Home | Iambic | Sonnet 18 | Other Examples | Blank Verse | Ballad Stanza | Hymn Meter | Scansion | Raven
Traditional Poetry = Metrical Poetry
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The iamb or iambic foot is composed of two syllables in the following pattern: unstressed, stressed or unaccented, accented | u / | one unit of syllables in this metrical pattern is called an iambic foot.
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octameter |
... eight feet |
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heptameter |
...seven feet |
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hexameter |
... six feet |
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pentameter |
... five feet |
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tetrameter |
... four feet |
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trimeter |
... three feet |
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dimeter |
... two feet |
Shall I compare thee to a summer's
day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Scansion: Analysis of verse into metrical patterns.
Older Examples: Upon the Burning | Thanatopsis | To a Waterfowl | The Cross of Snow
Modern Examples: Fire & Ice | Birches | Mending Wall | Richard Cory
Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter = Blank Verse
Ballad Stanza (see below as well)
The ballad stanza's four short lines
Are very often heard.
The second and the fourth lines rhyme,
But not the first and third.
Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
Other metrical feet:
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Iamb: |
a foot consisting of 2 syllables where the accent lies on the 2nd syllable |
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a foot in which 1 accented syllable is followed by 1 unaccented foot Example: see "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe |
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3 syllable foot made of 2 unstressed syllables followed by 1 stressed syllable See also "The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Byron |
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3 syllable foot which is accented on the 1st syllable |
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Spondee |
2 syllable foot that's comprised of 2 accented syllables; usually done in poetry by using 1 syllable words in a row |