Versification and Poetic Syntax

An analysis of stressed and unstressed syllables (the

action or art of scanning a line to determine its division into metrical feet) is know as ___________

The repetition of speech sounds—vowels or, more usually, consonants—

in a sequence of nearby words is known as:

• Assonance

• Alliteration

• Onamatopoeia

• Nonsense

A stressed followed by an unstressed syllable is known as what meter?

• Iambic

• Dactylic

• Trochaic

• Anapestic

Monometer (each line a solitary foot) can be seen in these poems:

• Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress"

• Herrick's "Upon his Departure Hence"

• e.e. cummings' "Untitled"

• Herbert's "Easter Wings"

Robert Frost was the first poet to speak at the inauguration of a president, reciting from memory “The Gift Outright,” when the glare of the sun prevented him from reading “Dedication,” a poem he had written specially for the occasion. This caused him to recite it with a more colloquial and less emphatic scansion.

Which American president's inaugural was it?

• Abraham Lincoln

• George Bush

• John F. Kennedy

• Lyndon B. Johnson

Run-on lines (to use

a French term, ____________—"a striding over"), carry over the

thrust of the incomplete sentence beyond the end of the verse line.

Such transitions tend to increase the pace of the poem, causing us to run on to the next verse.

Most Greek, Sanskrit, and later

Latin poetry uses ___________ meter, based on quantity and duration.

• Syllabic

• Quantitative

Unrhymed iambic pentameter as used by Shakespeare, is called _____ _____

The abababcc rhymed Ottava rima was introduced to England by this same poet who introduced the Petrarchan sonnet:

• Gerard Manley Hopkins

• Philip Sidney

• William Shakespeare

• Thomas Wyatt