A Brief Discussion Of Poetic Meter

[@12tone]

Bonus points to anyone who gets the joke in the video title.

[@12tone]

I did! Well, there's an extra syllable at the end, but I couldn't avoid that... I almost called it Poetic Verse just to make it fit perfectly, but I wanted to stay consistent. Anyway, adding an extra syllable at the beginning or end of a metered line isn't unheard of in poetry so I'm counting it. ÷)

[@daviddebonomalta]

What's to stop one from looking at it this way: A BRIEF / disCUSsion / OF po / ETic / MEter / Hence, iamb, amphibrach, trochee, trochee, trochee Or do single lines from poems not normally consist of a mix of feet?

[@12tone]

It's not unheard of, but generally they don't, and if there's a way to read it without using multiple different feet, that tends to be preferred. It's about creating a rhythm: If you're varying a bunch of different feet, you don't really have a consistent pulse and it starts to feel like just regular speech.

[@dondeestaCarter]

a BRIEF/disCUS/sion OF/ poE/tic ME/ter (GLUP!) Is that how it should be divided?? or the word belonging should be respected when dividing??

[@cogitatione1]

Hawking.

[@RustyRose050607]

As an undergrad music major at a big University who is taking my first upper-level Shakespeare course over the summer (and online), I truly appreciate this, Thank you! I've not learned much poetry, but being musical I know meter--and this was helpful information to know for both.

[@12tone]

That's awesome! It's really fascinating how the two overlap. One thing I love is that we actually tend to speak poetic verse, basically, in time. Trochaic meter sounds a lot like straight 8ths, but Iambic meter actually pauses a bit after every accented syllable, so it winds up sounding almost like swing.

[@isaacweston6066]

Woah. Did you imply Seuss is not a serious poet? Don't disrespect the doctor.

[@12tone]

Not on purpose! I meant serious as in the subject matter: Seuss's stuff is, while often addressing real issues, usually presented in a goofy, fun way that tends to fit with the bouncy pace of trisyllabic meter. Don't get me wrong, though: I was raised on Seuss. I know how powerful his work can be.

[@isaacweston6066]

Haha, well I'm glad you had the right upbringing. Also, impressive reply speed for a year-old video!

[@joncampbell5021]

Holy $#!@ i might start reading poetry now

[@gettingkilt]

Just this short lesson will make you more able to WRITE poetry than most of the people I've seen trying it these days.

[@HazmanFTW]

Well, being in the Southern hemisphere July is winter, so therefore it doesn't have the same meaning anyway :P

[@XprPrentice]

No one has called Alanis Morrisette out for her weird lyrical stresses? [I don't know if she's a poet, but I like a bunch of her work. She does really mess with syllable stress though]

[@mustaphaberradi331]

hey , i think that july fits better because it rhymes with shall i

[@supernerdy6612]

I would agree if it was a song but it’s a poem so the flow of it matter more than the rhymes scheme

[@daviddebonomalta]

Wouldn't the accents in "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" be placed at the following words? "SHALL I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer's DAY". Without watching your video, I wouldn't have said that the "to" is an accent, either. What are your thoughts?

[@12tone]

That's true, sometimes accents are flexible and can fall in a couple different places. Usually that line is read with the accent on "I", because that gives us a more consistent pattern, but putting it on "Shall" isn't wrong either, just not standard. It also helps that sonnet form is defined by iambic pentameter, which lets us cheat and just assume that Shakespeare intends it to be read as a series of iambs. Good catch!

[@haymjack]

The accents he gave correlate to iambic pentameter, which is how Shakespeare writes all of his sonnets. the pentameter is just the "short-long" accent used five times.

[@ivyssauro123]

These videos are great! I was familiar with these concepts thourgh my mother who was a lenguage teacher and loved literacture, but not so clearly and well organized, you did a great job! back when I was a kid I just couldn't get peotry, it made no sense to me why someone would read that, until she explained both metric and rhyme, some of the different types, as well as semantics and etc, and then gave me a bunch of her favourite poetries to read! It was great, I even got around writing some (sadly lost)! I feel your videos could do just that for a much wider audience!

[@rajin95]

great video

[@12tone]

Thanks!

[@JeremiahFernandez]

you know what rolls off the toungue? _Can I offer you a nice egg in this trying time?_

[@drbenwaymd]

Thank you for this.

[@sebastiancampos4197]

MAN!...YOU ROCK!

[@krang07]

Angry Candy Music. New epic gendre yet to be realized. :-) Some lyric lines really make a song. Not necessarily the words, but how they are emphasized. Example: set the world on fire, we can go higher, than the suuuu uh uh uh uuh uh-en. The way the word `sun` is sung. That's the hook for me in that tune.

[@BrunoWiebelt]

when comes the cliff hanger, to be a banger

[@matimaui]

spanish has longer words and is harder for making lyrics unfortunately for spanish songwriters

[@jhutt8002]

Think about finnish... Not just lots of long, inherently angular words, but also limited so that proper stress always falls on the first syllable. It's really different kind of level trying to make good lyrics in my native tongue. I can't, not really. But those who can it does sound awesome.

[@Ryan98391]

You left out pyrrhic: - - and Spondee: uu. Tennyson used pyrrhics and spondees quite frequently, for example, in In Memoriam: When the blood creeps and the nerves prick; additionally, the first part of this line from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (in iambic pentameter) would normally be interpreted as two spondees: Crý, crý! Tróy búrns, or élse let Hélen gó. -Wikipedia

[@frankharr9466]

I know it's not the topic of today's video, but I dislike modern opera. There's is no change in tone or meter or anything. It's like one long, usually minor chord. I have no idea why I thought of that.

[@BegoneJonah]

Oh, you need to listen to Alban Berg's "Wozzeck." Plenty of changes in all sorts of ways in that one!

[@TheAvgCommentator]

At 2:55 I hear "It doesn't! It doesn't!". Probably should have done another take.

[@arevalosole91]

It doesn't sound right. Shall I compare the two a summer day. Who is the two. It sounds like broken English

[@waypay1]

Thee, not the. Thee is Old English and means "you".

[@BegoneJonah]

"Summer" sounds better than "July" because the word hums, doesn't it? The word's sound invokes bees and lazy afternoon naps, etc. Summer iz a cummin in...