Terminology
Rhythm- repetition of any elements of the text at certain intervals. In Russian, rhythm is formed with the help of stress. Rhyme- consonance of the ends of verses (or half-verses). Stanza- an organized combination of poems (verse - poetic line), regularly repeated throughout the poetic work or part of it.The simplest and most common way to connect verses into a stanza is to connect them with a rhyme. The most common type of stanza is the quatrain, the smallest is the couplet. Couplet- the simplest strophic formation of two verses fastened with a rhyme:
Eat pineapples, chew grouse,Quatrain- strophic formation of four verses.
your last day is coming, bourgeois.
(V. Mayakovsky - 1917)
How can I forget? He walked out, staggeringFoot(lat. leg, foot) - a structural unit of the verse. Foot(lat. - leg, foot, foot) is a sequence of several unstressed (weak) and one stressed (strong) syllable, alternating in a certain order.
Mouth twisted painfully...
I ran away without touching the railing
I followed him to the gate
(A. Akhmatova - 1911)
For classical sizes, the foot consists of either two syllables (trochee and iambic) or three (dactyl, amphibrach and anapaest).
The foot is the smallest structural unit of a verse.
The number of feet in a line of poetry specifies the name of the measure, for example, if a poem is written in iambic eight-foot, then there are 8 feet (8 stressed syllables) in each line.
Foot - a group of syllables, separated and combined single rhythmic beat(iktom). The number of stressed syllables in a verse corresponds to the number of feet. Feet - combinations strong and weak (weak) positions are regularly repeated throughout the entire verse.
A simple foot happens:
- disyllabic, when two syllables are constantly repeated - stressed and unstressed, or vice versa (trochee, iambic ...);
- three-syllable, when one stressed and two unstressed syllables are repeated (anapaest, amphibrach, dactyl ...).
Accent ( speech) versification systems are divided into three main groups:
- syllabic,
- tonic,
- Syllabo-tonic - a way of organizing a poem, in which stressed and unstressed syllables alternate in a certain order, unchanged for all lines of the poem.
| Systems of versification | Characteristic | Example |
| 1. Syllabic (the number of syllables is fixed) |
A system of versification in which rhythm is created by the repetition of verses with the same number of syllables, and the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables is not ordered; obligatory rhyme |
From one country thunder Thunder from another country Trouble in the air! Terrible in the ear! Clouds came running Carry water The sky is closed Confused in fear! (V.K. Trediakovsky - Description of a thunderstorm) |
| 2. Tonic (the number of strokes is fixed) |
The system of versification, the rhythm of which is organized repetition of stressed syllables; the number of unstressed syllables between stresses varies freely |
Winding street-snake. Houses along the snake. The street is mine. Homes are mine. (V.V. Mayakovsky - the poem "Good!") |
| 3. Syllabo-tonic (the number of syllables and the number of stress positions are fixed) |
The system of versification, which is based on the evenness of the number of syllables, the number and place of stress in poetic lines | Do you want to know what I saw At will? - lush fields, Crowned hills Trees growing all around Noisy fresh crowd, Like brothers in a circular dance. (M.Yu. Lermontov - Mtsyri) |
All groups are based on repetition. rhythmic units(rows), the commensurability of which is determined by the given location stressed and unstressed syllables within lines.
System versification, based on equal number stressed syllables in a poetic line, while the number of unstressed syllables in a line is more or less free. Syllabo-tonic measurements
AT Russian syllabo-tonic versification became widespread five stop:
- Chorey
- Dactyl
- Amphibrachius
- Anapaest
The size is usually defined as a sequence of several feet. Poetic measurements are never performed exactly in a poem, and there are often deviations from a given scheme.
The omission of stress, that is, the replacement of a stressed syllable by an unstressed one, is called pyrrhic, the replacement of an unstressed syllable by a stressed one is called spondeem.
Conventions
__/ - stressed syllable __ - unstressed syllablePoetic dimensions
(in the syllabic-tonic system of versification)- Bisyllabic meter:
__/__
- foot Chorea
Chorey- a two-syllable meter in which stressed syllable comes first , on the second unstressed.
For memorization:
Clouds are rushing, clouds are winding,
On the trochee they fly
__ __/ - foot YambaYamb- a two-syllable meter in which first syllable unstressed , the second shock.
- Trisyllabic meter:
__/__ __
- foot Dactyl
Dactyl- a three-syllable meter of the verse, in which the first syllable is stressed, the rest are unstressed.
For memorization:
You are a dig yes ktil i m deep
__ __/__ - foot amphibrachiaAmphibrachius- a three-syllable meter of the verse, in which the second syllable is stressed, the rest are unstressed.
__ __ __/ - foot AnapestaAnapaest- the three-syllable meter of the verse, in which the third syllable is stressed, the rest are unstressed.
To remember names trisyllabic sizes poems to be learned word LADY.
DAMA stands for:
D- dactyl - stress on the first syllable,
AM- amphibrach - stress on the second syllable,
BUT- anapaest - stress stress on the third syllable.
Examples
Poem |
Poetic size |
Example trochaic tetrameter: The storm covers the sky |
Chorey __/__ |
Example pentameter trochaic: I go out alone on the road; |
Chorey __/__ |
Example three-foot trochaic: Swallows are gone, |
Chorey __/__ |
Example iambic tetrameter: My uncle for the most honest rules, |
__ __/ |
Example iambic tetrameter: I remember a wonderful moment |
__ __/ |
Example iambic pentameter: We dressed up the wife together to give the city, |
__ __/ |
Example iambic pentameter: You will be sad when the poet dies, |
__ __/ |
Example trimeter dactyl: Whoever calls - I don't want |
Dactyl __/__ __ |
Example tetrameter dactyl: Heavenly clouds, eternal wanderers! |
Dactyl __/__ __ |
Example tetrameter dactyl: Glorious autumn! Healthy, vigorous |
Dactyl __/__ __ |
Example trimeter amphibrach: Not the wind is raging over the forest, |
Amphibrachius __ __/__ |
Example tetrameter amphibrach: Dear father, did not know anything |
Amphibrachius __ __/__ |
Example trimeter amphibrach: There are women in Russian villages |
Amphibrachius __ __/__ |
Example trimeter amphibrach: Among the noise, a lot of balls happen by chance, |
Amphibrachius __ __/__ |
Example three-foot anapaest: Oh, spring without end and without edge - |
Anapaest __ __ __/ |
Example three-foot anapaest: There are in the tunes of your innermost |
Anapaest __ __ __/ |
Example three-foot anapaest: I will disappear from melancholy and laziness, |
Anapaest __ __ __/ |
How to determine the poetic size?
|
The following is an attempt to describe as simply as possible what poetic size is and what basic sizes are. I wrote a lot of this earlier in the comments, but then (for some reason) I thought that it might be interesting to someone else.
