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Unit 4: Major Literary Terms-IV

Notes

What is a poem with an example of synecdoche and metonymy?

One example of a simple sentence that displays synecdoche, metaphor, and metonymy is: “Fifty
keels ploughed the deep”, where “keels” is the synecdoche, as it names the whole (the ship) after a
particular part (of the ship); “ploughed” is the metaphor, as it substitutes the concept of ploughing
a field for moving through the ocean; and “the deep” is the metonym, as “depth” is an attribute
associated with the ocean.

4.2 Meter

In poetry, meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse
forms prescribe a specific verse meter, or a certain set of meters alternating in a particular order.
The study of meters and forms of versification is known as prosody. Within linguistics, “prosody”
is used in a more general sense that includes not only poetical meter but also the rhythmic aspects
of prose, whether formal or informal, which vary from language to language, and sometimes between
poetic traditions.

4.2.1 Qualitative vs. Quantitative Meter

The meter of much poetry of the Western world and elsewhere is based on particular patterns of
syllables of particular types. The familiar type of meter in English language poetry is called qualitative
meter, with stressed syllables coming at regular intervals (e.g. in iambic pentameter, typically every
even-numbered syllable). Many Romance languages use a scheme that is somewhat similar but
where the position of only one particular stressed syllable (e.g., the last) needs to be fixed.

The meter of the old Germanic poetry of languages such as Old Norse and Old English
was radically different, but still was based on stress patterns.

Many classical languages, however, use a different scheme known as quantitative meter, where
patterns are based on syllable weight rather than stress. In dactylic hexameter of Classical Latin and
Classical Greek, for example, each of the six feet making up the line was either a dactyl (long-short-
short) or spondee (long-long), where a long syllable was literally one that took longer to pronounce
than a short syllable: specifically, a syllable consisting of a long vowel or diphthong or followed by
two consonants. The stress pattern of the words made no difference to the meter. A number of other
ancient languages also used quantitative meter, such as Sanskrit and Classical Arabic.

4.2.2 Old English

The metric system of Old English poetry was different from that of modern English, and more
related to the verse forms of most of older Germanic languages. It used alliterative verse, a metrical
pattern involving varied numbers of syllables but a fixed number (usually four) of strong stresses
in each line. The unstressed syllables were relatively unimportant, but the caesurae played a major
role in Old English poetry.

4.2.3 Modern English

Most English metre is classified according to the same system as Classical metre with an important
difference. English is an accentual language, and therefore beats and offbeats (stressed and unstressed

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