Anapestic observations

[semperfiona]

Yesterday, in the process of writing my sonnet, I did a little research on meter in poetry. I'd forgotten the names and character of the various metrical forms.

Iamb: daDAH
Trochee: DAHda
Spondee: DAH-DAH
Pyrrhic: da-da
Anapest: dadaDAH
Dactyl: DAHdada (as followers of my journal already knew ;-) )

The interesting part is that I was reading Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat Comes Back to Rosa last night, and I noticed that it is very strongly anapestic--"oh my MY no no NO...said the CAT as he SAT..." etc.--though he also breaks the meter occasionally for variety or emphasis. I'm feeling an urge to play with that meter in a Seussian poem sometime soon.

I also observe that the word "anapest" is itself a dactyl, amusingly enough since the meter is exactly reversed. And "iamb" is a trochee, likewise reversed.

Comments

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Coleridge's 'Metrical Experiments' is worth a look.

My favourite anapestic poem is Swinburne's Nephelidia, which says nothing whatsoever, but says it passing well :)

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I was taught at school to pronounce all of those so that the stress matched the metre they were describing (anaPEST rather than ANapest and iAMB rather than Iamb). You have to turn dactyl into dactylos to make it work, but it makes for an extremely neat aide-memoire. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard anapest and iamb pronounced any other way.

[semperfiona]

Interesting...that disagrees with the pronunciation guides at dictionary.com but certainly makes much more sense. I can't say I've heard any of the words pronounced at all in many years (since high school English, anyway), so I don't remember what I have heard.