The ode less travelled: unlocking the poet within (12 page)

That’s a pretty clear pyrrhic in the second foot: no need to stress the ‘in’ and I reckon the rest of the line recovers its iambic tread, so five points to me.

Straight iambics, just two points for the hypermetric ending.

Five points for the initial trochee.

Five for the opening trochee (I think you’ll agree that it is ‘
why
can’t’, not ‘why
can’t
’) plus two for the weak ending.

Iambics: just two for the ending (it’s a bit like scoring for cribbage, this…)

Five for the pyrrhic and two for the ending. 7

High-scoring one here: five for the trochaic switch in the first foot, five for the pyrrhic in the fourth: plus two for the ending and two for the enjambment. The question is: does it still feel iambic with all those bells and whistles? My view is that it would if it were in the midst of more regular iambic lines, but since it is the first line of a stanza it is hard for the ear to know what is going on. A trochaic first foot allied to a weak ending gives an overall trochaic effect, especially when the middle is further vitiated by the slack syllables of the pyrrhic. Also, the end word ‘female’ is almost spondaic. So I shall
deduct
five for bad style.

A trochaic switch mid line for five points: since it follows a caesura the rest of the line picks up the iambic pulse adequately.

Trochaic of the first with pyrrhic of the fourth again. For some reason I don’t think this one misses its swing so much as the other, so I’ll only deduct three. Then again, perhaps it keeps its swing because it isn’t a real pyrrhic: hard not to give a push to the ‘is’ there, don’t we feel?

I make my score 106. I’m sure you could do better with your sixteen lines. To recap:

• 16 lines of iambic pentameter
  
• 5 points for trochaic and pyrrhic substitutions
  
• 2 points for enjambments
  
• 2 points for feminine endings
  

Be tough on yourself when marking. If, in a bid to make a high score, you have lost the underlying rising tread of the iambic pentameter, then deduct points with honesty. Have fun!

III

More Meters

Octameters–hexameters–heptameters–tetrameters–trimeters–dimeters–monometers

Why
five
feet to a line, why not four or six? Three or seven? Eight even.

Why not indeed. Here’s a list of the most likely possibilities:

1 Beat–Monometer

He
bangs

The
drum
.

2 Beats–Dimeter

His
drum
ming
noise

A
wakes
the
boys
.

3 Beats–Trimeter

His
drum
ming
makes
a
noise
,

And
wakes
the
sleep
ing
boys
.

4 Beats–Tetrameter

He
bangs
the
drum
and
makes
a
noise
,

It
shakes
the
roof
and
wakes
the
boys
.

5 Beats–Pentameter

He
bangs
the
drum
and
makes
a
dread
ful
noise
,

It
shakes
the
roof
and
wakes
the
sleep
ing
boys
.

6 Beats–Hexameter

He
bangs
the
drum
and
makes
the
most
ap
pall
ing
noise
,

It
shakes
the
ver
y
roof
and
wakes
the
sleep
ing
boys
.

7 Beats–Heptameter

He
bangs
the
wretch
ed
drum
and
makes
the
most
ap
pall
ing
noise
,

Its
rack
et
shakes
the
ver
y
roof
and
wakes
the
sleep
ing
boys
.

8 Beats–Octameter

He
starts
to
bang
the
wretch
ed
drum
and
make
the
most
ap
pall
ing
noise
,

Its
dread
ful
rack
et
shakes
the
ver
y
roof
and
wakes
the
sleep
ing
boys
.

I have hardly given more information in the octameter, heptameter, hexameter or pentameter than there is in the tetrameter–of course the boys are
sleeping
, you can’t wake someone who isn’t, and a
very
roof is still a roof. I have made up my own nonsense specifically to show the variation in feel when the sense or narrative is broadly the same and the number of feet marks the only real difference. Generally speaking, and I do mean very generally, the pentameter is used for ‘serious’ poetry, for contemplative, epic, heroic and dramatic verse. That doesn’t mean that the other measures can’t be. We will come to how we choose a particular form or line of verse later. At the moment we are more interested in discovering and defining terms than ascribing value or function to them. The technical difference is what concerns us, the stylistic difference is for a later section of the book.