Most likely, those who were interested in it - and so everyone knows very well. However, as Enrico Fermi and Steven Weinberg said, we should never underestimate the pleasure we get from hearing something we already know.
Disclaimer: I'm not a philologist or even a poet, so this post is from an amateur for amateurs. If one of the professionals or more advanced amateurs corrects or supplements, I will be grateful.
First, a few elementary things, I mention them just for further context.
Each word has a certain number of syllables, equal to the number of vowels. Within each word there is an accent. There is simple words with one stress (defense), but there are compound words with several stresses (defense). Compound words with several stresses are few, and in verse they are rare.
What do writers do with all this?
Nothing. They form words into sentences, seldom caring about how many syllables each word will have and where the stresses will be in words. Therefore, prose has no pronounced rhythm. Just a monotonous roll of waves on the shore, musical noise. The value of prose is not in rhythm, but in content. There are exceptions, but they are not important in our consideration now.
And what do poets do with it?
1) For them, in addition to meaning, the so-called “rhythm” or “meter” is also important. These words can be considered synonyms. Rhythm/meter is simply the frequency of stress in the text. Namely, the number of syllables between stresses. (Strictly speaking, there different systems versification. Here we are talking only about the most popular syllabo-tonic system in Russian and many other languages, from the Greek words "syllable" and "accent", which is based on such periodicity.)
One can imagine that a period is the oscillation of a pendulum or a metronome in one direction (in physics this is called a half-period, but it does not matter, we will call it a period). Each vibration is one beat or one knock. The period is the time between stresses, or “unit of verse”, i.e. stressed syllable + unstressed syllables following it until the next stressed syllable.
When poets collect words into lines, they keep track of how many syllables these words have and which syllables are stressed. They collect words in chains like in children's constructors, so that with such a docking, the stresses in the words have a periodicity, like the oscillations of a pendulum. In other words, there should be a fixed number of unstressed syllables between stresses in a line.
Why this is done is quite clear. Like periods/rhythms in music, the rhythm in a poem affects a person on an emotional level (in fact, versification was born from songs). Adds another dimension to the idea and content of the poem, additional colors and feelings. Unfortunately, many aspiring poets believe that rhythm and rhyme are the only requirements for poetry, but that's another story.
2) Periods in poetry, as a rule, are of two, three and four syllables. A period of two syllables means there is a stressed syllable, then an unstressed one, then another stressed one, etc. Those. we have two syllables repeated, in which one syllable will be stressed. A period of three syllables means there is a stressed syllable, then two unstressed ones, then stressed again, etc. Those. we have three syllables repeated, in which one syllable will be stressed. Similarly, it will be with a period of four syllables. Periods of five or more syllables are rarely used.
There is only one accent in one period. It can fall on different syllables in a period, however, within the framework of one poem, the stress will always be on a certain syllable in a period: only on the first syllable, or only on the second, etc. This is done to ensure that there is the same distance between the stresses. Below in paragraph 4, these periods are described in more detail.
In versification, instead of the “physical” word period, its own word “foot” is used. This is just a synonym for the word period, nothing more. Below I will use "period" and "stop" as synonyms. It is curious that one of the creators of the theory of feet, as well as syllabic-tonic versification in the Russian language in general, is Lomonosov, who was both a physicist and a philologist, and many others.
3) And now it is worth paying attention to one difference between stresses in verse and stresses in prose. Although each word has its own stress, we sometimes miss these stresses in verses. For example,
ShaganE you are mine, ShaganE...
My uncle of the most honest rules ...
The words "you" and "mine", if we used them in prose, would have their own accents. But in the lines above, we skip these accents. So to speak, we close our eyes (or ears) to them, we ignore them. Why are we doing this? So that the stresses in these lines have a period. In the first line, the period consists of three syllables, in the second - of two.
That's all the main ideas. The rest is just different types of such periodicity, i.e. different number of syllables in the foot and different stresses inside the feet.
4) What types of periodicity can you think of? It's very simple. We will denote the stressed syllable as “1”, and the unstressed syllable as “0” (usually they are denoted as sticks and dashes, such as " _ , or / -, etc., but such designations are IMHO less convenient and visual):
10 10 10 10 ...
01 01 01 01 ...
100 100 100 ...
010 010 010 ...
001 001 001 ...
1000 1000 1000 ...
etc. You can knock these motives on the table, highlighting the stressed syllable with a stronger knock. All names like “iamb”, “trochee”, etc. They were invented simply in order not to draw rhythms every time, as they are drawn above, but to call them by standard names.
1 1 1 1 1 1 ... this Brachycolon(this and the rest of the size names are derived from the corresponding Greek words). This is a rare meter in which the poem contains only words from one syllable. Each word will have its own stress, i.e. All syllables in the poem are stressed. For example, DAY - NIGHT, YEAR away. MIG - century, was - no. It is difficult to write poetry in this size, and it looks too monotonous, I want to more variety.
10 10 10 10 .... this Chorey. The stress fell on the first syllable in the line, then on the third, on the fifth ... i.e. for all odd syllables. For example, "The storm covers the sky with darkness".
01 01 01 01 .... this Yamb. The stress fell on the second syllable, then on the fourth, on the sixth ... i.e. for all even syllables. For example, "My uncle has the most honest rules." The whole of Eugene Onegin is written in iambic (more precisely, in iambic tetrameter; what “four-foot” is, see below in paragraph 5).
