ENGL1007 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Iambic Pentameter, English Poetry, Foot
7 Sep 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Until the 19th century poetry was distinguished from prose by its observation of structuring principles which governed the number of syllables per line, in in some cases, the number of stressed and unstressed syllables per line. The first systematic break from metre in english came from walt whitman"s book, leaves of. Grass (1855), ostentatiously abandoning the traditional metric forms which had governed. Free verse - most english poetry is written in free verse. "the proponderance of all poetry written in the history of the world has been metrical. " The best known metrical form is that which was used by shakespeare: The pulse or rhythm consisting of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. An "iamb" is the basic foot type of the kind of metre - 1 iamb = 1 unstressed syllable + 1 stressed syllable. "pentameter" means that there are five "iambs" in each line. The effect of this is a "pulsing" rhythm of each line created through pronunciation.
