarantula
orthodontist
introduction
geometry
Part II: Looking at sentences.
1. Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene.
2. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands
unclean.
3. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes.
4. A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; whose misadventured piteous
overthrows doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
5. The fearful passage of their death-marked love, and the continuance of their
parents’ rage.
6. The which if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss, our toil shall
strive to mend.
Part III: Looking at the Bigger Picture: Meter
Pentameter Example:
Tetrameter Example:
Two households, both alike in dignity
And did those feet in ancient time
In fair Verona where we lay our scene
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
O she doth teach the torches to urn bright
And was the holy Lamb of God
But soft what light through yonder
window
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
(comes from William Blakes introduction to Milton)
breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!
(Romeo and Juliet)
Trimeter Example:
Hexameter Example:
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
Upon a thankless errand;
That the dear she might take some pleasure of my
pain,
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make
her
Go, since I needs must die,
know,
And give the world the lie.
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe:
Say to the court, it glows
(Sir Philip Sidney)
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.
(From Sir Walter Rahleigh’s The Lie)
Basic Elements of English Poetry: Rhythm and Rhyme
Rhythm
Most poetry has rhythm, and rhythm is achieved by emphasizing or deemphasizing certain syllables in the
words used in the lines of the poem. The syllables, themselves, are then grouped into two or three syllable
units called "feet". English poetry employs five basic rhythms of varying stressed (/) and unstressed (u)
syllables. The meters are iambs, trochees, spondees, anapests and dactyls. (In this document the stressed
syllables are marked in boldface type rather than the tradition al "/" and "u.")
The meters with two-syllable feet are

IAMBIC (u /) : That time of year thou mayst in me behold
[My love] [for you] [will al] [ways be,]
The above feet in [ ] brackets are called "iambs" because they are each composed of two syllables with
the second syllable of each foot emphasized.

TROCHAIC (/ u): Tell me not in mournful numbers
[Slow ly] [soft ly] [and so] [gent ly]
The above feet in brackets are called "trochees" because they are each composed of two syllables with
the first syllable of each foot emphasized.

SPONDAIC (/ /): Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
[Sweet heart] [thou art] [al ways] [at heart]
The above feet in brackets are called "spondees" because they are each composed of two syllables with
both syllables of each foot emphasized.
Meters with three-syllable feet are

ANAPESTIC (u u /): And the sound of a voice that is still
[Dis res pect] [can not be] [for a love] [to be free]
The above feet in brackets are called "anapests' because they are each composed of three syllables with
the third syllable of each foot emphasized.

DACTYLIC (/ u u): This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlock
[Self res pect] [is a-chieved] [when one leaves] [lust and greed]
The above feet in brackets are called "dactyls" because they are each composed of three syllables with
the first syllable of each foot emphasized.
Rhythm, as you can see from the above, depends on emphasized and deemphasized syllables
which make up "feet." Taking this a step further, a "line" or "verse" of a poem is made up of one
or more "feet."
Examples of Lines (Verses):
Iambic Tetrameter (4-meter)
[My love] [for you] [will al] [ways
be,]
This verse has four iambic feet.
Iambic Trimeter (3-meter)
[I kiss] [you in] [my dreams]
This verse has three iambic feet.
You can also have five iambic
feet:
Iambic Pentameter (5-meter)
[Thus soon] [I'll need] [the
warmth] [of your] [em brace]
The variations are almost
endless!
Rhyme
Poetry does not always have to rhyme. For example, there is a type of poetry called "Free Verse." It's
almost like prose, except that the words flow with imagery and become poetic in spite of the absence of
rhyme.
Rhyme is achieved when sounds are repeated within a verse or at the end of two different verses. For
example, we present a "couplet" which is composed of two end-rhymed verses:
I have not seen you for many days,
And truly I've missed you in countless ways.
The couplet is the smallest verse grouping more commonly refered to as a "stanza."
There are many different patterns of poetry which depend on the number of verses as well as the end
rhyming pattern used. Here are examples which you can refer to when writing your own poems
Triplet (3 verses)
Quatrain (4 verses)
a) She opened her eyes, and green
b) They shone, clear, like flowers undone
a) For the first time, now for the last time seen.
- D. H. Lawrence
a) A ruddy drop of manly blood
b) The surging sea outweighs;
c) The world uncertain comes and goes,
b) The lover rooted stays.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Quintet (5 verses)
Sestet (6 verses)
a) Hail to thee blithe spirit,
b) Bird thou never wert
a) That from heaven, or near it,
b) Pourest thy full heart
b) In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
- Percy Bysshe Shelly
a) Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home:
b) Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine:
a) Long through the weary crowds I roam;
b) A river-ark on the ocean brine,
a) Long I've been like the driven foam;
a) But now, proud world! I'm going home.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Septet (7 verses)
Octave (8 verses)
a) The flower that smiles today
b) Tomorrow dies;
a) All that we wish to stay
b) Tempts and then flies:
c) What is this world's delight?
c) Lightening that mocks the night,
c) Brief even as bright.
- Percy Bysshe Shelly
a) Thou art a female, Katydid!
b) I know it by the trill
c) That quivers through thy piercing notes,
b) So petulant and shrill;
d) I think there is a knot of you
e) Beneath the hollow tree, f) A knot of spinster Katydids, e) Do Katydids drink tea?
- To an Insect Oliver Wendell Holmes
Nine-Line stanza (9 verses)
a) Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
b) You haste away so soon;
c) As yet the early rising sun
b) Has not attained his noon.
d) Stay, stay,
d) Until the hasting day
c) Has run
f) But to the even-song;
a) And having prayed together, we
f) Will go with you along.
- To Daffodils, Robert Herrick