meter in english literature

meter in english literature

The Evolution and Significance of the Meter in English Literature

1. Introduction to Meter in English Literature

Style is an analytical concept devised to throw light on the perception of written texts such as poems, while meter is an abstraction of rhythmic pattern derived from the more elementary acoustical phenomenon of a beat which is heard. The difference between speeches and poems, for our purpose, lies in the relationship between the realization of sound in performance as a series of energy-releases and the concepts of order and arrangement which underlie the written phonetic language; these concepts are known as phonological constituents, which are comparable to, but not identical with, the view that it resolves the linguistic material into phonemic constituents that give a phonetic message. Different aspects of the rhythmic pattern are sometimes referred to as beat or stress, etc., and the relevance of each constituent and the implications of each term must be examined when both texts and the rhythmic terminologies are to be cross-culturally compared.

All literary works show some signs of regularity as regards form. But there are two quite different kinds of order in a composition, associated with two different fields of aural perception: one kind constitutes the organization of the various units such as words, accents, alliterations, which are recognized by the reader when he decodes the sequence of letters; the other kind is based on inferences drawn by the listener from perceptions of energy at discrete time-points and the relative intensity of such perceived accentual positions. By an effort of memory, some listeners are able to connect succeeding groups of such accented positions to form regular patterns of stronger and weaker beats, while others have developed inferences only to recognize the beginnings and endings of such groupings to provide the necessary regularity of a perceived unit. In literary works these kinds of order are reflected respectively in style and meter.

2. Historical Development of Meter in English Poetry

Toward the very close of the sixteenth century, Sidney and Spenser tried to settle the question, but the result was not positive, except so far as to bring a new factor into the problem. No writer of verse has excelled the rhythmic beauty of Sidney’s Arcadia, and Spenser, with his Marches meet, Heroic and little-known poetry, was unique among Englishmen, and his rhythm moved in rules unknown to our popular verse-makers. But these men were not successful in reducing the rules of rhythm to order and reason, although they attracted attention to the matter and drew over it the interest of scholars. Their metrical experiments were not for imitation but for the greater freedom of the author, a freedom which comes from knowledge, not from the careless or contemptuous neglect of authority. The intention of these poets was to bring us versifiers back to the authority of educated men, not to sever us from our origins.

Throughout literary history, meter has undergone considerable simplification. The period from 1350 to 1550 is rich with rhythmical experiments, until the matter was definitely decided by the work of the school of Surrey and Wyatt, men who saw that the scholarly language of the Renaissance could hardly be read aloud unless it showed, in some measure, the simplicity and the freedom of popular poetry. For this, Surrey and Wyatt are justly honored and their place in the tradition is secure. But their immediate effects were disastrous, for within a decade, the English sonnet was composed of a few meters and a few rhymes enclosed in a ballad hall, and putting forth verse as dry as Spenser’s water when Neptune let it fall to the ground.

3. Key Meter Forms and Their Usage in English Literature

The use of meter in a poem typically involves acting against these established rhythmical patterns. Which results create meter that is dynamic – the principles that underpin the metrical vocabulary and notation used to identify and describe meter has a long history and is not always applicable. In trying to pinpoint the aspects of these principles that render them useful to poets, metricians, and critics who wish to explore the territory of meter in a poem, we tend to pay more attention to the matters of the canon and less to the resources of the texts to which it might be applied. By attending to that application, we might discover some of the inadequacies of the canon, inadequacies that can be supported by a close study of the majority of texts to which the metrician and the critics customarily apply it.

Meter is the rhythmical pattern of language with careful attention to the stresses, or accents, of syllables. In English poetry, a rhythmic pattern is organized into metrical units. These units are the feet. A foot is the combination of stressed and unstressed syllables that makes up the smallest metrical unit. One way to identify a foot in a line is to underline the accented portion of a word that one would naturally stress. The metrical pattern is expressed by the location and number of the accented and unaccented syllables. For this purpose, a metrical pattern is identified by the type of notation or vocabulary represented by certain sets of symbols. For example, one metrical pattern represented by such notation is called iambic pentameter. The unaccented syllable is represented by a symbol, usually a short vertical line or a small u, while the accented syllable is represented by a dot. Using this notation or vocabulary, then one would follow the correct number of those to make up the line of verse or couplet. According to the number and location of the accented syllables, the most common types of foot are as follows.

4. The Relationship Between Meter and Meaning in English Poetry

At the second stage, all the effects of meter are working upon another audience. This lower level of the poem’s ability to communicate is operating on the semi-aware or unaware reader or listener. These influences will influence his response to the poem. His passions will respond with a form of inarticulate sensibility. Specifically, three overlaps or intersectings of sense and meter are suggested as occurring in reading the language of a metered poem. In all English verse forms, at least potential meaning exists at each head of meter as the line begins. If meaning also exists at each head of meter, both meter and sense become synonymous and significant at each end of the first metric foot of the line.

Examining the relationship between meaning and meter in English poetry, two distinct levels of communication seem evident. The poet creates the significant poem, fully aware and conscious of the many phases of technique that compose his construction. Consider the art of garden design. The designer should be fully aware of every element in the garden. He should plant each flower and path each walk conscious of why he is doing so. And, with his visionary concept in mind, he skillfully arranges each element to produce the eventual grand effect. The poet likewise skillfully designs his poem. Associational meanings result from the sight or sound of the time as constructed in its structure.

5. Contemporary Approaches to Meter in English Literature

Linguistic bias against metered verse: systemic linguistics, like AiC, prioritizes idiolect-alignment and common speech over any signifying realized as gestural, melodic, sonorous, visual, etc. Unless auditory patterning is heuristic or iconic, electronic or other sensory patterned expression of speech is seen as secondary and separable. Linguistic analysis of texts goes hand-in-hand with skepticism towards or different appreciation of reader-models, phonological patterning, rhetorical figures, argumentation, expectations, interpretation, concentrated ‘leisure’ time, literate status, phatic conversation, ambient copresence, bio-social interaction, language-game, rasa theory, or metaphysical speculation, and old-style terms for motive, syllable, foot, meter, stanza, stress, rhythm, or phonography. Platonistic, Gestaltpsychologie, silence/nature, organic, or visual-verbal tagging terminology is both un- and emotionally researched. A prime ambition is diversity of usage, and so mnemonic and memorial patterns are undeservedly downgraded when they stray from linguistic diversity. In its developmental, evolutionary psychology version, infant expectations and parental queries are interrogatively regulated, with motherese nurturing a phylo-linguistic unity precious for universal attributes or competences, and for child language acquisition, that the field calls stormproofing. Merging voice, gesture, and action, with photons and entangled phonons becoming equally storm-proofed, is taboo.

Contemporary approaches to meter in English literature: dissatisfaction with descriptive accounts and the assumption that metrical verse is a language different from ordinary conversation or prose has pushed metrists into eclectic accounts drawing on current ideas about language. These poststructuralist, postmodern approaches tend to add up too much, lack direction or focus, and disperse metrical information too equally among rival, dissected, or deconstructed factions that can point only to further intervention. Post-Romantic new critics and poststructuralists share loosened, skeptical, defensive, or suspicious attitudes towards science, and 20th-century theorists use and recommend rigorous scientific methods. But even linguistics gives surprisingly little space or weight to traditional metrical verse, and textual study is split between dialectic critical interpretation and descriptivist linguistics. Cognitive and evolutionary psychology, however, have focused attention on physical and embodied action, traditional metrical verse, and its embodied semantics and memorable function, with grouping emphasis and potential for intersemiotic synthesis and for advancing voice application and statistical research.