Poetry's Biggest Secret's finally revealed.  One poet dares to speak out but only if he gets to wear a mask.  It's not to conceal his identity, he just derives pleasure from it.  If other poets were to discover the identity of this masked man, they would chain him up and bind his hands and force him into a chest and lock it shut.  He would probably enjoy that too.  His name is Alec Numan, and if you want to know where he lives and at what time he is at home, just write in.

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You may remember, now that the rhohypnol has worn off, that two months ago I launched a very Shakespearean assault upon you with a veritable verbal barrage about the Sonnet.  Because I don't like you, I will continue my attack this month but this time with an arsenal rather more suited to modern warfare than the old Shakespearean sonnets of the Elizabethan then Firstan period 

 

When you begin annotating the scansion of a poem in iambic pentameter it might be easiest to start with the lines containing ten syllables and leave the hypercatalectic and catalectic lines until the end.  Take your ten syllable long lines and mark them into feet of two syllables, here is one I prepared earlier:

            [Shall I][compare][thee to][a summ][er’s day?]     

We can now mark the stresses.  If we look up “shall” in our dictionary we can see that it exists in both a strong and a weak form.  I will explain this later in the course, but for the moment it is easiest to confirm that “shall” is stressed by looking up “shallow” and “shallowness.”  We know that “I” is rarely stressed, so we can mark “shall” with a “/”  and “I” with a “x” in the first foot.  When we look up “compare” from the second foot we see that it is the second syllable that is stressed.  The third foot is a bit tricky, so we will come back to that when we have done the rest of the line.  The next foot is “[a summ]” with “summer’s” crossing over the last two feet.  The dictionary tells us that the first syllable of “summers” is stressed.  Therefore “a” must be unstressed.  We already know that the first syllable of the last foot, “er’s” is unstressed, but we can make sure that “day” is the stress by looking up words containing that syllable.  “Day” is stressed in some words, but unstressed in others, so we can assume that it is a medium stress and mark it as a stress.  Let’s return to that third foot.  If you read the line aloud you may notice that there is a dominant rhythm developing that makes you put emphasis on the “to.”   Sometimes it is really just a matter of judgement, and it is often possible to get away with the stock phrase: “the dominant iambic rhythm promotes the second syllable of the third foot to a stress, thus making it an iamb.” We now have a line that has been annotated like this:

 

            [    /   x][ x     /    ][   x     /][x   /      ][ x      /    ]

            [Shall I][compare][thee to][a summ][er’s day?]

 

If you would care to look at the list of metrical feet that I have given above we can now name the feet of this line: The first foot is a trochee and the other feet are iambs.  As an exercise you may wish to annotate the remainder of the sonnet yourself.  My annotated version, and an explanation,  will be given in the solutions section of this web-page.  An important point I have neglected to mention is that if there is a medium stress in the same foot as a strong stress it is the strong stress that we mark as a stress.  

 

 

The next sonnet I want you to look at is Arthur Symons’s (1865-1945) ‘The Opium Smoker’.  This is from page 29 of the Fyfield Books edition of ‘Arthur Symons Selected Writings’,  which is well worth buying.  You will notice from the rhyme scheme that this is a Patrarchan sonnet:

 

 

            I am engulfed, and drown deliciously.                                               a             

            Soft music like a perfume, and sweet light                                        b

            Golden with audible odours exquisite,                                              b

            Swathe me with cerements for eternity.                                             a

           

            Time is no more. I pause and yet I flee.                                             a

            A million ages wrap me round with night.                                         b

            I drain a million ages of delight.                                                        b

            I hold the future in my memory.                                                         a

           

            Also I have this garret which I rent,                                                   c

            This bed of straw, and this that was a chair,                                       d

            This worn-out body like a tattered tent,                                             c

           

            This crust, of which the rats have eaten part,                                     c

            This pipe of opium; rage, remorse, despair;                                       d

            This soul at pawn and this delirious heart.                                         c

 

 

Again, I have added the spaces myself.   In the octave or octet the poet describes the delightful effects that opiates have upon the mind.  After the volta the mood of the poem changes and in the sestet the poet describes the terrible effects that opium has upon the body, and ones finances.  You will notice that the rhymes are not quite right, because the poet uses consonance, rather than full rhyme.  This is particularly evident in lines 12 and 14 where the consonant ‘t’ is all that links lines 11 and 12.  The first two stanzas, or rhyme groups, that form the octave are quatrains, and the last two stanzas that form the sestet are tercets.

  

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EXERCISE

       We will now look at a technique for analysing difficult lines.  When a line is hypercatalectic or catalectic, or just plain hard to do, it is best to mark the stresses before you mark the metrical feet.  Have a go at annotating these difficult lines, using your dictionary, and then name the feet using the list.

           

            I am engulfed, and drown deliciously. 

           

            Soft music like a perfume, and sweet light

 

            Golden with audible odours exquisite,

 

            I drain a million ages of delight. 

 

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When you have annotated the first line using your dictionary you may have something that looks like this:

 

            [x /   ][  x   /       ][   x       /      ][   x / ][  x   x  ]         

            [I am][ engulfed,][ and drown][ delic][iously.]

