Page 33 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes 3.3.2 Feminine Ending

Sometimes Shakespeare added an extra unstressed beat at the end of a line to emphasize a character’s
sense of contemplation. This variation is called a feminine ending and Hamlet’s famous question is
the perfect example:
To be, / or not / to be: / that is / the ques- / -tion

3.3.3 Inversion

Shakespeare also reverses the order of the stresses in some iambic to help emphasize certain words
or ideas. If we look closely at the fourth iambus in the Hamlet quote above, we can see how he has
placed an emphasis on the word “that” by inverting the stresses. Occasionally, Shakespeare will
completely break the rules and place two stressed syllables in the same iambus, as the following
quote from Richard III demonstrates:

Now is / the win- / -ter of / our dis- / content

In this example, the fourth iambus emphasizes that it is “our discontent,” and the first iambus
emphasizes that we are feeling this “now.”
Why is Iambic Pentameter Important?
Shakespeare will always feature prominently in any discussion of iambic pentameter because he
used the form with great dexterity-especially in his sonnets, but you must not be tricked into thinking
that he invented it. Rather, it is a standard literary convention that has been used by many writers
before and after Shakespeare. Historians are not sure how the speeches were read aloud-whether
delivered naturally or with an emphasis on the stressed words. In my opinion, this is unimportant.
What really matters is that the study of iambic pentameter gives us a rare glimpse into the inner
workings of Shakespeare’s writing process.

3.4 Lyric

Lyrics (in singular form lyric) are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist
or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost
unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and
symmetry of expression. The lyricist of traditional musical forms such as Opera is known as a
librettist.

Lyric derives from the Greek word, meaning “singing to the lyre”. A lyric poem is one
that expresses a subjective, personal point of view.

The word lyric came to be used for the “words of a song”; this meaning was recorded in 1876. The
common plural, predominates contemporary usage. Use of the singular form lyric to refer to a
song’s complete set of words is grammatically acceptable. However it’s not considered acceptable
to refer to a singular word in a song as a lyric.
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient
world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and
today do not need to be set to music or a beat. Aristotle, in Poetics 1447a, mentions lyric poetry

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