General remarks about English versification
By Robert Ferrieux
1. Rhyme
* Feminine rhyme
It includes an unstressed syllable after the stressed vowel sound.
* Masculine rhyme
It does not include an unstressed syllable after the stressed vowel sound.
Example
John Grubby who was short and stout
And troubled by religious doubt
Refused about the age of three
To sit upon the curate's knee.
When we two 'parted
In silence and 'tears
Half broken-'hearted
To sever for 'years.
(Masculine rhymes)
(Lines 1 and 3: Masculine rhymes)
(Lines 2 and 4: feminine rhymes)
* Double rhyme
It is a rhyme with two syllables matching in sound, like 'parted/'hearted quoted above. If there are
three matched syllables, it is called a triple rhyme.
* Half-rhyme
It is a rhyme in which either a vowel sound or a consonant sound differs.
Example
Wilfred Owen, Strange Meeting (1918)
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound tunnel long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as il to bless.
[…]
Lines 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8: half-rhymes.
* Middle rhyme
An internal rhyme occurring at any place in the line, but preferably before the caesura.
* Assonance
The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds where there is no full rhyme.
* Consonance
The repetition of identical or similar consonants with a change in the intervening vowel sounds.
2. Quantity
In Latin and Greek, by quantity is meant the length of the vowel sound in a syllable. In English
poetry, the notion of stress has replaced that of length. Thus one refers to stressed syllables and
unstressed syllables.
Different sorts of feet
(— stressed syllable)
(u unstressed syllable)
Different combinations are possible and according to the number of feet the rhythm may be binary
or ternary.
*Binary rhythm
Iamb (or iambus) [— u] (iambic rhythm)
Trochee [u —] (trochaic rhythm)
Spondee [— —] (spondaic rhythm)
*Ternary rhythm
Dactyl [– uu] (dactyllic rhythm)
Anapaest or anapest [uu —] (anapestic rhythm)
Different sorts of metres
*Iambic rhythm
It comes closest to natural English speech, provided the speech is not strongly emphasised as it is in
orders, angry retorts, etc.
Example
Thomas Norton, Thomas Sackville, Gordobuc (1501)
And is it thus? And doth he so prepare
u —/u —/ u —/ u —/ u —
(five feet)
Against his brother as his mortal foe?
u —/ u —/ u —/ u —/ u —
(five feet)
*Trochaic rhythm
It occurs quite frequently in English poetry, although it is more conversational, with a hopping
rhythm as in Nursery Rhymes.
Example
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Balm of Life", The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
Tell me not in mournful numbers
— u/ — u/ — u/ — u/
Life is but an empty dream!
— u/— u/ — u/ —
(catalexis, i.e. one syllable missing)
For the soul is dead that slumbers
(Ibid.)
And things are not what they seem.
u —/ u —/ — u/ —/ catalexis
iambic substitution
Similarly, trochaic rhythm is often found in French comptines, as in
Une poule sur un mur(e)
— u/— u/ — u/ — u/
Qui picote du pain dur(e) […]
The association of a trochee and an iambus at the beginning of an iambic line is regular [– u u–]
and dactyl ic rhythm is called choriamb or choriambus, the rhythm being briefly choriambic. Its
opposite [u — — u] is called antipast.
*Dactylic rhythm
Example
Robert Browning,The Lost Leader
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
— u u/ — u u/— u u/— u
Just for a riband to stick in his coat,
Ibid.
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Ibid.
Lost all the others she lets us devote.
Ibid.
(All lines with catalexis)
*Anapaestic rhythm
Example
Lord Byron, Don Juan (Extract)
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
u u —/ u u
—/ u u —/ u u —/
And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold.
Ibid.
2. Length
According to the number of feet in a line, it is called monometre, dimetre, trimeter, tetrametre,
pentametre, hexametre, etc. When the rhythm is binary, a six foot line is called alexandrine.
The iambic pentametre is the most common form of line in English poetry. When the iambic
petametre is unrhymed, it is called Blank Verse (used by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton,
Wordsworth, etc.) When two rhyming iambic pentametres are associated, they form a couplet
(mainly used in the 17th and 18th centuries, Dryden, Pope, etc.) Shakespeare often ended a tirade
in blank verse by a couplet in order to indicate that it (or the scene) had come to an end and also to
emphasise its conclusion.
Example
John Milton, Paradise lost, Book I (Extract)
[…] into what Pit thou seest
From what highth fal'n, so much the stronger provd
u
—/ — u / u —/ u —/ u —
(antipast)
He with his Thunder: and till then who knew
The force of those dire Arms? Yet not for those
Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict do I repent or change,
Though chang'd in outward lustre; that fixt mind
And high disdain, from sence of injur'd merit,
That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend,
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd
That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd
In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
4. Stanzas
*Couplet: 2 rhyming lines (see above)
*Tercet: 3 rhyming lines (2 tercets = a sestet)
*Quatrain: 4 rhyming lines (2 quatrains = an octave)
*Terza rima: an Italian form of stanza used by Dante in The Divine Comedy and often borrowed by
English poets (Geoffrey Chaucer, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Shelley, Browning, etc.). It consists of a tercet
and all tercets are linked by a running rhyme according to a strict pattern a b a / b c b / c d c / d e d,
etc. with the possibility of a couplet ending (f f).
