Topic summary
Quantitative Verse
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Metre (poetry).
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 found in Old English, Middle English, and some modern English poems can be added to this list, as it operates on somewhat different principles than accentual verse. Alliterative verse pairs two phrases (half-lines) joined by alliteration; while there are usually two stresses per half-line, variations in the number of stresses do occur. 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). The use of foreign metres in English is all but exceptional.