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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, as opposed to syllabic verse which is common in syllable-timed languages, 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 other European 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. Fr ...
s and the less well-known skipping-rope rhymes 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 This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including the Republic of Ireland after December 1922. The earl ...
since its earliest recording, with
Old English poetry Old English literature refers to poetry (alliterative verse) and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman conquest of England, Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed A ...
written in a special form of accentual verse termed
alliterative verse In meter (poetry), prosody, alliterative verse is a form of poetry, verse that uses alliteration as the principal device to indicate the underlying Metre (poetry), metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly s ...
, of which ''
Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translat ...
'' 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 repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Pe ...
of three of the four beats, and a medial pause (
caesura 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 metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase beg ...
).Accentual verse
, Dana Gioia
Anglo-Saxon poets made frequent use of
epithet An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...
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, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
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 pe ...
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 (; ; ) 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 translated the language and concepts of the cl ...
'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'' (1765). Accentual verse experienced a revival in the 19th century with the development ("discovery") of sprung rhythm by
Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Society of Jesus, Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His Prosody (linguistics), prosody – notably his concept of sprung ...
. 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 in 1921, in his '' Bridges' Prosody of Accentual Verse'' section of '' Milton's Prosody.'' Modern literary use includes W. H. Auden, and it has notably been advanced by Dana Gioia. Outside of children's poetry and literary poetry, accentual verse remains popular in verse composed for oral presentation, such as cowboy poetry and rap.


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.


Special forms

A number of stricter forms of accentual verse exist, including: * Accentual-syllabic verse is an extension of accentual verse that also fixes the syllables. * Sprung rhythm, 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 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.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