LMD1 LITERARY STUDIES

SEMESTER 2
POETRY
1. STANZA FORMS : A stanza is a form of poetry that gives the poem an organization in a number
of lines, this a collection of two lines is a couplet (or distich), three lines a triplet (tercet), four lines a
quatrain, five lines a quintain (also cinquin), six lines a sestet, and eight lines an octave (also Orrava
Rima). So then stanzas refer to the number of lines in a poem.
However other poems may be written in verse paragraphs with no regular rhyming of poetical tone.
Acually, in modern poetry, a stanza is called a strophe.
The first writer to write poetry in couplets Edmund Waller.
The tercet was introduced in English poetry by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the 16th century.
2. TECHNIQUES OF VERSIFICATION:
Techniques of versification are also called prosody in poetry. Versification is then a technique,
principle, or practice of making verses or constructing poetry; it is an art that includes rhythm, rhyme,
metre, and patterns of poetic feet.
2.1. Rhythm: it is musical, caused by a repetition, or recurrence of syllables up to accent or stress
throughout the poem which give a beat to the line of poetry so that to attract the admiration of the
litener or reader. The rhythm is a selection of words carefully arranged by the poet.
2.2. Rhyme: a repetition of similar sounds in more than one word, identical sounds in the letter of
words are purposefully put by the poet to gain easy learning of poetry. It is a pleasing technique
usually marked by comparable alphabetical letters.
2.3. Metre: Metre is related to stress in English, i.e: the stressed and unstressed syllables are called
metre in poetry. Each metre composes feet and each foot composes the combination of a stressed
syllable with certain number of unstressed syllables either one or two.
3.

METRE IN ENGLISH POETRY:

The combination of stressed unstressed syllable makes a foot that composes many feet to construct
metre. There are eight metres in English poetry as shows the following:
Monometer: One foot / Dimeter: two feet / trimester: three feet/ tetrameter: four feet/ Pentameter: five
feet/ Hexameter: six feet/ Heptameter: seven feet / Octameter: Eight feet/
4. THE EIGHT METRES IN ENGLISH POETRY:
THE relationship of metre to feet is sometimes called metrical foot, to represent a basic rhythmic
structure in a verse or line. The very famous English feet is composed of unstressed syllable followed
by stressed syllable called Iambic in a sequence of five feet to construct the pentameter and together
they are called Iambic pentameter as it should be explained in the following section:
4.1. Patterns of Poetic feet:
4.1.1. Iambic: two syllables: first is unstressed, the second is stressed, symbolized as: / /
4.1.2. Trochaic: opposite of the Iambic, a combination of a stressed syllable with an unstressed
syllable / /.
4.1.3. Anapest:composed of three syllables: two are unstressed followed by one stressed syllable / /
4.1.4. Dactyl: a combination of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables / / like ha
ppi ly

5. SCANSION: it is the analysis of the metrical patterns of verse through a description of the
different accented and unaccented syllables, in addition to rhythm and stanza. The Scansion is applied
to examine poems
6. SOUND PATTERN:
In addition of rhyme and rhythm that may contribute in the making of sonorous poem, there are other
devices that intensify the musical pattern of poetry: Alliteration, assonance, and consonance.
The alliteration: when two or more words begin with the same sound, usually the same
consonant.
Assonance; when many words within the same line havethe same vowel sound, like time, side,
light ..etc
Consonance is the fact of ending different words with the same consonant: ten, men, shorten,
eaten, etc