1.
Step: The special combination of stressed syllables and unstressed syllables in English poetry is called step.
The number of syllables in a step can be two or three syllables, but not less than two or more than three syllables, and only one syllable can be stressed. Analyzing the meter of English poetry is to divide its sentences into steps and distinguish what kind of steps and steps. This process is called scanning.
For example, the poem "From the most beautiful creature, we are eager to increase" becomes like this, if it is divided into steps:
From failure to reinvention-what we want-I don't know.
The "-"above indicates that it is preceded by a light syllable, while the "*" indicates that it is preceded by a stressed syllable. So we can see that the above sentence * * * has five steps, and each step is composed of two syllables. Read it lightly and then stress it. Such syllables are called iambic. Quite a bit of the "plain" taste of Tang poetry, but it is essentially different. We also see that a step is not necessarily equal to a word.
According to the number of steps, one step per line is called "single step"; Each line of poetry has two steps, called "Dimit"; Three steps, called "three measures"; In addition, there are four tones, five tones, five tones, six tones, seven tones and eight tones.
2.
Rhythm: Rhythm refers to the rhythm or law of the length of a step when reading aloud, which should be distinguished according to the number of syllables contained in the step and the position of stressed syllables. Traditional English poetry has six steps. Namely:
Iambus (iambus)
Lozenges; Long and short lattice
Ana pest (Ana pest)
Finger; dactyl
Short and long grids; Suppress and suppress.
Finger; dactyl
"Suppression" is a light syllable and "Yang" is a stressed syllable. "Yang Yi" means that a foot has two syllables, the first syllable is stressed and the second syllable is lightly read. Similarly, "iambic iambic" means that a foot has three syllables, the first syllable is stressed, the middle is lightly read, and then stressed.
3.
The rhyme of English poetry: The rhyme of English poetry is more complicated in form than that of China's ancient metrical poems.
3. 1
As far as rhyming words are concerned, firstly, consonants can also rhyme (contrast: Chinese can only rhyme according to vowels. Secondly, rhyming syllables can be selected at the beginning, middle and end of a word (contrast: each Chinese character has only one syllable). The most common are:
Alliteration: refers to the repetition of the initial letters of words, such as great and grey.
Harmony: refers to the repetition of stressed vowels in words, such as great and fail；;
Rhyme: refers to the repetition of letters at the end of words, such as great and bait.
3.2
And a line of poetry may also have a variety of rhyming forms at the same time, such as:
The light in a woman's eyes.
There are alliterations of light and lies, homophones of light, lies and eyes, and endings of lies and eyes.
3.3
The rhyming format between lines of English poetry is called rhyming format. Common rhymes include two-line rhyme (AABB), alternating rhyme (ABCB), alternating rhyme (ABAB) and alternating rhyme (ABBA).
For example, these four lines:
From the most beautiful creatures, we are eager to increase,
So beautiful roses may never die,
But as time goes by,
His gentle heir may remember him:
That is, abab rhyming format, which is broken down as follows:
From the most beautiful creatures, we are eager to increase,
So a beautiful rose may never be d (i.e. =b),
But when the mature person should arrive at time dec(ease=a),
His gentle heir may bring his memo (ry=b):
4.
The composition of English poetry will also be limited by form, such as the sonnets:
Shanglai's poems must follow the form of sonnets, pentameter and iambic pentameter. That is, there are fourteen lines in the poem, with five steps in each line, and the rhythm of the steps is iambic.
This form first appeared in Italy, and was introduced to Britain in the16th century, which was favored by Elizabethan literati. Poets such as Shakespeare, Spencer and Sydney have written many famous sonnets. In the eighteenth century, sonnets were once again ignored. Later, Romantic poets Keats and Wordsworth revived.
There are two types of poems in English: Italian style and Shakespeare style (or English style).
4. 1 Italian style:
Written by Italian poet Petrarch, the whole poem is divided into two parts: the first part, octave, consists of two quatrains, rhyming with abbaabba；; The second part has six lines, and rhyme feet can have different forms. Strict Italian sonnets, the first eight lines end, the poem will come to an end, and the last six lines will be converted into new poems.
4.2 Shakespeare style:
The whole poem is also divided into two parts: the first part consists of three four-line poems, and the rhyme can be carried out alternately. The second part is two lines of poetry. It's a double-line poem with a rhyme at the end. The rhyme of the whole poem is ababcdcdefefgg's artistic conception in Shakespeare-style poetry, which is the climax of the whole poem until the last double-line poem.
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