For iambic tetrameter: How about Robert Frost's 'Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening'? Which also has a neat rhyme scheme: aaba bbcb ccdc, etc. ... I memorized this one in grad school when I was on a (brief, alas) learning-poetry kick, and then spent my walks to and from the bus stop for a week or two thinking about how it worked.
And I had no idea 'We Real Cool' was supposed to be spondaic...I always hear the first word of each line as a weak beat, sort of a metrical 'pick-up note' if I were to translate this into musical rhythm terms.
ETA: *snort* You can probably pick up some trochaic examples from nursery rhymes? Trochaic tetrameter: 'Georgie-porgie pudding and pie,' 'Jack and Jill went up the hill,' "Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall' (okay, a couple of those have a dactyl thrown in). Hmm -- even 'Jabberwocky' seems to be mostly trochaic tetrameter, with some wiggling?
no -- Jabberwicky is iambic, isn't it...this is my music-thinking interfering again, because I can't help hearing weak beats as "pick-up notes" and misparsing where the foot boundaries are...
The fact that as a native speaker of English, my phonological system is basically built out of (linguistic, not poetic) trochees rather than iambs isn't helping, lol.
Oh my. "Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "Jabberwocky" are built on the same meter.
Stopping in the Woods. And. JABBERWOCKY.
That's amazing!
They feel SO different.
I'm getting too excited. ;)
The fact that as a native speaker of English, my phonological system is basically built out of (linguistic, not poetic) trochees rather than iambs isn't helping
Help! I got lost here and now I'm curious. I thought in English we used stress in normal language and to parse poetry, so what is the difference?
Actually, I'm not sure why I listed spondaic at all. Where exactly was I expecting to find spondaic hexameter, huh? And if I did list spondaic for masochistic reasons, why not pyrrhic too? (Can you tell I just copied and pasted a list from somewhere... Wiki I think... to get this party started?)
For 'We Real Cool,' it certainly has a pick-up note in the first line. After that, I hear strong-strong-weak, and, since I've never heard of a strong-strong-weak foot, I chose to regard all the "we"s as... more a pause than an actual beat. The fact that it's the same word repeated helps it to feel "invisible" to my senses. I still like thinking of 'We Real Cool' as playing with spondee as it helps me fix spondees in my mind.
I once wrote a short poem in dactylic hexameter, as a challenge. But really, it's a meter that works way better in Latin than English. You could always find a bit of Ovid or Virgil
( ... )
But really, it's a meter that works way better in Latin than English. You could always find a bit of Ovid or Virgil.
Definitely. No problem. I mean, I have my old Latin books around somewhere... under a couple of inches of dust...
One of my goals for this is certainly to refresh and memorize more! I really admire that you have The Sea Bell... I meant to memorize that when I first read it but never got around past the first two lines. Lots of beautiful Tolkien poetry; that's a book I want to dig out (but I think I was foolish enough to give my Tolkien reader away to a student. I always regret doing that. Generosity is for the birds!) I want to look up that Tilton poem; never heard of it.
"The Star-Spangled Banner" might do for anapestic tetrameter, although there's a lot of irregularity. (I think there always will be with a dactylic or anapestic meter, though -- English doesn't sustain them well for very long.)
Oh, thank you! I would have never thought of that.
It was certainly interesting to write it out... it's not too irregular, but I have a hard time with the phrase "tha/e(t) star-spangled banner." I wanted to scan it as weak-strong-stong-weak-strong-weak. But I have a feeling that's because I'm too American and the musical interpretation is affecting my. Probably star is weak, which yields a nice anapestic flow in the relevant lines.
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For iambic tetrameter: How about Robert Frost's 'Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening'? Which also has a neat rhyme scheme: aaba bbcb ccdc, etc. ... I memorized this one in grad school when I was on a (brief, alas) learning-poetry kick, and then spent my walks to and from the bus stop for a week or two thinking about how it worked.
And I had no idea 'We Real Cool' was supposed to be spondaic...I always hear the first word of each line as a weak beat, sort of a metrical 'pick-up note' if I were to translate this into musical rhythm terms.
ETA: *snort* You can probably pick up some trochaic examples from nursery rhymes? Trochaic tetrameter: 'Georgie-porgie pudding and pie,' 'Jack and Jill went up the hill,' "Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall' (okay, a couple of those have a dactyl thrown in). Hmm -- even 'Jabberwocky' seems to be mostly trochaic tetrameter, with some wiggling?
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The fact that as a native speaker of English, my phonological system is basically built out of (linguistic, not poetic) trochees rather than iambs isn't helping, lol.
Reply
Stopping in the Woods. And. JABBERWOCKY.
That's amazing!
They feel SO different.
I'm getting too excited. ;)
The fact that as a native speaker of English, my phonological system is basically built out of (linguistic, not poetic) trochees rather than iambs isn't helping
Help! I got lost here and now I'm curious. I thought in English we used stress in normal language and to parse poetry, so what is the difference?
Reply
For 'We Real Cool,' it certainly has a pick-up note in the first line. After that, I hear strong-strong-weak, and, since I've never heard of a strong-strong-weak foot, I chose to regard all the "we"s as... more a pause than an actual beat. The fact that it's the same word repeated helps it to feel "invisible" to my senses. I still like thinking of 'We Real Cool' as playing with spondee as it helps me fix spondees in my mind.
But now I find Wiki telling me there is a strong-strong-weak foot, the antibacchius. And all sorts of other feet that *I* never learned about in high school English or Latin!! Google, you broke my mind this morning.
I am not sure what all these new, advanced feet mean for the structure and scope of this project! :)
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Definitely. No problem. I mean, I have my old Latin books around somewhere... under a couple of inches of dust...
One of my goals for this is certainly to refresh and memorize more! I really admire that you have The Sea Bell... I meant to memorize that when I first read it but never got around past the first two lines. Lots of beautiful Tolkien poetry; that's a book I want to dig out (but I think I was foolish enough to give my Tolkien reader away to a student. I always regret doing that. Generosity is for the birds!) I want to look up that Tilton poem; never heard of it.
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It was certainly interesting to write it out... it's not too irregular, but I have a hard time with the phrase "tha/e(t) star-spangled banner." I wanted to scan it as weak-strong-stong-weak-strong-weak. But I have a feeling that's because I'm too American and the musical interpretation is affecting my. Probably star is weak, which yields a nice anapestic flow in the relevant lines.
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Also, have a trochaic monometer.
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Thanks and thanks!
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