 

Phonologically this line consists of an iamb, an iamb, an iamb, an iamb, and a pyrrhic.  The weak stressed conclusion might give us what is known as a feminine end.  This could convey a sigh of ecstasy from the opium addict.  However, it is also possible to argue that the dominant iambic rhythm promotes the last syllable of the line to a weak stress and, therefore, makes the last foot an iamb.  Even if we accept that the line does conclude with a weak stress, the poet is still using phonological sound patterns to make language expressive, because the weak stress still sounds like a sigh in comparison to the other strong stresses in the line.  The second line should look something like this:

 

            [  /       /  ][ x   /   ][ x   /   ][   x      x   ][      /      /    ]

            [Soft mus][ic like][ a per][fume, and][ sweet light]

 

I have a spondee, an iamb, an iamb, a pyrrhic and a spondee.  One could argue that the rhythm has broken down to convey the disordered mind of the high opium addict.  This may be confirmed by the next line where the rhythm becomes completely chaotic:

 

            [   /    x  ][    x    /   ][ xx   /  ][ x      x    /  x   ]

            [Golden][ with aud][ible od][ours exquisite,]

 

The rhythm here is so unstable that it is impossible to come up with a definitive metre.  I would suggest that it is a trochee, an iamb, an anapaest and a third paeoon, but this is open to debate.  What I would like to draw your attention to is the fact that to compensate for the second line having six stresses the third line only has four.  You should have noticed that this is a hypercatalectic line.

            The last line is also hypercatalectic and should look like this when scanned:

 

            [x   /    ][  x   /  ][ xx   /   ][x  / ][   x  /     ]

            [I drain][ a mill][ion age][s of][ delight.]

 

Which gives us an iamb, an iamb, an anapaest, an iamb and an iamb.  If you would like to work out the metre for the rest of the poem you will find my annotated version in the solutions section.

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SOLUTION

 

            I am engulfed, and drown deliciously.                                               a             

            Soft music like a perfume, and sweet light                                       b

            Golden with audible colours exquisite,                                             b

            [    /         /][   x    /][x   x       /][x /][x x]

            Swathe me with cerements for eternity.                                            a

            [ /      x][ x    /   ][x   /     ][x      /][x   /  ]

            Time is no more. I pause and yet I flee.                                           a

            [x    /][xx  /][x      /  ][ x    /     ][  x      /    ]

            A million ages wrap me round with night.                                        b

            I drain a million ages of delight.                                                         b

            [x  /   ][x    /][x   / ][  x     /][xx]

            I hold the future in my memory.                                                        a

           

            [/  x ][x  /    ][ x     /][ x      /   ][x /   ]

            Also, I have this garret which I rent,                                                 c

            [  x      /][ x     /   ] [x       /][   x     / ][x    /  ]

            This bed of straw, and this that was a chair,                                      d

            [   x     /   ][ x     /][x   /  ][x  /][  x     /   ]

            This worn-out body like a tattered tent,                                             c

            [  x       /   ][x      /   ][x     /  ][ x      /][x     /  ]

            This crust, of which the rats have eaten part,                                     c

            [  x     /  ][x   /][x x     /   ][ x    /    ]  [x    /  ]

            This pipe of opium; rage, remorse, despair;                                      d

            [   x    /   ][x   /    ][ x       /][  x /][xx    /    ]

            This soul at pawn and this delirious heart.                                        c

 

 

The main thing to notice about the rhythm of this sonnet is that it is very chaotic in the octet when the poetic subject is high on smack, but when the poetic subject comes down, after the volta,  and assesses his situation with sober eyes the rhythm becomes, almost, strictly iambic.  There is a trochee at the beginning of the first line of the sestet, and an anapaest in lines 13 and 14, but each line is ordered and concludes with a definite masculine-ending.

 

GLOSSARY

 

 

accentual rhythm: rhythm that is created by using stress.  English, German, and Northern          European languages are stressed.  Southern European languages are not quite so stressed and so rely on the length of each syllable to create rhythm -- this is known as quantitative-rhythm.  

 

catalectic: when a line of poetry has fewer syllables than expected.

 

 

feminine-end: when a line ends with an unstressed syllable.

 

 

hypercatalectic: when a line has more syllables than expected.

 

 

iambic pentameter: a line composed with five iambs.

 

 

masculine-end: a line that concludes with a stressed syllable.

 

octave or octet: the first eight lines of a sonnet that is divided by a volta.

 

Petrarchan sonnet: this has fourteen lines with the rhyme scheme: abbba abbba cde cde or      abbba abba cdc cdc.

 

quatrain: four lines linked by a rhyme scheme.

 

Shakespearian sonnet: fourteen lines with the rhyme scheme:ababcdcdefefgg

 

sestet: the six lines of a sonnet that occur after the volta.

 

stanza: people are a bit anal about the use of this term and prefer to reserve it for rhyme groups or sections of blank and free-verse that are actually separated by line breaks.   However, a quatrain is a stanza, and a tercet is also a stanza.  So stuff them.

 

tercet: three lines linked by a rhyme scheme.

 

volta: the moment at which the argument or tone of a sonnet changes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

METRICAL FEET

 

Iamb                          X/                                X= unstressed and  / =  stressed syllables

 

Trochee                     /X

 

Spondee                      //

 

Pyrrhic                      XX

 

Anapaest                   XX/

 

Dactyl                       /XX

 

Amphibrach             X/X

 

Amphimacer             /X/

 

Bacchius                    X//

 

Antibacchius            //X

 

Molossus                   ///

 

Tribrach                   XXX

 

Tetrabrach               XXXX

 

Dispondee                 ////

 

Diamb                       X/X/

 

Ditrochee                  /X/X

 

Ionic minor               XX//

 

Ionic major               //XX

 

Antispast                   X//X

 

Choriamb                 /XX/

 

First Paeon               /XXX

 

Second Paeon          X/XX

 

Third Paeon            XX/X

 

Fourth Paeon          XXX/

 

First epitrite           X///

 

Second epitrite       /X//

 

Third epitrite         //X/

 

Fourth epitrite       ///X