'A Hym n to Christ,' lines 1?2: 'In what torn ship soever I embark / That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark' (see vol. 1, p. 1300).
Type (Greek 'impression, figure'): In Christian allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, pre-Christian figures were regarded as 'types,' or foreshadowings, of Christ or the Christian dispensation. Typology has been the source of much visual and literary art in which the parallelisms between old and new are extended to nonbiblical figures; thus the virtuous plowman in Piers Plowman becomes a type of Christ.
Zeugma (Greek 'a yoking'): a syntactic pun whereby the one word is revealed to have more than one sense in the sentence as a whole; Pope, Rape of the Lock 3.7?8, in which the word 'take' is used in two senses: 'Here thou, great Anna! who m three realms obey, / Dost sometimes counsel take?and sometimes tea' (see vol. 1, p. 2521).
(iv) Meter, Rhythm Verse (from Latin 'versus,' turned) is distinguished from prose (from Latin 'prorsus,' straightforward) as a more compressed form of expression, shaped by metrical norms. Meter (Greek 'measure') refers to the regularly recurring sound pattern of verse lines. The means of producing sound patterns across lines differ in different poetic traditions. Verse may be quantitative, or determined by the quantities of syllables (set patterns of long and short syllables), as in Latin and Greek poetry. It may be syllabic, determined by fixed numbers of syllables in the line, as in the verse of Romance languages (e.g., French and Italian). It may be accentual, determined by the number of accents, or stresses in the line, with variable numbers of syllables, as in Old English and some varieties of Middle English alliterative verse. Or it may be accentual-syllabic, determined by the numbers of accents, but possessing a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, so as to produce regular numbers of syllables per line. Since Chaucer, English verse has worked primarily within the many possibilities of accentual- syllabic meter. The unit of meter is the foot. In English verse the number of feet per line corresponds to the number of accents in a line. For the types and examples of different meters, see monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, and hexameter. In the definitions below, 'u' designates one unstressed syllable, and '/' one stressed syllable.
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Rhythm is not absolutely distinguishable from meter. One way of making a clear distinction between these terms is to say that rhythm (from the Greek 'to flow') denotes the patterns of sound within the feet of verse lines and the combination of those feet. Very often a particidar meter will raise expectations that a given rhythm will be used regularly through a whole line or a whole poem. Thus in English verse the pentameter regidarly uses an iambic rhythm. Rhythm, however, is much more fluid than meter, and many lines within the same poem using a single meter will frequently exploit different rhythmic possibilities. For examples of different rhythms, see iamb, trochee, ana-pest, spondee, and dactyl.
Accent (synonym 'stress'): the special force devoted to the voicing of one syllable in a word over others. In the noun 'accent,' for example, the stress is on the first syllable.
Alexandrine: in French verse a line of twelve syllables, and, by analogy, in English verse a line of six stresses. See hexameter.
Anapest: a three-syllable foot following the rhythmic pattern, in English verse, of two unstressed (uu) syllables followed by one stressed (/). Thus, for example, 'Illinois.' Caesura (Latin 'cut'): a pause or breathing space within a line of verse, generally occurring between syntactic units; Louise Bennett, 'Colonization in Reverse,' lines 5?8: 'By de hundred, by de tousan, / From country an from town, / By de ship-load, by de plane-load, / Jamaica is Englan boun' (see vol. 2, p. 2472). Dactyl (Greek 'finger,' because of the finger's three joints): a three-syllable foot following the rhythmic pattern, in English verse, of one stressed (/) followed by two unstressed (uu) syllables. Thus, for example, 'Oregon.' Dimeter (Greek 'two measure'): a two-stress line, rarely used as the meter of whole poems, though used with great frequency in single poems by Skelton, e.g., 'The Tunning of Elinour Rumming' (see vol. 1, p. 516). Otherwise used for single lines, as in Herbert, 'Discipline,' line 3: 'O my God' (see vol. 1, p. 1623). End-stopping: the placement of a complete syntactic unit within a complete metrical pattern; Auden, 'In Memor y of W. B. Yeats,' line 42: 'Earth, receive an honoured guest' (see vol. 2, p. 2430). Compare enjambment. Enjambment (French 'striding,' encroaching): Th e opposite of end- stopping, enjambment occurs when the syntactic unit does not end with the metrical pattern, i.e., when the sense of the line overflows its meter and, therefore, the line break; Auden, 'In Memor y of W. B. Yeats,' lines 44-45: 'Let the Irish vessel lie / Emptied of its poetry' (see vol. 2, p. 2430). Hexameter (Greek 'six measure'): Th e hexameter line (a six-stress line) is the meter of classical Latin epic; while not imitated in that form for epic verse in English, some instances of the hexameter exist. See, for example, the last line of a Spenserian stanza, Faerie Queene 1.1.2: 'O help thou my weake wit, and sharpen my dull tong' (vol. 1, p. 720), or Yeats, 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree,' line 1: 'I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree' (vol. 2, p. 2025). Hypermetrical (adj.; Greek 'over measured'): describes a breaking of the expected metrical pattern by at least one extra syllable. Iamb: the basic foot of English verse; two syllables following the rhythmic pattern of unstressed (u) followed by stressed (/) and producing a rising effect. Thus, for example, 'Vermont.' Monometer (Greek 'one measure'): an entire line with just one stress; Sir
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Gawain and the Green Knight, line 15, 'wyth (u) wynne (/)' (see vol. 1,
p. 162). Pentameter (Greek 'five measure'): in English verse, a five-stress line. Between the late fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries, this meter, frequently employing an iambic rhythm, was the basic line of English verse. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth each, for example, deployed this very flexible line as their primary resource; Milton, Paradise Lost 1.128: 'O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers' (see vol. 1,
p. 1835). Spondee: a two-syllable foot following the rhythmic pattern, in English verse, of two stressed (//) syllables. Thus, for example, 'Utah.' Syllable: the smallest unit of sound in a pronounced word. Th e syllable that receives the greatest stress is called the tonic syllable. Tetrameter (Greek 'four measure'): a line with four stresses. Coleridge, Christabel, line 31: 'She stole along, she nothing spoke' (see vol. 2, p. 450). Trimeter (Greek 'three measure'): a line with three stresses. Herbert, 'Discipline,' line 1: 'Throw away thy rod' (see vol. 1, p. 1623). Trochee: a two-syllable foot following the pattern, in English verse, of stressed (/) followed by unstressed (u) syllable, producing a falling effect. Thus, for example, 'Texas.'
(vi) Verse Forms The terms related to meter and rhythm describe the shape of individual lines. Lines of verse are combined to produce larger groupings, called verse forms. These larger groupings are in the first instance stanzas (Italian 'rooms'): groupings of two or more lines, though 'stanza' is usually reserved for groupings of at least four lines. Stanzas are often joined by rhyme, often in sequence, where each group shares the same metrical pattern and, when rhymed, rhyme scheme. Stanzas can themselves be arranged into larger groupings. Poets often invent new verse forms, or they may work within established forms, a list of which follows.
Ballad stanza: usually a quatrain in alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter lines, rhyming abcb. See 'Sir Patrick Spens' (vol. 1, p. 2902); Louise Bennett's poems (vol. 2, pp. 2469?74); Eliot, 'Sweeney among the Nightingales' (vol. 2, p. 2293); Larkin, 'This Be The Verse' (vol. 2,
