American Division Literature . [ 3 ]

American Division Literature . [ 3 ]

Chapter Two .

Poetry .

    Four common areas that you can examine to determine a poem’s form as it relates to and affects meaning are rhythm , rhyme scheme , physical form and genre [ defined by patterns of rhythm , rhyme , physical form and subject ].

Rhythm .

            Poetry has rhythm – a variation of stressed and unstressed sounds that has some type of regular pattern . The study of the rhythms and sounds of poetry is called prosody ; the system used to describe rhythm is called scansion . When you scan a line of poetry , you first identify which kind of foot is being used . A foot is the unit formed by a strong stress or accent and the weak stress[ es ] or unaccented syllable[ s ] that accompany it . You identify the type or kind of foot that is being used as you “ walk” along the individual line of poetry .

          The first step in scanning is to determine the accented or stressed sounds . This is done by placing an accent mark over each stressed syllable .

          Several factors will influence which syllables are stressed or accented in aline of poetry . These include the normal accents associated with the word , particularly in polysyllabic words such as es – tab – lish or stee – ple [ when the poet used context to change the normal accent of a word it is called wrenched accent ] , the grammatical functions of the words [ prepositions and articles are generally not stressed as strongly as nouns and verbs ] , rhetorical accents [ stresses based on meaning ] , and metrical accents [ stresses established in the context of the poem ] .

         The first step in scanning is to determine the accented or stressed sounds. This is done by placing an accent mark over each stressed syllable       [ / ] . Next , identify the unstressed syllables by placing [ x ] . over each . Then , look for a pattern . In this stanza of “ The Wife of Usher’s Well” , there seems to be a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable . Divide the groups of unstressed and stressed syllables into feet by using a slash mark [ called a virgule ] .

     x        /        x    /         x     /       x           /

There lived /  a  wife   / at Ush /  er’s  Well .

    x     x      /           x    /         x     /

And  a    weal   / thy  wife  / was she ;

x        /           x        /        x     /

And sent  / them o’er /  the  sea .

There are many different kinds of feet , but the most common to English poetry are illustrated by L.E . Myers in the following five stanzas called “ stressed and unstressed  .”