Writing Help 129 | - ☆ Freelance Writer
Apr 06, 2013 | #1
Poetic Terms You Have to Learn
After having just completed an extensive sub-series on meter, defining the regularities one might find in English poetry and explaining the formal ways of labeling what you will see through close observation and scansion, it is the ideal time to introduce a way of dealing with otherwise regular verse that takes some liberties with its final (or first) feet, and its syllable count in general. Although you might not believe this, if you can think of some way a regular metrical pattern can be modified in a consistent manner, there is almost certainly a name for it, and we have been and will be discussing the most important of these throughout this series.
Looking at the following lines, it becomes clear that there is a regular metrical arrangement:
Take the bride and take the groom out,
Slap the child and clear the room out.
The bolded syllables (all complete words in this case) are the stressed syllables, while the regular text is unstressed. Each line has eight syllables, and every second syllable, beginning with the first, is stressed. The smallest repeated pattern in each line is / - (stressed/unstressed), and we know this to be called a trochee. Each line contains four of these (four feet), meaning these lines are written in trochaic tetrameter. This is not an uncommon verse form in English, but there is something about it which doesn't seem quite right. By modifying each line, we arrive instead at something which is slightly less jaunty, and more powerful sounding, more decisive:
Take the bride and take the groom,
Slap the child and clear the room.
Everything remains the same as it does in the first example lines, except that the final unstressed syllable in each line is dropped. This is a very common metrical variation in English trochaic tetrameter, because, as we have discussed previously, we like a stress to fall on the final (and in this case, also rhymed) syllable of each line. Unfortunately, if you are new to scanning verse, this will prove awkward, for it leaves you with a line that goes / - / - / - /, leaving you with a half foot at the end and no easily discernable regular metrical arrangement.
Fortunately, this kind of variation is covered aptly by the term catalexis, which has to with the dumping of an unstressed syllable either in the first foot of a line, or in the last (as is the case in our example). Seeing the example verses in front of you, and knowing this term, you could say that you are looking at trochaic tetrameter catalectic, and your teacher or professor will be at least impressed, but more likely completely blown away; many instructors are not up on their scansion terminology, and if you are, this will give you a level of respect which is difficult to achieve otherwise.
For the sake of completeness, it is useful to know the opposite term to catalexis, which is acatalexis, but the occasions on which this term will prove useful are highly limited. In the first example above, with nothing chopped off, you could state that the verse is trochaic tetrameter acatalectic, but those who know what you are talking about will be puzzled by your inclusion of the third term. After all, the first two by themselves express the same idea more efficiently, since they represent the descriptors of the conventional, unmodified case. Only in comparative instances would the second term be of use, and then only in relatively advanced papers on metrical construction.
Catalexis
After having just completed an extensive sub-series on meter, defining the regularities one might find in English poetry and explaining the formal ways of labeling what you will see through close observation and scansion, it is the ideal time to introduce a way of dealing with otherwise regular verse that takes some liberties with its final (or first) feet, and its syllable count in general. Although you might not believe this, if you can think of some way a regular metrical pattern can be modified in a consistent manner, there is almost certainly a name for it, and we have been and will be discussing the most important of these throughout this series.
Looking at the following lines, it becomes clear that there is a regular metrical arrangement:Take the bride and take the groom out,
Slap the child and clear the room out.
The bolded syllables (all complete words in this case) are the stressed syllables, while the regular text is unstressed. Each line has eight syllables, and every second syllable, beginning with the first, is stressed. The smallest repeated pattern in each line is / - (stressed/unstressed), and we know this to be called a trochee. Each line contains four of these (four feet), meaning these lines are written in trochaic tetrameter. This is not an uncommon verse form in English, but there is something about it which doesn't seem quite right. By modifying each line, we arrive instead at something which is slightly less jaunty, and more powerful sounding, more decisive:
Take the bride and take the groom,
Slap the child and clear the room.
Everything remains the same as it does in the first example lines, except that the final unstressed syllable in each line is dropped. This is a very common metrical variation in English trochaic tetrameter, because, as we have discussed previously, we like a stress to fall on the final (and in this case, also rhymed) syllable of each line. Unfortunately, if you are new to scanning verse, this will prove awkward, for it leaves you with a line that goes / - / - / - /, leaving you with a half foot at the end and no easily discernable regular metrical arrangement.
Fortunately, this kind of variation is covered aptly by the term catalexis, which has to with the dumping of an unstressed syllable either in the first foot of a line, or in the last (as is the case in our example). Seeing the example verses in front of you, and knowing this term, you could say that you are looking at trochaic tetrameter catalectic, and your teacher or professor will be at least impressed, but more likely completely blown away; many instructors are not up on their scansion terminology, and if you are, this will give you a level of respect which is difficult to achieve otherwise.
For the sake of completeness, it is useful to know the opposite term to catalexis, which is acatalexis, but the occasions on which this term will prove useful are highly limited. In the first example above, with nothing chopped off, you could state that the verse is trochaic tetrameter acatalectic, but those who know what you are talking about will be puzzled by your inclusion of the third term. After all, the first two by themselves express the same idea more efficiently, since they represent the descriptors of the conventional, unmodified case. Only in comparative instances would the second term be of use, and then only in relatively advanced papers on metrical construction.