Chorea and iambic have the same period - two syllables (therefore, these sizes are called two-syllable or two-part), it's just that the stress falls on different syllables in this period. Yamb is the simplest and most popular size in Russian versification.
The period is only important within a single row. We do not pay attention to the periodicity when moving from one line to another. What has grown has grown. For example, in "My uncle's most honest rules" the line ends with an unstressed syllable, and the next line also begins with an unstressed syllable, although in one line in iambic, after an unstressed syllable, a stressed syllable should go. It's not a problem.
100 100 100 .... this Dactyl. For example, "Spinning, spinning blue ball."
010 010 010 ... this Amphibrachius. For example, "I'm sitting behind bars in a damp dungeon."
001 001 001 ... this Anapaest. For example, "ShaganE, you are my ShaganE".
Dactyl, amphibrach and anapaest also have the same periods - three syllables (therefore, these sizes are called trisyllabic or tripartite).
1000 1000 1000....
0100 0100 0100....
0010 0010 0010....
0001 0001 0001....
There are four here different cases, but they are all called one word peon and differ in names: “peon with an accent on the first syllable” (or “first peon”), “peon with an accent on the second syllable” (or “second peon”), etc. For example, "Do not think down about seconds. The time will come, you will understand, probably." This is the second peon.
It is not necessary to memorize all these names, although it is simple, there are very few of them. But in any case, the main thing is to understand general principle, but it is very simple.
Poets choose the size not by chance. A certain meter is not just a given rhythm, but also a given mood, which must be combined with the idea and content of the poem. Yamb is a strong and energetic sound. Chorey - softer and smoother. Three-syllable sizes (dactyl, amphibrach, anapaest) are flexible, close to colloquial speech. Peon - often philosophical and thoughtful. Of course, there are exceptions.
All this, by the way, has nothing to do with rhyme. Poems should have a meter, regardless of whether they are white or rhymed. The latter will have a feature only in that stressed syllables should rhyme.
5) Now it only remains to add that poems are also distinguished by the number of periods (stops) in a line. Two-foot means two feet in a line. Three-foot - three lines. Tetrameter - four, etc. The number of stops is a specification of the size in addition to the usual name of the size, such as iambic or trochee. About specific poems, they say not just "written in iambic", but, for example, written "in iambic four-foot".
Here are some examples courtesy of our longtime sponsor:
The priest had a dog.
Both died of cancer.
- Two syllables in the foot and stress on the first syllable. So it's a chorus.
- Four accents per line, i.e. four feet per line. So this is a four-foot trochee.
Floats in the eyes of a cold evening,
snowflakes tremble on the car,
frosty wind, pale wind
wraps red palms
- Two syllables in the foot and stress on the second syllable. So it's iambic.
- Four stresses in a line, so it's iambic tetrameter.
No country, no graveyard
I don't want to choose.
On the Vasilyevsky Island
I will come to die
- Three syllables in the foot and stress on the third syllable. So it's an anapest.
- Two stresses in a line, so this is a two-foot anapaest.
The number of feet in a line, like the length of the foot, also affects the style of the poem. Tetrameter sizes (especially iambic tetrameter) are the most popular and richest in terms of possibilities, they can be used in almost all cases. Pentameters and six-foots - a little solemn and epic, inherent in poems, dramas and sonnets. At the same time, for long lines - pentameter and six-foot - they often make a small pause in the middle, the so-called “caesura”. It is usually appropriate both in meaning and in rhythm - after all, it is difficult to read a long line without pauses. As a result, a long line is divided into two half-lines, and, for example, iambic six-foot will sound like three-foot.
Summing up, we can come to the following hierarchy of “structural units” in a poem: syllable - foot - line - stanza. From the point of view of rhythm and semantic content, the most important structural unit is the line. A stanza usually has 4 lines, but may have fewer or more. For example, the stanza of a sonnet consists of 14 lines, like the well-known “Onegin stanza” (sometimes they say that the stanza of a sonnet consists of several “ordinary” stanzas). In songs, stanzas are called verses.
6) As with all rules, there are special cases when determining the size. For example, what is the size of the following poem?
A golden cloud spent the night
On the chest of a giant cliff
If you put the stresses the way they are pronounced in life, you get
The golden cloud spent the night
On the chest of the giant cliff
What size is it? Something incomprehensible ... In such cases, philologists add “imaginary” stresses as follows:
A golden cloud spent the night
ON THE CHEST OF THE GIANT ROCK
and, accordingly, they call it "trochee with skipped accents." And they even came up with a special word for it. Pyrrhic. This occurs all the time, especially in two-syllable feet, i.e. iambic and chorea. And it is clear why: few words have only one or two syllables, which means that in most words it will not be possible to withstand the two-syllable rhythm “stress through one”. And sometimes the opposite situation happens: accents are not skipped, but additional ones are added. It is called Spondee.
How to determine the size in such cases? Add imaginary stresses or remove superfluous ones to get a constant period in each line, as above with the golden cloud. And calculate what happens after that.
7) Finally, sometimes the meter in a poem can change, i.e. it can be different in different lines. Usually, the “type” of the size is preserved, i.e. foot length (for example, iambic or trochee), but there will be a different number of feet in different lines. It's normal, it's just the way it is. It occurs, for example, in fables:
A crow climbed onto the Spruce,
HAVE GOING TO HAVE BREAKFAST
- In the first line iambic tetrameter, in the second - pentameter.
and also from our regular sponsor (who has everything you can think of):
I entered instead wild beast in a cage
I burned my term and clicked with a nail in the barrack,
- In the first line there is a four-foot anapaest, in the second - a five-foot one.
At the same time, the last two lines illustrate another a special case: A little “dirty” time signature when the rhythm/period is not quite strictly maintained. Not just missing or extra stresses (as in pyrrhic and sponde), but a different number of syllables in the stops. But our sponsor is allowed. Alternation and mixing of sizes are common with him, but very harmoniously, he experimented a lot and successfully. You have to know how to break the rules.
