METRE AND FOOT

METRE AND FOOT

Lecture Notes By - Anil S Awad

METRE

It is my general observation that the Net/SET Aspirants found it somewhat difficult to understand the concept - Metre and Foot. Actually, these are not semantic (related to meaning) but syntactic (related to structure) concepts.  It is technical and mathematical term, which you can learn by practicing. I tell you the simple ways to understand the metre…when you are pronouncing strong syllable (stressed) knock on the table strongly and when it is weak (unstressed) one…softly. Just practice it…you will learn it quickly. 

 STRONG BEAT

WEAK BEAT 

 1) TROCHEE - Peacock – pea (strong beat) Cock (soft beat)

Practice these words with beats - happy, hammer, Pittsburgh, nugget, double, incest, injure, roses, hippie, bubba, beat it, clever, dental, dinner, shatter, pitcher, Cleveland, chosen, planet, chorus, widow, bladder, cuddle, slacker, doctor, Memphis, "Doctor Wheeler," "Douglas County," market, picket

“Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright.”

2) IAMB - Reprieve – re (weak beat) prive (strong beat)

Practice these words with beats - behold, amuse, arise, awake, return, Noel, depict, destroy, inject, inscribe, insist, employ, "to be," inspire, unwashed, "Of Mice and Men," "the South will rise again."

The only news I know

Is bulletins all day

From Immortality.

The only shows I see,

Tomorrow and Today,

Perchance Eternity.

-Emily Dickinson 

3) SPONDEE - Paul’s Cat – Paul’s (strong beat) Cat (Strong beat) 

Practice these words with beats - football, Mayday, D-Day, heartbreak, Key West, shortcake, plop-plop, fizz-fizz, drop-dead, dead man, dumbbell, childhood, goof-off, race-track, bathrobe, black hole, breakdown, love-song

Break, Break, Break 

4) DACTYL - Entropy – en (Strong beat) tro (weak beat) py (weak beat) 

Practice these words with beats  - carefully, changeable, merrily, mannequin, tenderly, prominent, buffalo, Bellingham, bitterly, notable, horrible, glycerin, parable, scorpion, Indianapolis, Jefferson, Strawberry (as the word is pronounced in East Tennessee—elsewhere it’s two longs and a short)

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks."

5) Anapest - Illinois – I (weak beat) lli (weak beat) nois (strong beat)

Practice these words with beats - understand, interrupt, comprehend, anapest, New Rochelle, contradict, "get a life," Coeur d'Alene, "In the blink | of an eye"

"Twas The Night Before Christmas"

 6) Amphimacer - M & M – M (strong beat) & (weak beat) M (again strong beat)

Practice these words with beats - Peter Pan. cretic, jiao gerah deewan oeillade patly pibroch mobocracies 

FOOT - Combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. 

Below are listed the names given to the poetic feet by classical metrics. The feet are classified first by the number of syllables in the foot (disyllables have two, trisyllables three, and tetrasyllables four) and secondarily by the pattern of vowel lengths (in classical languages) or syllable stresses (in English poetry) which they comprise.

The following lists describe the feet in terms of vowel length (as in classical languages). Translated into syllable stresses (as in English poetry), 'long' becomes 'stressed' ('accented'), and 'short' becomes 'unstressed' ('unaccented'). For example, an iamb, which is short-long in classical meter, becomes unstressed-stressed, as in the English word "betray".

¯ = stressed/long syllable

˘ = unstressed/short syllable

Below are some examples - 

Disyllables (Two syllable words – It may be combination of (strong) stressed as well as unstressed (weak) syllables, but two (Di) syllable are present in the word (or even line)

˘ ˘ pyrrhus, dibrach

˘ ¯ iamb

¯ ˘ trochee, choree (or choreus)

¯ ¯ spondee

Trisyllables - Disyllables (Three syllable words – It may be combination of (strong) stressed as well as unstressed (weak) syllables, but three (Tri) syllables are present in the word (or even line)

˘ ˘ ˘ tribrach

¯ ˘ ˘ dactyl

˘ ¯ ˘ amphibrach

˘ ˘ ¯ anapest, antidactylus

˘ ¯ ¯ bacchius

¯ ¯ ˘ antibacchius

¯ ˘ ¯ cretic, amphimacer

¯ ¯ ¯ molossus

Tetrasyllables

˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ tetrabrach, proceleusmatic

¯ ˘ ˘ ˘ primus paeon

˘ ¯ ˘ ˘ secundus paeon

˘ ˘ ¯ ˘ tertius paeon

˘ ˘ ˘ ¯ quartus paeon

¯ ¯ ˘ ˘ major ionic, triple trochee

˘ ˘ ¯ ¯ minor ionic, double iamb

¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ ditrochee

˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ diiamb

¯ ˘ ˘ ¯ choriamb

˘ ¯ ¯ ˘ antispast

˘ ¯ ¯ ¯ first epitrite

¯ ˘ ¯ ¯ second epitrite

¯ ¯ ˘ ¯ third epitrite

¯ ¯ ¯ ˘ fourth epitrite

¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ dispondee

Keep Practicing. Keep Learning. Keep Beating. 

(Statutory Warning - Be slow while practicing the BEATS. I will not be responsible for any breakage in your house. Ha ha ha ! )

Thanks.

Anil S Awad

English Net Consultant

anilawad123@gmail.com

9922113364/9423403368