Example
A section from Shelley's Ode to the West Wind:
Five stanzas + couplet
(1) O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, (a)
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead (b)
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, (a)
(2) Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, (b)
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, (c)
Who chariotest to their dark wintery bed (b)
(3) The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, (c)
Each like a corpse within its grave, until (d)
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow (c)
(4) Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (d)
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) (e)
With living hues and odours plain and hill: (d)
(5) Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; (f)
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear! (f) (couplet)
*Ottava rima: a stanza introduced from the Italian in the 16th century by sir Thomas Wyatt, with
narrative and comic potentialities, as in Lord Byron's Don Juan). The rhyming pattern is ab / ab / ab
/ cc (couplet).
Example
Lord Byron, Don Juan
Go, little book, from this my solitude! (a)
I cast thee on the waters – go thy ways! (b)
And if, as I believe, thy vein be good, (a)
The world will find thee after many days. (b)
When Southey's read, and Wordsworth understood, (a)
I can't help putting in my claim to praise – (b)
The four first rhymes are Southey's every line: (c)
For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine. (c)
*Spenserian stanza: a nine line stanza invented by Edmund Spenser for his Fairie Queen = 8 iambic
pentametres + 1 iambic hexametre (alexandrine), with a rhyming pattern ab ab bc bc c (pseudo
couplet). This stanza was also used by James Thomson in the 18th century and a limited number of
other poets.
Example
Edmund Spenser, The Fairie Queen, I,1
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske, (a)
u—/u — / u
—/ u —/ u —/
As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds, (b)
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske, (a)
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine oaten reeds, (b)
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds; (b)
Whose prayses having slept in silence long, (c)
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds (b)
To blazon broad amongst her learned throng: (c)
Fierce warres and faithfull loves shall moralize my song. (c) alexandrine + pseudo couplet
u — / u — / u —/ u —/u —/u —/
5. Association of stanzas
* The sonnet:
- Italian or Petrachan sonnet (as in French): 14 lines divided into an octave (2 quatrains) and a
sestet (2 tercets). Between the quatrain and the tercet, there occurs a change of thought called "turn"
or "twist", the equivalent of the Italian volta. The rhyming scheme is: octave a b b a / a b b a /,
sestet: c d e / c d e or c d e / d c e. The sestet never ends with a couplet.
- English or Shakespearian sonnet: 12 lines arranged in three quatrains + a couplet, with a strict
rhyming pattern: 1rst quatrain: a b a b / 2nd quatrain: c d c d / 3rd quatrain: e f e f /g g (couplet)
Example
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments, love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a)
Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)
O no, it is an ever fixed mark (c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)
It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c)
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)
If this be error and upon me proved, (g)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)
- Miltonian sonnet: a sonnet form used by John Milton (see below). It is a Petrachan sonnet with an
advanced or delayed volta occurring a little before or after the end of the octave.
Example
John Milton, On his blindness
When I consider how my light is spent (a)
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
And that one talent which is death to hide, (b)
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a)
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a)
My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
I fondly ask; [volta] but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d)
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e)
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c)
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
They also serve who only stand and wait." (e)
* The ode:
Owing to a rather complicated evolution from the Greek models, there are three types of ode in
English poetry.
- The regular ode written in a succession of regular stanzas.
Example
John Keats, Ode to Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
- The so-called Pindaric ode, in fact an irregular ode, but with an address or a series of addresses.
Example
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ode to France, stanza I of V
Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause,
Whose pathless march no mortal may control,
Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll
Yield homage only to eternal laws!
Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing,
Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined.
Save when your own imperious branches swinging,
Have made a solemn music of the wind!
Where, like a man beloved of God,
Through glooms, which never woodman trod,
How oft, pursuing fancies holy,
My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound,
Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,
By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound!
O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high
And O ye Clouds that far above me soared,
Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky!
Yea, every thing that is and will be free!
Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be,
With what deep worship I have still adored
The spirit of divinest Liberty.
- The truly Pindaric ode, mainly found in the late 18th century.
Example
Thomas Gray, Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes
'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw: and purred applause.
Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream;
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Thro' richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.
The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?
Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A favorite has no friend!
From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize,
Nor all, that glisters, gold.
N.B. The English ode is often in the form of an address. The poet dedicates his ode to his muse or
his love or his god, etc. The subject is generally dignified or exalted, with a touch of philosophical
enquiry. The style is usually sustained and lofty.
However, the real Pindaric ode has stanzas arranged in groups of three. The first stanza is the
strophe, the second stanza is the antistrophe and the third is the epode.
The antistrophic stanzas correspond with the strophic. The epodic stanzas differ from the strophic,
hence the antistrophic, but agree with one another throughout the one ode. Originally, the strophe
was sung as the dancers moved to the right, the antistrophe when the orchestra moved to the left,
whereas the epode corresponded to a period of rest.
* The elegy
In English poetry it has come to mean a lamentation for a dead person or a sad event in life. It
expresses personal griel and often includes religious and moral reflections. The pastoral elegy
represents the mourner and the mourned as fellow shepherds.
Examples
1) Thomas Gray, Elegy written in a country churchyard (in Stoke-Poges near Slough in
Buckinghamshire)
Stanzas 1 – 8 + Epitath
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose.
2) John Milton, Lycidas (A Lament for a friend drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish
seas, 1617)
Lines 1 — 31
Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear,
I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not flote upon his watry bear
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of som melodious tear.
Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may som gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destin'd Urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shrowd.
For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high Lawns appear'd
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove a field, and both together heard
What time the Gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the Star that rose, at Ev'ning, bright
Toward Heav'ns descent had slop'd his westering wheel.
[…]