8) And, very concisely, about poetic meters (also syllabic-tonic) in English:
- "Size" is metre (or meter in American English), and foot is metric foot, which is logical.
- Size names sound similar: iambus, trochee, etc. They are formed from the same Greek words as in Russian, but in English they are pronounced in accordance with the peculiarities of the English language.
- The names for "two-foot", "three-foot", etc., in contrast to the principle of these names in Russian, are also used in Greek, i.e. not twofeet or threefeet, but dimeter, trimeter, etc. At the same time, "six-foot" in English is hexameter. You probably remember that ancient verses are hexameters. And it is understandable why, in antiquity, poems were mainly written in six-foot size.
- Less strictness to the observance of the rhythm, i.e. much more often than in Russian, there is a "dirty" size, when the number of syllables in the foot is not constant. Often, but not always, such passages are smoothed out when read aloud by changing the pronunciation of some words, namely by swallowing or stretching out some syllables. At first it may seem a little strange, it takes some getting used to. This is not the result of the negligence of poets, just such features of the language and its perception and pronunciation.
- White verses are much more common than in Russian versification. For example, most of Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies are written in iambic pentameter (he wrote sonnets in rhyme).
That, in fact, is all. Now you can do any poetry. Profit!
Even high:
P.S. The drawings are courtesy of another of our sponsors, a great Danish cartoonist.
SIZE is a way of sound organization of a verse. We can say that the size of a verse is the order of alternation of stressed (long) and unstressed (short) syllables in a line. According to the number of syllables in the foot, the poetic size is divided into two-syllable and three-syllable. In syllabic verse, meter is determined by the number of syllables; in tonic - by the number of stresses; in metric and syllabic - tonic - meter and number of feet. The length of the size is determined by the number of feet: two-foot, three-foot, four-foot, five-foot, etc.
Chorey. The very first, simplest two-syllable meter. The stresses in it fall on odd syllables (1, 3, 7, etc.).
Classic ferret:
Leaves are falling in the garden...
In this old garden, it used to be
I will leave early in the morning
And wander anywhere. (I. Bunin)
However, pure ferrets are difficult to obtain. In a pure trochee, words cannot be more than three syllables. If we place the stresses in the above quatrain by Bunin, we can notice that the "extra" stress falls on the syllable "yut" in the word "fall". There are no more violations of the shock rhythm, but what about this? So. The main thing is that the "correct" stress should also be present, falling in the word where it should be. If another one comes out in size, "superfluous" for a given word, it is simply "unstressed" recited, softly, accurately. This omission of stress is called pyrrhic.
Here is another trochee (also from Bunin):
Apple trees and gray paths,
Emerald bright grass
On birches - gray catkins
And branches of weeping lace.
In this passage, pyrrhic can be found on the syllable "ni" in the word "apple trees", on the letter "e" in the word "gray" and so on.
That is, it is not necessary to use 4 stresses per line in a 4-foot trochee. But it is important that there are enough stresses to hear the rhythm of the verse, that is, the repetition of a given placement of stresses.
In general, the trochee is easy to use, the syllable is simple, the four-foot or five-foot trochee is most often used, although even the two-foot one comes across (very rarely).
Yamb. No less common size in Russian poetry, disyllabic, stress falls on even syllables (2, 4, 6). The most common are 4-, 5-, and 6-foot iambic. For example, "Eugene Onegin" is written in iambic tetrameter. Yamb is even easier to operate (may the Russian language forgive me!), Than trochee.
So beat, do not know rest,
Let the vein of life be deep:
Diamond burns from afar -
Fractions, my angry iambic, stones!
(A. Blok)
This was an example of iambic 4-foot. Pyrrhicia are no less common in iambic than in trochee. Again, this is due to the fact that the size is "short", disyllabic.
Using Blok as an example, I will introduce the concept of anacrusis.
And here is an example of a mixed iambic (1-3 lines - iambic pentameter, 2-4 - two-foot one):
What are the heights above this island,
What fog!
And the Apocalypse was written here,
And Pan died. (N. Gumilyov)
Dactyl is a three-syllable meter, where the stresses fall mainly on 1,4,7, etc. syllables, that is, a tripartite foot about three syllables with word stress on the first syllable The two-foot and four-foot dactyls are most common. But the most common and effective is a mixed dactyl, for example, the first line is four-foot, the second is three-foot.
Mirror to mirror, with a quivering babble,
I pointed by candlelight;
Two rows of light - and a mysterious thrill
The mirrors are amazing. (A. Fet)
Actually, all three-syllable sizes look beautiful when combining lines with different numbers of stops.
Tears, and dances, and the cardiogram rages,
In it, unsystematic, crazy things are happening.
She rushes to the right, then to the left, then straight,
It beats and, like the aspen of Judas, trembles.
(An example of a pentameter dactyl.).
And here is a copy of a very peculiar six-foot dactyl with two caesuras:
In the yellow living room, made of gray maple, with silk upholstery,
Your Excellency loves on Tuesdays languid zhurfi "ks
In yellow wenge "comic color" that, brown-white,
You offer "sophisticated" society a toffee ke "ks,
Gently inhaling "I erzge cigars" rtsoga abris fia "lkkovy.
(I. Severyanin)
Amphibrach is a three-syllable meter, where the stress falls mainly on 2, 5, 8, 11, etc. syllables. In other words, this is a three-part stanza with a one-part anacrusis: | | | . The most common four-foot amphibrach:
I could no longer listen to the madman,
I raised the shining sword
I gave the singer a bloody flower,
As a reward for a bold speech.
(N. Gumilyov)
Here is an example of a rare phenomenon: a six-foot amphibrach, alternating with a pentameter:
Oh, wonderful sky, by God, over this classic Rome,
Under such a sky you will involuntarily become an artist.
Nature and people here seem different, like paintings
From the vivid verses of the anthology of ancient Hellas. (A. Maikov)
Anapaest is a three-syllable meter, in which the stresses fall mainly on 3, 6, 9, 12, etc. syllables. In other words, it is a tricot with a dicotyledonous anacrusis | | | . The most common is the three-foot anapaest.
