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British Poetry

Notes syllables) take the place of the long and short syllables of classical systems. In most English verse,
the metre can be considered as a sort of back beat, against which natural speech rhythms vary
expressively. The most common characteristic feet of English verse are the iamb in two syllables
and the anapest in three.

4.2.4 Metrical Systems

The number of metrical systems in English is not agreed upon. The four major types are: accentual
verse, accentual-syllabic verse, syllabic verse and quantitative verse. The alliterative verse of Old
English could also be added to this list, or included as a special type of accentual verse. Accentual
verse focuses on the number of stresses in a line, while ignoring the number of offbeats and syllables;
accentual-syllabic verse focuses on regulating both the number of stresses and the total number of
syllables in a line; syllabic verse only counts the number of syllables in a line; quantitative verse
regulates the patterns of long and short syllables (this sort of verse is often considered alien to
English). It is to be noted, however, that the use of foreign metres in English is all but exceptional.

4.2.5 Frequently Used Metres

The most frequently encountered metre of English verse is the iambic pentameter, in which the
metrical norm is five iambic feet per line, though metrical substitution is common and rhythmic
variations practically inexhaustible. John Milton’s Paradise Lost, most sonnets, and much else besides
in English are written in iambic pentameter. Lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter are commonly
known as blank verse. Blank verse in the English language is most famously represented in the
plays of William Shakespeare and the great works of Milton, though Tennyson (Ulysses, The Princess)
and Wordsworth (The Prelude) also make notable use of it.
A rhymed pair of lines of iambic pentameter make a heroic couplet, a verse form which was used so
often in the eighteenth century that it is now used mostly for humorous effect (although see Pale
Fire for a non-trivial case). The most famous writers of heroic couplets are Dryden and Pope.
Another important metre in English is the ballad metre, also called the “common metre”, which is a
four-line stanza, with two pairs of a line of iambic tetrameter followed by a line of iambic trimeter;
the rhymes usually fall on the lines of trimeter, although in many instances the tetrameter also
rhymes. This is the metre of most of the Border and Scots or English ballads. In hymnody it is called
the “common metre”, as it is the most common of the named hymn metres used to pair many hymn
lyrics with melodies, such as Amazing Grace:
Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
Emily Dickinson is famous for her frequent use of ballad metre:
Great streets of silence led away
To neighborhoods of pause —
Here was no notice — no dissent —
No universe — no laws.

4.3 Ode

Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe,
and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist. It is an

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