The+Rhythm+of+Poetry

Poetry
 * Rhythm ** – “the rhythm of a poem is built on the sound of words”
 * Scansion ** – a method of analyzing a poem by marking the pattern of accents in a line of poetry
 * ** Accent ** – the strong syllable or syllables in a word / the part of a word we emphasize with breath and tone
 * ** Strong Accent ** – all words with more than one syllable will have at least one strong accent
 * ** Weak Accent ** – other syllables in a word
 * ** Stressed ** – a term used in place of “strong accent” / the emphasized sound(s) in a word
 * ** Unstressed ** – a term used in place of “weak accent” / the unemphasized sound(s) in a word
 * Foot ** – one unit of the rhythmic pattern that makes up the meter
 * ** Iamb ** – one weak and one strong syllable
 * ** Iambic Meter ** – the rhythm based on the iambic foot
 * ** Trochee ** – one strong and one weak syllable
 * ** Trochaic Meter ** – the rhythm based on the trochaic foot
 * ** Anapest ** – two weak syllables followed by a strong syllable
 * ** Anapestic Meter ** – the rhythm based on the anapestic foot
 * ** Dactyl ** – a strong syllable followed by two weak syllables
 * ** Dactylic Meter ** – the rhythm based on the dactylic foot
 * ** Spondee ** – two strong accents together
 * ** Pyrrhus ** – two weak accents together
 * ** Caesura ** – a break in the meter (often punctuated with a period, colon, semicolon, or possibly a comma)
 * ** Anacrusis ** – an unstressed syllable at the beginning of a line that does not affect the overall meter
 * Meter ** – the pattern set up by the regular rhythm of words in a poem
 * ** Monometer ** – a line of one (1) foot
 * ** Dimeter ** – a line of two (2) feet
 * ** Trimeter ** – a line of three (3) feet
 * ** Tetrameter ** – a line of four (4) feet
 * ** Pentameter ** – a line with five (5) feet
 * ** Hexameter ** – a line with six (6) feet
 * ** Heptameter ** – a line with seven (7) feet
 * ** Octameter ** – a line with eight (8) feet


 * __Reading Lines of Poetry__: **
 * ** End-Stopped Line ** – the meaning of a line comes to a definite end
 * ** Enjambed Line ** – the meaning does not end but continues on to the next line
 * ** Enjambment ** – (noun) the running of one line into another line

(Adapted from Charters/Charters, __Literature and Its Writers__, Compact Second Edition, Chapters 8-11, and __A Handbook to Literature__, 9th edition.)