My beloved, my prince, my fiance,
You are sad in a flowery meadow.
Dodder among the fields of gold
I curled up on that shore. (A. Blok)
There is a 2,4,5-foot anapaest. For example, double footed:
No country, no graveyard
I don't want to choose.
To Vasilyevsky Island
I will come to die.
(I. Brodsky)
This classic poem "Stans" has a characteristic monosyllabic clause in 1-3 lines, which gives it charm, some non-standard syllable.
So, we examined the five main poetic meters. Be sure to use them! Of course, one cannot dwell on them, but history shows that these sizes are most suitable for versification in Russian, and one cannot categorically ignore them in search of new forms. Only having learned to perfect use of classical poetic meters, one can proceed to poetic experimentation. Although ... Pushkin and Lermontov 200 years ago, when the formation of poetry was just going on and there was no talk of using outlandish mixtures of meters in poetry, they were already looking for new forms, trying to diversify the classical Russian poetry set by Derzhavin. That's why they are great.
There are nine basic sizes in Russian. In the absence of one or more vowels in a line of any of the nine sizes, the tenth size is formed, which is called a dolnik (the term was introduced by V. Bryusov from the word "share", "part").
Graphic representation of the ten sizes of the verse:
1. Chorey - Stress from the 1st syllable
2. Yamb - from the second
3. Dactyl accent from the first
4. Amphibrach stress from the second
5. Anapaest - stress from the third
6. Peon first - accent from the first
7. Peon second accent from the second
8. Peon third accent from the third
9. Peon fourth. stress from the fourth
10. Dolnik - trochee, one vowel omitted
EXAMPLES of ten verse sizes:
1. Clouds are rushing, clouds are swirling ...
2. It's time, it's time, the horns are trumpeting...
3. Heavenly clouds, eternal wanderers...
4. The last cloud of the scattered storm...
5. Here is the front entrance. On solemn days...
6. Do not come from the sky of midday heat...
7. Lanterns `riki-out of `riki, tell `you me`...
8. On an airy ocean, without a rudder and without a wind...
9. Under blue skies...
10. Something with my memory has become...
The size of a folk verse is determined not by the length of all its syllables (as in ancient versification), but by the number of stresses in a line.
In the field the birch tree stood,
In the field of curly hair stood ...
Depending on the task set by the author, the size of the verse can be different.
ALEXANDRIAN VERSE (from the old French poem about Alexander the Great), French 12-complex or Russian 6-foot iambic with a caesura after the 6th syllable and a paired rhyme.
An arrogant temporary worker, and vile, and insidious,
The monarch is a cunning flatterer and an ungrateful friend,
Furious tyrant native his country,
A villain elevated to an important rank by slyness!
K.F. Ryleev
AMPHIBRACHY - a three-syllable poetic line with an accent on the second syllable.
Stands alone in the wild north
On the bare top of a pine tree,
And dozing swaying, and loose snow
She is dressed like a robe.
M.Yu.Lermontov
ANACRUS - weak (unstressed) syllables preceding the first metric stress. In syllabo - tonic verses, anacrusis is constant: in chorea and dactyl - zero, in iambic and amphibrach - one-syllable, in anapaest - two-syllable.
HEXAMETER (from the Greek "six-dimensional"). Poetic meter of ancient epic poetry. V.K. was introduced into Russian poetry. Trediakovsky.
Anger, goddess, sing to Achilles, the son of Peleus,
Terrible, who did a thousand disasters to the Achaeans:
Many souls of glorious heroes cast down ...
Homer "Iliad"
ICT - stressed syllable in verse (arsis). An inter-ict interval (thesis) is an unstressed syllable in a verse.
LOGAED - poetic size, formed by a combination of unequal stops, the sequence of which is correctly repeated from stanza to stanza. The main form of ancient song lyrics.
My lips are approaching
To your lips
The mysteries are happening again
And the world is like a temple.
V.Ya. Bryusov
ONE-SYMBOL - an exotic monosyllabic size. All syllables are stressed.
It is used extremely rarely.
Dol
Sed
Shel
Grandfather.
led -
brel
Following.
All of a sudden
Onion
Skyward:
Fuck!
Lynx
To dust.
I.L. Selvinsky.
PENTON - (five-syllable) - a poetic size of five syllables with an emphasis on the third syllable. Developed by A.V. Koltsov and used in folk songs. Rhyme is usually absent.
Do not make noise, rye,
Ripe ear!
Don't sing, mower
About the wide steppe!
Pyrrhic - one of the types of feet of ancient versification. Pyrrhicia are two-syllable feet that do not have stressed syllables. They help to keep the size of the verse when skipping the proper stresses in it. The possibility of using pyrrhic vowels contributes to a more complete use of all the means of the language due to the wide variety of rhythmic variations of each measure.
Three maidens by the window
Were spinning late at night...
A.S. Pushkin
SUPER-SCHEME ACCENT - emphasis on weak spot poetic meter.
The spirit of denial, the spirit of doubt...
M.Yu.Lermontov
SPONDEUS - an iambic or chorea foot with a superscheme accent. As a result, there can be two strokes in a row in the foot.
Swede, Russian - stabs, cuts, cuts
Drum beat, clicks, rattle,
The thunder of cannons, stomping, neighing, groaning
And death, and hell from all sides.
A.S. Pushkin
TRIBRACHY - omission of stress in three-syllable meter on the first syllable.
"Unrepeatable days of grace..."
TRUNCATION - an incomplete foot at the end of a verse or half-line.
Mountain peaks
Sleeping in the darkness of night
quiet valleys
Full of fresh haze.
M.Yu.Lermontov
PENTAMETER - an auxiliary meter of ancient versification. In fact, it is a hexameter with a truncation in the middle and at the end of the verse. In its pure form, the pentameter is not used.
ACTIVITY 22
STANZA. HER TYPES
Poems are often combined into combinations that are repeated a number of times in a poem. A combination of verses representing a rhythmic-syntactic whole and united by a common rhyme is called STRANGES, i.e. a stanza is a group of verses with a certain arrangement of rhymes. The main feature of a stanza is the repetition of its elements: stops, sizes, rhymes, number of verses, etc.
