One-Room Schoolhouses of New Hampshire by Bruce D. Heald

Author:Bruce D. Heald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

POETRY

According to Dudley Leavitt: “A verse in poetry is so called from the Latin verso, to turn, because when one line is completed we turn back to another. Each line of verse consists of a number of feet, and each foot of a number of syllables. When a single syllable is taken by itself, it is called a ‘cesura.’ In polysyllables, the last syllable but one is called penult, and the last but two the antepenult. A long syllable requires double the time to pronounce it that a short one does.” He continues to detail the rules of poetry:

Practical Rules

English poetry, has only four kinds of measure, viz.

1. Iambic, which comprises verses of four, six, eight, or ten syllables.

2. Trochaic, which comprises lines of three, five, or seven syllables

3. Dactyl, which begins with a short syllable and ends with a long one, and contains three Dactyls in a line, exclusive of the five and last syllables.

4. Anapaestic, which consists of two short, and one long syllable, every third being accented.

Note: It is a general rule in writing poetry that the last syllable of the second foot should be accented—This rule excludes Dactyl verse.

Note: In reading verse, the caesural pause, or pause of one syllable, answers to a comma in prose, and is most graceful after the 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th syllables. The final pause, must be observed at the end of every line, whether there be a stop or not; but when there is no stop written or understood, at the close of a line, the voice must only be suspended the length of the caesural pause, but not elevated or depressed.

Note: Scanning, is determining the number of feet on any line, and what kind they are.

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