Meter: Meter is the quality of regular and conventional rhythm in poetic lines. Rhythm means any pattern, whether regular or not, and whether following any conventional pattern or not. But meter means standard conventional and regular pattern of rhythm. Metrics is the most important musical element in poetry. In its specific sense, metrics means the presence of conventional pattern of rhythm in a poem (also called meter). But in the general sense, metrics includes all rhythmic effects, and even rhyme and other musical elements of poetry. In English poetry, metrics is broadly a matter of stress or accents and pauses.
a) unstressed + stressed syllable (US) = iambic foot or iamb.
Eg: A lone, / a way / from greed / and filth / of towns /  (5 iambs)
       U   S   /   U   S /     U       S  /    U    S /      U      S  /
b) Stressed + Unstressed syllable (SU) = trochaic foot or trochee.
            Eg: Ti ger/ ti ger / bur ning/ bright –– /  (unstressed syllable dropped at the end; such a line is called a ‘catalectic’ line.)
c) U + U + S (UUS) = anapestic foot or anapest
Eg: To the ho/ nest and won/ derful peo/ ple in vil/ la/ ges there.
d) S + U + U (SUU) = dactylic foot or dactyl
Eg: Beau/ ti/ ful/ wo/ men/ are/ won der/ ful
Meter is based on stress, and stress can be of three different types. Poets follow normal or grammatical stress of ordinary speech. They also give emphatic or rhetorical stress to some syllables if they like to emphasize them. But there is the special poetic stress which has nothing to emphasize in special but is given only to make the rhythm more regular. (Eg: "Tyger, tyger burning bright/'In’ the forest ‘of’ the night". ‘In’ and ‘of’ must be given poetic stress to make the second line also trochaic in meter.) Poets also neutralize stress to regularize patterns.
            Poets rarely write a poem in the same metrical pattern from beginning to end. Except in nursery rhymes and religions songs, the same pattern from top to bottom can make the poem very boring (and monotonous). In good and serious poetry, poets play with variation in the rhythm. The common techniques of variation are:
   a) use of special feet for variation:
                        i) spondee (SS)  ii) pyhrric (UU)
   b) use of ellipsis:
                        i) omission of a stressed or unstressed syllable
            ii) insertion of a stressed or unstressed syllable.
  c) inversion of afoot, eg: using one iamb while using a pattern of trochee
We name units of meter according to their order and number of syllables. Similarly lines are also named as monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter lines, and so on, according to the number of feet they contain.
           
            Finally, rhyme is another important element of music in poetry. Rhyme is the similarity of sounds at the end of lines. In a proper rhyme, every sound after last stressed vowel must be the same. (Eg. see/tree, aspire/perspire, etc.). Rhyme can also be used to support meaning. Rhyme not only creates harmonious effects, but when it is improper, imperfect or deceptive (cheating), it can create ironic effects.

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