It's very hard to get away from the past
How we used to be close
And today we saw each other again -
And in the eyes of neither love nor longing.
G. Uzhegov
COUPLE - simplest form stanzas of two verses: in ancient poetry - DISTICH, in syllabic - VIRSH.
The boy Lyova cried bitterly
Because there is no cool
What happened to you? - asked at home
Frightened more than thunder,
He replied without a smile:
The fish are not biting today.
N.Rubtsov
THREE LINES (tercet) - a simple stanza of three verses.
In carefree joys, in living charm,
Oh, the days of my spring, you soon flowed away.
Flow slower in my memory.
A. S. Pushkin
The most common types of stanzas in classical poetry were
Quatrains (quatrains), octaves, terts. Many great poets
used them in the creation of their works.
Are you still alive, my old lady?
I'm alive too. Hello you, hello!
Let it flow over your hut
That evening unspeakable light.
S. Yesenin
PENTISTISH - quintet.
And the world is ruled by lies and rage
The cry never stops.
And in my heart everything was mixed up:
It also has a holy pity for people,
And anger against them, and shame for them.
N.Zinoviev
HEXISTIC - sextine. A stanza of six verses.
Frost and sun; wonderful day!
You are still dozing, my lovely friend, -
It's time, beauty, wake up:
Open eyes closed by bliss
Towards the northern Aurora,
Be the star of the north.
A.S. Pushkin
SEMISTISHIE - sentima. A complex stanza of seven verses.
Yes! There were people in our time
Not like the current tribe:
Bogatyrs - not you!
They got a bad share:
Not many returned from the field...
Do not be the Lord's will,
They wouldn't give up Moscow!
M.Yu. Lermontov
Octave (octave) - an eight-line line in which the first verse rhymes with the third and fifth, the second - with the fourth and sixth, the seventh - with the eighth. The octave is based on a triple repetition (refrain).
Sad time! Oh charm!
Your sad beauty is pleasant to me -
I love the magnificent nature of wilting,
Forests clad in crimson and gold,
In their canopy of the wind noise and fresh breath,
And the heavens are covered with mist,
And a rare ray of sun, and the first frosts,
And distant gray winter threats.
A.S. Pushkin
Octave pattern: ABABABBB.
NINE-LINE - nona. A complex rhyme consisting of nine verses.
Give me a palace high
And all around green Garden,
So that in its wide shadow
Ripe amber grapes;
So that the fountain does not stop
In the marble hall murmured
And I would be in the dreams of paradise,
Irrigating cold dust,
Slept and awakened...
M.Yu.Lermontov
TEN - decima. Often found in the works of M. Lomonosov, Derzhavin. Currently almost never used. Scheme ABABVVGDDG. A variation of the ten-line is the ODIC STROPHE, which is used to write solemn odes, congratulations.
ONEGIN RHYME - a form of stanza in which the novel "Eugene Onegin" by A.S. Pushkin is written. The stanza consists of 14 lines
Four with a cross rhyme, two pairs with adjacent rhymes, four with a ring and the final two lines are again an adjacent rhyme. The stanza always begins with a line with a feminine ending, and ends with a masculine one.
He settled in that peace,
Where the village guard
For forty years I quarreled with the housekeeper,
He looked out the window and crushed flies.
Everything was simple: the floor is oak,
Two wardrobes, a table, a downy sofa,
Not a speck of ink anywhere.
Onegin opened the cupboards:
In one I found an expense notebook,
In another liquor a whole system,
Jugs of apple water,
And the calendar of the eighth year;
An old man with a lot to do
Haven't looked at other books.
Scheme AABABVGGDEEJJ.
BALLAD stanza - a stanza in which even verses consist of more stop than odd.
Once a Epiphany Eve
The girls guessed:
Shoe behind the gate
Having removed from the foot they threw;
Weed the snow; under the window
Listened; fed
Counted chicken grain;
Burning wax was heated...
V. Zhukovsky
SONNET. A certain number of verses and the arrangement of rhymes is characteristic not only for stanzas, but also for certain types of verses. The most common is the SONET. world fame received sonnets by Shakespeare, Dante, Petrarch. A sonnet is a poem consisting of fourteen verses, usually divided into four stanzas: two quatrains and two three-verses. In quatrains, either ring or cross rhyme is used, and it is the same for both quatrains. The alternation of rhymes in three lines is different.
Poet! Do not value the love of the people
Enthusiastic praise will pass minute noise.
Hear the judgment of a fool and the laughter of the cold crowd,
But you remain proud, calm and gloomy.
You are the king: live alone. By the road of the free
Go where your free mind takes you.
Zealous fruits of free thoughts,
Not demanding rewards for a noble feat,
They are in you. You are your own highest court;
You know how to appreciate your work more strictly.
Are you satisfied with it, demanding artist?
Satisfied? So let the crowd scold him
And spits on the altar where your fire burns
And in childish playfulness your tripod shakes.
A.S. Pushkin
Sonnet scheme: ABABABABVVGDDDG, but some variations in the arrangement of rhymes are possible.
TERCINES - three-line stanzas with original way rhymes. In them, the first verse of the first stanza rhymes with the third, the second verse of the first stanza - with the first and third of the second stanza, the second verse of the second stanza - with the first and third of the third stanza, etc.
I loved the light waters and the noise of the leaves,
And white idols in the shade of trees,
And in their faces is the seal of motionless thoughts.
Everything is marble compasses and lyres,
Swords and scrolls in marble hands
On the heads of laurels, on the shoulders of porphyry -
Everything inspired a sweet kind of fear
in my heart; and tears of inspiration
At the sight of them, they were born before our eyes.
A.S. Pushkin
Dante's Divine Comedy was written in tercines. But in Russian poetry they are rarely used.
Tercine scheme: ABA, BVB, VGV, GDG, DED ... KLKL.
TRIOLET - found in our time. With this type of rhyming, verses A and B are repeated as refrains.
Even in spring the garden is fragrant,
Still the soul springs and believes
That terrible losses are fixable, -
Even in spring the garden is fragrant...
