less rich, individual and varied. So let it be with poetry.
Poetry is a word derived from Greek, as is Ode (from poein, to make and odein, to sing). The majority of words we use to describe the anatomy of a poem are Greek in origin too. Metre (from metron) is simply the Greek for measure, as in metronome, kilometre, biometric and so on. The Americans use the older spelling meter which I prefer, but which my UK English spellcheck refuses to like.
In the beginning, my old cello teacher used to say, was rhythm. Rhythm is simply the Greek for ‘flow’ (we get our word diarrhoea from the same source as it happens). We know what rhythm is in music, we can clap our hands or tap our feet to its beat. In poetry it is much the same:
ti-tum, ti-tum, ti-tum, ti-tum, ti-tum
Say that out loud. Tap your feet, drum your fingers or clap your hands as you say it. It is a meaningless chant, certainly. But it is a meaningless regular and rhythmic chant.
Ten sounds, alternating in beat or accent. Actually, it is not very helpful to say that the line is made up of ten sounds; we’ll soon discover that for our prosodic purposes it is more useful to look at it as five repeating sets of that ti-tum heartbeat. My old cello teacher liked to do it this way, clapping her hands as she did so:
and one and two and three and four and five
In music that would be five bars (or five measures if you’re American). In poetry such a bar or measure is called a foot.
Five feet marching in rhythm. If the foot is the heartbeat, the metre can best be described as the readout or cardiogram trace.
1
2
3
4
5
ti tum
ti tum
ti tum
ti tum
ti tum
Let’s give the metre meaning by substituting words.He bangs the drum and makes a dreadful noise
That line consists of FIVE ti-tum feet:
1
2
3
4
5
He bangs
the drum
and makes
a dread
ful noise
ti tum
ti tum
ti tum
ti tum
ti tum
It is a line of TEN syllables (decasyllabic):
1
2
3
4
