Poetry Meter and Foot

Herrlster · #1 01-21-2008, 04:04 PM

There's GOTTA be some english wizards around here. I'm desperate, my teacher REFUSES to help me before exams.

I was away from school for pretty well a month (personal situation) and during that time, my english class learned about Poetry, sonnets, ballads, meters, feet, etc.

I tried catching up on notes but students don't really have good notes, I asked my teacher for help and she said it's not her responsibility. Which is true I guess, what teacher wants to reteach a unit to one student.

So now I'm here, I need help, my exams are in a week!

Would somebody explain meters and feet, all that iambic, tetrameter stuff?

Baryonyx · #2 01-21-2008, 04:08 PM

I'm a law student, I'm afraid I can't help you there!

morf · #3 01-21-2008, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Herrlster

I asked my teacher for help and she said it's not her responsibility. Which is true I guess, what teacher wants to reteach a unit to one student.

A decent one?

Here you go:

http://library.thinkquest.org/3721/p...rms/learn.html

skaliwag66 · #4 01-21-2008, 04:29 PM

this is hard lemme see if i can remember.

feet are combinations of long and short syllables.

ex: iamb: short LONG

meters are based on how many feet are in a line

below is an example of an iambic pentameter, meaning it has 5 sets of iambs.

to STRIVE| to SEEK| to FIND| and NOT| to YIELD|

there are other types of feet like:

anapaest: short short LONG

dactyl: LONG short short

trochee: LONG short

spondee: LONG LONG

Meters (that i know of)

diameter (2 feet)
trimeter (3)
tetrameter (4)
pentameter (5)
hexameter (6)
heptameter (7)
octameter (8)

Chunk-O-Funk · #5 01-22-2008, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Herrlster

There's GOTTA be some english wizards around here. I'm desperate, my teacher REFUSES to help me before exams.

I was away from school for pretty well a month (personal situation) and during that time, my english class learned about Poetry, sonnets, ballads, meters, feet, etc.

I tried catching up on notes but students don't really have good notes, I asked my teacher for help and she said it's not her responsibility. Which is true I guess, what teacher wants to reteach a unit to one student.

So now I'm here, I need help, my exams are in a week!

Would somebody explain meters and feet, all that iambic, tetrameter stuff?

www.google.com

MakiSupaStar · #6 01-22-2008, 11:37 AM

I was an english major in school. A meter equals 39.37 inches. So that would be 3 foot 3.37 inches.

morf · #7 01-22-2008, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

I was an english major in school. A meter equals 39.37 inches. So that would be 3 foot 3.37 inches.

Wow. An american who can convert metrics to whatever the heck you guys call your weird measurement system.

Incredible

disenchant · #8 01-22-2008, 12:30 PM

It totally IS your teacher's responsibility to see that each and every student learns. And if you were absent, it's her responsibility to give you the information to learn on your own, and then answer any questions you might have. I hate it when teachers say it's NOT their responsibility. It's their whole job to teach!

However, it is not anyone's job to spoon-feed you the info, so I guess it's time for your own intellectual curiosity to ripen. To say "explain everything to me" would take just as long as your teacher took to explain it to her class. If you came up to me in person and said that, I'd say of course I'll explain it to you for $25 an hour.

My suggestion is to go online and look up the definition to each word you "don't get." And keep looking up definitions until you find one you understand. There are lots of definitions and examples online. Don't you have a textbook as well?

Once you have the words defined, then maybe come back here with a specific question and I'm sure one of the English majors here will be happy to answer one or two specific questions.

Good luck!

MakiSupaStar · #9 01-22-2008, 12:34 PM

Seriously dude. Look it up on the internet. You'll get better info than asking a bunch of bass players.

Mr. Pickles · #10 01-22-2008, 12:35 PM

Think of the stressed (long syllables) as the downbeat on the kick drum and the short ones as the snare hits!

Poe's "The Raven"
Once upon a midnight dreary, While I pondered, weak and weary

Using the kick/snare analogy, it would sound like this:
DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah

Each pair (DUM pah) is a foot known as a Trochee
Therefore, since there are 8 pairs of trochees in each line of the poem, it can be called Trochaic Octameter.

skaliwag66 · #11 01-22-2008, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Pickles

Think of the stressed (long syllables) as the downbeat on the kick drum and the short ones as the snare hits!

Poe's "The Raven"
Once upon a midnight dreary
While I pondered weak and weary

Using the kick/snare analogy, it would sound like this:
DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah
DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah DUM pah

Each pair (DUM pah) is a foot known as a Trochee
Therefore, since there are 4 pairs of trochees in each line of the poem, it can be called Trochaic Pentameter.

Man, was Edgar in the pocket when he wrote that.

caligula · #12 01-22-2008, 12:44 PM

Do some intensive online research and write the stuff down. That works pretty good for me. I try to define things in my own words based on what I read.
Even better, get your hands on a good book, better than wikipedia (which nevertheless might be ok sometimes).

I'm far from being an English wizard, but here's my 2 cents.

feet - a particular sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables:
iamb - unstressed + stressed
trochee - stressed + unstressed
spondee - two stressed
dactyl - stressed + two unstressed
anapest - two unstressed + stressed

The most frequent numbers of feet are called:
trimeter (3)
tetrameter (4)
pentameter (5)
hexameter (6)

I just took this from a university book "English and American Literatures", M. Meyer.
A reliable source.

ups...skaliwag66 was faster, or do I say - "beat me on that."

Herrlster · #13 01-22-2008, 02:03 PM

Okay, I understand some of that stuff. But I don't get how to tell which words/part of words are stressed and unstressed.

dancehallclasher · #14 01-22-2008, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Herrlster

Okay, I understand some of that stuff. But I don't get how to tell which words/part of words are stressed and unstressed.

try saying it every possible way. Which sounds best?

TOmorrow
toMORrow
tomorROW

what do you think?

Pilgrim · #15 01-22-2008, 04:57 PM

As an instructor myself, although I would at least provide some directed readings (and I find her response unnecessarily harsh), I wonder why you're asking on Talkbass instead of doing Internet homework.

There are many, many Internet sites which can explain what you need. The responsibility the teacher has placed on you to figure out how to research them is really nothing more than telling you to do homework.

I'm not trying to be mean, but I am pointing out that coming here with that question is asking others to do the work for you.