Oh, tender sister and dear brother!
My house does not sleep, the doors are open for you...
Even in spring the garden is fragrant,
Still the soul springs and believes.
I. Severyanin (Loparev)
Triolet scheme: ABAAABAB.
RONDO - a poem containing 15 lines with the rhyme AABBA, ABBC, AAVBAS (C - non-rhyming refrain, repetition of a line).
Rondo, as a style of versification, was popular in French poetry of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Of the other (now almost not used) types of stanzas, it is worth mentioning the following:
SICILIANA - eight lines with a cross rhyme ABABABAB.
SAPPHIRE STROPHE. Was invented in Ancient Greece in the 6th-7th centuries. before new era.
ROYAL STROPHE - seven lines with the ABBAAVV rhyming system.
ASTROPHISMS - a poem in which there is no division into stanzas, which gives the poet more compositional freedom. It is also used today in children's poems, fables and in poems saturated with colloquial speech.
Good Doctor Aibolit
He sits under a tree.
Come to him for treatment.
Both the cow and the wolf
And a bug and a spider
And a bear!
Heal everyone, heal
Good doctor Aibolit.
K. Chukovsky
Composing poetry requires not only talent, but also a thorough theoretical preparation. Even in ancient times, when, it would seem, the attitude to creativity was simpler, and rhymed works were created on a whim and / or whim of the Muse, poets paid equal attention to the content and form of the work. And writers with a classical education were able to accurately determine the poetic size of a passage heard or read in passing. The poetic meter determines the tempo-rhythm and emotional spirit of the work, so its importance is undeniable.
It would be nice if professional poets complicate their lives by determining the size of poems, after all, this is their duty, vocation and work. But the task of determining the size of a poem becomes even for schoolchildren, because understanding the poetic meter is important for every educated person. Moreover, learning to determine the poetic size of the text is not so difficult, especially if you choose your favorite poem, beautiful and close in mood. However, it is possible to determine the meter of any poetic text, and we are ready to explain exactly how to do this.
What is poetic meter? Meters, sizes, feet
The poetic size is, in fact, the rhythmic form of the poem, that is, the structure of each specific rhymed text. Size, or rhythm - that's how poetry differs from prose. Therefore, it is not surprising that determining the size of a poem is important primarily for its analysis, classification, and even just understanding. But first you have to understand, or rather, find out what it consists of and what determines the poetic size:
- Number of syllables- usually equal in each line. A stressed syllable is called strong, and a stressed syllable is called weak. When the size of a poem is determined only by the number of syllables, without taking into account stress, then the poetic form is called syllabic. Often it underlies classical Italian, Ukrainian, Russian poetry.
- Number of strokes, the same in each line of the poem, and it is the stressed syllables that are taken into account, while the unstressed ones are not of fundamental importance for determining the size of the verse. This poetic form is called tonic, or accent, and the works of Vladimir Mayakovsky can serve as its typical example.
- Foot- a combination of several syllables, one of which is stressed, the rest are unstressed. One foot is a unit of measure for poetic meter. To determine the size of a verse, the number of feet in each line is counted, and thus the poem is called five-, six-, eight-foot, etc.
- Syllabo metric- counting and accounting for both syllables and stresses, but not only and not so much their total number, but a combination of long and short, stressed and unstressed syllables, their combination with each other. Accordingly, this system of versification is called syllabic-metric.
- Caesura- this is a pause, which in a poem can only be in a place of a certain size, but at the same time separates not only rhythmic, but also semantic parts. A caesura is necessary for the perception of a rhyming text, otherwise there will be neither breath for reading, nor hearing for a long monotonous, continuous line.
What are the meter sizes? Iambic, trochee, dactyl, anapaest
Before you determine the poetic size, you need to figure out exactly what sizes of poems exist - otherwise what are we going to determine? Since the role of the foot in meter is now clear, it remains to determine how the number and variety of feet affects meter, and what each of them is called:
- Yamb- one of the main poetic meters. The iambic foot consists of two syllables: unstressed and stressed (in other words: weak and strong, short and long). The most common is iambic tetrameter, in which the stress falls on every second, fourth, sixth and eighth syllable of each line. Typical example iambic tetrameter: “My ya ya sa we are X Che natural right pitchfork."
- Chorey is another common size. It is also two-syllable, only with the top of the chorea first comes the stressed (strong, long) syllable, followed by the unstressed (weak, short). The four- and six-foot trochees are more common than the five-foot ones. A typical example of chorea: " Boo rya haze Yu not bo cro em."
- Dactyl- the three-syllable size of the verse, that is, its foot consists of three syllables: the first stressed and two subsequent unstressed. Using dactyl is more difficult than disyllabic meters, so dactyl lines rarely exceed three or four feet in length. A typical example of a four-foot dactyl: " That glasses are not be sleepy, ve with tra niki.
- Anapaest- poetic size, as if mirroring the dactyl, that is, of the three syllables of his foot, the first two do not have stress, and the stress falls on the last syllable. Silver Age poets often used the anapaest, so a typical example of it can be easily found in the poem by Alexander Blok: “Learn Yu you, zhi zn! Prini ma Yu! At wet I swear zvo nom cabbage soup that!».
- Amphibrachius- a three-syllable poetic meter, in the foot of which a strong (stressed) syllable is surrounded on both sides by weak (unstressed) ones. Quite complex, and therefore infrequently encountered size. A typical example of amphibrach: "There are same poverty in RU sskih ce le nyah."
How exactly do you determine the meter of a passage?
The analysis of a poem implies a complete, comprehensive examination of the text, necessarily including the definition of poetic size and meter. You can learn how to determine the size of a verse yourself if you take the above information as a basis and use the scheme for metrical analysis of a poem:
- Read aloud a poem requiring analysis. Do not pay attention to the meaning of the words, but try to emphasize accents and pauses clearly and distinctly. Listen to the rhythm of the voice. As an example, let's take Marina Tsvetaeva's poem "Grandmother".
- Write down the poem or its fragment for analysis line by line, from a new line. Leave enough space between lines on the page to make room for notes.
