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Accentual verse has a fixed number of stresses per line regardless of the number of syllables that are present. It is common in languages that are stress-timed, such as
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, as opposed to syllabic verse which is common in
syllable-timed language Isochrony is the postulated rhythmic division of time into equal portions by a language. Rhythm is an aspect of prosody, others being intonation, stress, and tempo of speech. Three alternative ways in which a language can divide time are postul ...
s, such as French.


Children's poetry

Accentual verse is particularly common in children's poetry;
nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From t ...
s and the less well-known
skipping-rope rhyme A skipping rhyme (occasionally skipping-rope rhyme or jump-rope rhyme), is a rhyme chanted by children while skipping. Such rhymes have been recorded in all cultures where skipping is played. Examples of English-language rhymes have been found ...
s are the most common form of accentual verse in the English Language. The following poem, "Baa Baa Black Sheep," has two stresses in each line but a varying number of syllables. Bold represents stressed syllables, and the number of syllables in each line is noted. Baa, baa, black sheep, (4) Have you any wool? (5) Yes sir, yes sir, (4) Three bags full; (3) One for the mas-ter, (5) And one for the dame, (5) And one for the lit-tle boy (7) Who lives down the lane. (5) Accentual verse derives its musical qualities from its flexibility with unstressed syllables and tends to follow the natural speech patterns of English.


History


English

Accentual verse was a traditionally common prosody in Germany, Scandinavia, Iceland and Britain. Accentual verse has been widespread in English poetry since its earliest recording, with
Old English poetry Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work ''Cædmo ...
written in a special form of accentual verse termed
alliterative verse In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...
, of which ''
Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The ...
'' is a notable example. Anglo-Saxon poetry generally added two further basic elements to the basic four-beat accentual verse pattern:
alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...
of three of the four beats, and a medial pause (
caesura image:Music-caesura.svg, 300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for "cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a Metre (poetry), metrical pause or break in a Verse (poetry), ...
).Accentual verse
,
Dana Gioia Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the literary movements within American poetry known as New Forma ...
Anglo-Saxon poets made frequent use of
epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...
s to achieve the desired alliteration, and had various other more complex rules and forms, though these have not been as popular in later poetry. Accentual verse lost its dominant position in English poetry following the
Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...
when French forms, with their syllabic emphasis, gained prominence. Accentual verse continued in common use in all forms of
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
poetry until the codification of accentual-syllabic verse in Elizabethan poetry; thereafter it largely vanished from literary poetry for three hundred years while remaining popular in folk poetry. A notable example from this period is
William Langland William Langland (; la, Willielmus de Langland; 1332 – c. 1386) is the presumed author of a work of Middle English alliterative verse generally known as ''Piers Plowman'', an allegory with a complex variety of religious themes. The poem tr ...
's ''
Piers Ploughman ''Piers Plowman'' (written 1370–86; possibly ) or ''Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman'' (''William's Vision of Piers Plowman'') is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in un- rhymed, alliterative ...
,'' here retaining the alliteration: :I loked on my left half , , as þe lady me taughte :And was war of a woman , , worþeli ycloþed. ::I looked on my left side , , as the lady me taught ::and was aware of a woman , , worthily clothed. A well-known source for accentual verse from the post-Elizabethan period is ''
Mother Goose's Melody The figure of Mother Goose is the imaginary author of a collection of French fairy tales and later of English nursery rhymes. As a character, she appeared in a song, the first stanza of which often functions now as a nursery rhyme. This, howeve ...
'' (1765). Accentual verse experienced a revival in the 19th century with the development ("discovery") of
sprung rhythm Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables. The British poet Gerard Manle ...
by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Although Hopkins' example was not widely adopted in literary circles, accentual verse did catch on, with some poets flirting with the form, and later poets more strictly following it. A modern codification was given by
Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...
in 1921, in his '' Bridges' Prosody of Accentual Verse'' section of '' Milton's Prosody.'' Modern literary use includes
W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
, and it has notably been advanced by
Dana Gioia Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the literary movements within American poetry known as New Forma ...
. Outside of children's poetry and literary poetry, accentual verse remains popular in verse composed for oral presentation, such as
cowboy poetry Cowboy poetry is a form of poetry that grew from a tradition of cowboys telling stories. Authorship Contrary to common belief, cowboy poetry does not actually have to be written by cowboys, though adherents would claim that authors should have so ...
and
rap Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
.


Prosody of Accentual Verse in English

In modern literary use, in addition to the detailed codification given in '' Bridges' Prosody of Accentual Verse,'' three basic rules are followed: # Four stresses per line; # A medial pause, with two stress on each side; # Generally, three of the four stresses alliterate. Some variations and other subtleties are found: * Rather than a triple alliteration in a line, having two pairs of double alliterations on either side of the pause, or only having a single double alliteration, with one alliterating stress on each side of the pause. * Alliteration falls on the (first) ''stressed'' syllable of a word, not the first syllable of the word. * Minor stresses are often eliminated to reduce ambiguity. * While individual lines may have a regular syllabic structure, this is not kept constant over the poem – only the stress pattern is consistent – as otherwise the poem becomes
accentual-syllabic verse Accentual-syllabic verse is an extension of accentual verse which fixes both the number of stresses and syllables within a line or stanza. Accentual-syllabic verse is highly regular and therefore easily scannable. Usually, either one metrical foot, ...
.


Special forms

A number of stricter forms of accentual verse exist, including: *
Accentual-syllabic verse Accentual-syllabic verse is an extension of accentual verse which fixes both the number of stresses and syllables within a line or stanza. Accentual-syllabic verse is highly regular and therefore easily scannable. Usually, either one metrical foot, ...
is an extension of accentual verse that also fixes the syllables. *
Sprung rhythm Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables. The British poet Gerard Manle ...
, where the stressed syllable begins the foot.


Polish

In Polish literature, as in French one, syllabic verse is dominant. Accentual verse was introduced into Polish poetry in 20th century.
Jan Kasprowicz Jan Kasprowicz (12 December 1860 – 1 August 1926) was a poet, playwright, critic and translator; a foremost representative of Young Poland. Biography Kasprowicz was born in the village of Szymborze (now part of Inowrocław) within the Prov ...
was the first poet to use accentual verse in his book ''Księga ubogich'' (''The Book of the Poor'') that was published in 1916. He used lines with three stresses. :Rzadko na moich wargach - :Niech dziś to warga ma wyzna - :Jawi się krwią przepojony, :Najdroższy wyraz: Ojczyzna. ::(Jan Kasprowicz, Rzadko na moich wargach) The poet wrote, that the word dearest to him, "mother-country", is on his lips very rarely. The scansion is: :' x x ' x ' x :x ' x ' x x ' x :' x x ' x x ' x :x ' x ' x x ' x This pattern became the most popular. There is also six-stress pattern. This was used among others by
Julian Tuwim Julian Tuwim (13 September 1894 – 27 December 1953), known also under the pseudonym "Oldlen" as a lyricist, was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, then part of the Russian Partition. He was educated in Łódź and in Warsaw where he studied la ...
.Wiktor Jarosław Darasz, Mały przewodnik po wierszu polskim, Kraków 2003, p. 108, 116.


See also

*'' Milton's Prosody''


References

{{reflist


External links


A Beginner's Guide to Prosody: Part IV (Anglo-Saxon Accentual Meter)
Tina Blue, November 24, 2000 Poetic rhythm