A Crash Course on Poetic Meter
- Max
- Mar 18
- 3 min read
The art of poetry can be quite difficult to master. It involves stringing together words to sound fluid and almost musical. There’s a reason why poems flow so well, why Shakespeare sounds so articulate, and why raps have such moving beats. The secret is called meter.
Poetic meter is a unit of poetry that dictates rhythmic structure. It’s what makes poetry and thus feel sound a certain way. Meter also dictates which syllables or sounds are supposed to be stressed, so that the writer’s desired effect can be achieved. There are many kinds of meter, sometimes depending on the language.
A meter, which is a line or verse in poetry, is made of several units called “feet.” Each foot contains two to three syllables. Meters may either be qualitative or quantitative. If it’s qualitative, the stressed syllables are found in regular intervals. Quantitative meter, on the other hand, is not measured by where the stress is found, but rather on where long and short syllables are placed.
In English, there are the five common meters used.
Iambic
The iambic meter contains two syllables per foot, which follows the unstressed/stressed pattern.
An example from Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18:"
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Trochaic
The trochaic meter contains two syllables per foot, which follows the stressed/unstressed pattern. You might have encountered it in some nursery rhymes, as it is a simple pattern:
Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet
Spondaic
The spondaic meter contains two syllables per foot, wherein both syllables are stressed. Spondees are often placed with other meters for emphasis.
Anapestic
The anapestic meter contains three syllables per foot, which follows an unstressed/unstressed/stressed pattern. Anapests are used more often in narrative poetry, as it creates long lines and allows for more complex ideas. The next time you read Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” try to be mindful of where you stress the words.
’Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
Dactylic
The dactylic meter contains three syllables per foot, which follows a stressed/unstressed/unstressed pattern. This meter is popular in Latin and Greek poetry. Some researchers also claim that most hip-hop and rap music follows this meter. Here's an example from Robert Browning’s “The Lost Leader:"
Just for a handful of silver he left us
Just for a riband to stick in his coat
Types of Metric Line
Now that you know a few different types of meter, let's get into different types of metric line. In certain poetic forms, lines of verse follow a specific measure of metrical feet. These include monometer (one foot per line), dimeter (two feet per line), trimeter (three feet), tetrameter (four feet), pentameter (five feet), or hexameter (six feet).
If you’re familiar with Shakespeare's sonnets, you may have heard of something called iambic pentameter. This means that each line contains five iambs, with a total of ten syllables with alternating stresses (unstressed/stressed). Some popular combinations in English poetry include:
Iambic pentameter
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
—“Sonnet 18,” William Shakespeare
Trochaic tetrameter
Peter, Peter pumpkin-eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her.
—A nursery rhyme
Anapestic trimeter
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
—A popular Limerick
Dactylic hexameter
Now had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and longer,
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.
—“Evangeline,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Meter is essentially the backbone of traditional poetry. It gives us a better understanding of how the first poets wrote and what their intentions were in creating their poetry. Poets today still also use meter, often with their own contemporary twist. Whether you're a poet or a prose writer, studying meter can help improve the flow of language in your own work.
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