- Highlight (underline or mark) all stressed syllables in the text. This will be easy since you have already heard them while reading aloud. In our version it looks like this:
Pro for a long time wa ty and you redy o shaft,
Cher foot pla tya rast RU would…
YU naya ba bushka! Who whole shaftWa shea over men nye gu would?
- Count the number of unstressed syllables that fit between the stressed ones. As you remember, iambic and trochee are two-syllable poetic meters, and dactyl, amphibrach and anapaest are three-syllable.
- In our case, the line and foot begin with a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones. From this we conclude that Marina Tsvetaeva's poem "Grandmother" was written in dactyl, which is not surprising, given the sympathy of the poets of the Silver Age for three-syllable meters.
- The number of stops is determined by the number of stressed syllables in a line. In most poems, it is the same in every line, but in our case, the poetic form turned out to be more complicated. We can say that each odd line is written in four-foot dactyl, and each even line is written in three-foot.
The orderliness of poetic speech, the logic of its sound rhythm - this is the key to determining the size of the verse. Of course, in poetic texts there are exceptions, but they only confirm the rules and should not confuse you. If in doubt, do not be too lazy to write down the poem and number all its syllables. Put the numbers simply in order, without missing a single vowel. Then mark the numbers that will fall on the stressed vowels. If they are all even, that is, 2/4/6/8, then we have, without a doubt, iambic. If all strong syllables are under odd numbers - 1/3/5/7 - then the poem is a chorea. Three-syllable feet are determined according to the same principle: 1/4/7/10 for dactyl, 3/6/9/12 for anapaest and 2/5/8/11 for amphibrach.
Let this poem analysis scheme and a small cheat sheet always help you determine the poetic size of the text. And if one or more syllables at the end of the line get out of the picture, then this nuance should not confuse you. Moreover, this phenomenon, called pyrrhic, or missed stress, does not violate the composition of the verse and is simply not taken into account when determining the poetic size. Practice on familiar and new, classic and modern, simple and complex poems, and soon learn to quickly identify any meter.
Before describing specific definitions (they say, amphibrach is ... etc.), one should understand what versification is. Usually, it is understood as the principles of organizing poetic speech into one rhythmic whole. Literary critics share the metric and accent systems, and the first, represented by ancient works, Russian folk verses, is more ancient. Accent versification is subdivided, in turn, into tonic, syllabic and syllabic-tonic systems.
The poet's appeal to one of them is dictated by the peculiarities of his language. For syllabic versification, the number of syllables is important, for tonic - stress. That is why syllabic versification is common in national literatures that use a language with a fixed accent. These include Polish, French. Russian and Ukrainian literature also knows examples of syllabic versification, but, for obvious reasons, it did not take root here. For syllabo-tonic versification (namely, it is most inherent in Russian poetry), the number of stressed and unstressed syllables is important; the scheme of their alternation is called poetic size. It is two-syllable and three-syllable. The first group includes iambic and trochee, the second - dactyl, amphibrach, anapaest.
Yamb
As M. Gasparov testified, about half of all poetic texts of the second half of the 19th century account for this meter. In iambic, the foot (combination of stressed and unstressed components) consists of two syllables. The first is unstressed, the second is stressed (for example: “Again I am standing over the Neva ...”). In the most common was iambic 6-foot. It was used mainly in the so-called high genres - odes or messages. Subsequently, the 6-foot, as well as the free iambic amphibrachs and other trisyllabic sizes will completely replace.
Chorey
In this case, the first syllable of a two-syllable foot is stressed (for example, the familiar lines from children's poetry "My cheerful sonorous ball"). Especially often in the poetry of the past and the century before last, there is a 5-foot trochee.
Dactyl
Let's move on to triads. These include, as already mentioned, dactyl, amphibrach, anapaest. The first measure from this list begins with a stressed syllable, while the other two remain unmarked. An example of a dactyl is a line from Lermontov's poetry: "Heavenly clouds, eternal wanderers ..."
Amphibrachium is...
The stressed syllable may not be at the beginning, but in the middle of a three-syllable foot. Such a rhythmic organization of the line clearly indicates that we have an amphibrach in front of us. It was he who wrote the famous "He will stop a galloping horse ...", which is almost the official anthem of all Russian women.
Anapaest
Finally, the stress may fall on the last, third syllable, then we are dealing with an anapaest. It is clearly manifested, for example, in the lines: “It sounded over a clear river ...” Anapaest, amphibrach and dactyl were especially widespread in poetic texts of the century before last. As M. Gasparov points out, initially they were 4-foot, but then they were replaced by a variant with three feet.
If you need to indicate the poetic size in accordance with the assignment, do not take it at random to determine whether it is an amphibrach or, perhaps, a trochee. Or even Russian folk verse. To begin with, we advise you to read the text aloud, not paying much attention to the meaning of what is written, but simply minting each phrase. It's like you're knocking out a fraction. After that, write down the line, designate the shock sections, draw a diagram of the versification system - and the task is completed.
However, not all so simple. The poem may contain stops consisting entirely of stressed (spondei) or unstressed (pyrrhic) syllables. Initially, these terms were applied to ancient poetry. In relation to the syllabic-tonic system, they simply denote the omission (or presence) of stress where it should not be. In addition, the text can be written in dolnik. This means that there is a rhythmic organization in it, but the intervals between different syllables are not constant. A vivid example of this is Blok's lines: "The girl sang in the church choir ..."
In the poetry of the twentieth century, the form of accent verse was also used (already mentioned by Blok, Mayakovsky). It differs by an equal number of stressed syllables and has a different number of unstressed components. That is, in fact, accent verse is the embodiment of the tonic system of versification in modern literature. There are also more exotic cases - a combination of one stressed and three unstressed syllables (the so-called peon). He wrote the famous lines: "Do not think about seconds down ..." It is also necessary to remember the poetic experiments of the futurists, which ran counter to any theoretical ideas.
Finally, the poem may be generally white. This means that it has no rhyme, but the rhythmic organization is still present. So white anapaest or white iambic exist in nature.
