Heroic couplets are a style of English classical poetry, which was initiated by Chaucer. It evolved from a ten-syllable rhyme poem, with five steps in each line, and each step has two syllables, the first is light tone, and the second is stress. Sentence patterns are balanced, neat, accurate, concise and elegant. Take the rhyme pattern of quatrains as an example. There are abab, ABAB, abba, aabb, aaab. The fourth type (aabb type) is actually a double-line rhyme, which is called a couplet in English. If there are five steps in each line, it is called "League of Legends".
2 ft
The foot is the smallest rhythmic unit, which consists of different combinations of light syllables and heavy syllables, and appears in a poem according to certain rules. English writing is an accented syllable language, so there are two accented syllables, which are the decisive factors to form the unique cadence of English. This is one of the differences between English and English in pronunciation. French is a syllable language, there is no difference between syllables. The smallest unit of French rhythm is syllable, not foot. According to statistics, the steps of this group of light and heavy sounds in English poetry can be regarded as derived from these five steps. These five steps are: iambic, iambic, iambic, iambic and iambic, iambic and iambic.
As follows:
1. iambic foot (iambus), that is, a light sound or a short long sound: a light pronunciation followed by a stressed syllable constitutes an iambic. It is the most basic rhythm unit of English itself and the most important and commonly used step in English poetry.
Say a word casually, its basic step is iambic, for example: it's time for children to go to bed, Derunwen. This sentence has four iambic words. Keats' learn︱a poem︱ has three iambic steps. Sym︱ bolles used︱ in scan︱ Xiyong are ︱ The brew (ˇ) ︱ and the macro (ˋ). This sentence * * * has seven steps and five iambic. Some famous English poems are iambic, such as Yao Min style, sonnet, double rhyme style, elegy and so on.
Example poem: eagle: a fragment
He gripped the cliff with bent hands;
Close to the sun in a lonely land,
Surrounded by the blue world,
He is standing.
The wrinkled sea crawled under his feet:
He observed on the mountain wall,
He fell like a bolt from the blue.
2.trochaic foot (trochee), that is, light and heavy case or long and short case, consists of a stressed syllable followed by a light syllable.
For example, never, happy and heartless, Topsy-Tulvi William-Morris-taught him-English. -Can you-Listen to what humans can say? Another example is: double, double, hard work and trouble, fire, burns and cauldron, foam. -Shakespeare (6544
-Shakespeare's step did not appear until after16th century; After that, it is mainly used in combination with iambic verse and other poetic styles to change the rhythm of the whole poem, express the suddenness of action, or play an emphasis role. At the beginning of a sentence, the emphasis on the case often makes readers feel suddenly and appalled, which has a shocking effect. For example, in Mr. Tinny's poem The Eagle, the steps are mostly iambic, and the two iambic phrases "near" and "circling" in the second and third lines are even more famous, emphasizing the majestic posture of the eagle.
3. A light syllable followed by a heavy syllable. For example,
Interveners, we will go. I spent several years in wor︱king, Chi︱na. ︱
Poetry: a song dedicated to the Luddites
It's like Lib︱erty lads︱ on the sea︱.
Bought their free︱dom,
Cheap, ly and blood,
So we, boy,
we︱Will die︱ fighting,︱
Or live in Gree.
Along with︱
All kings︱
But King Luther! ︱
When we weave︱ is complete,︱ web︱.
Shut︱tle exchanged︱ stands for sword.
We will go to wind-ing sheet-fling.
Over des︱pot at︱, our feet,︱.
Dye︱ is the deep︱ of gore︱.
He has fallen. ︱Though black︱
As his heart︱, its hue,
Because his veins︱ are corr up, ted to mud,.
However, this is? Dew?
Tree︱ will renew︱.
Lib︱erty,
Lude's plant-ed! ︱
-george gordon byron (1788- 1824)- translated poems-Luddite songs.
The freedom of foreign countries has been exchanged for freedom with blood.
We, if we are not free, we will die!
Destroy all kings except our king Lourde!
When we were weaving, the shuttle was replaced by a sword.
I'm gonna throw this shroud at my husband,
Dye everything with his blood!
His blood is as black as his heart,
Blood vessels rot like dirt.
Take blood as dew,
Water Luther's cultivation-our tree of freedom!
-Byron Byron 18 16 wrote this battle prose during his stay in Italy, expressing the poet's yearning for freedom and respect for the workers' struggle. It can be seen from the steps of the original text that this poem is mainly iambic. When reading at this speed, the tone has obvious ups and downs. There are two light syllables first, so that the heavy syllables at the back are naturally emphasized, as if they were surging, ups and downs, sad and angry voices, which complement the theme of this poem.
4.dactylic foot (dactyl) consists of one stressed syllable and two light syllables. This kind of step makes the tone sound like a command or a declaration, which is often used in proverbs, aphorisms and proverbs. For example, yesterday, happily, thoroughly, happily, the present proved that it was once, but only now. I thought it was in the morning. Performing at noon. Even at dinner .. People's Storms (Excerpts) Song Collection Ye Silently, Even As Snow Avalanche: Gathereye So on. Gatherye, that's right. ︱In the︱ calmly widened the day,︱Sternly and︱ glare; ︱Melt is not a way! -FLAKE was called by FLAKE; ︱Bind leaves the soul of the whole firm tog ether-one from and one! ︱Are you all gathered? ︱Welded in︱ number one? ︱Hark gave a thunderous cheer to the︱! ︱Now, push ye up! -william james Linton (1812-1899)-People's Assembly (excerpt) Let's quietly assemble the storm songs, like snowflakes, accumulating avalanches: gather! Just rally, in broad daylight, resolutely calm, but don't melt! One by one, the whole is closely United, forming a body and a soul! Have you got everything? Formed a whole? Listen to the thunder roar and roll it up bravely!
-William Linton Linton is a famous chartist poet, who has actively participated in chartist activities since 1838. For example, one of his famous political sedition poems was set to music and sung at a gathering of chartists. The first step of these lines is mostly to promote and suppress the style, which seems to be a call to show determination, stimulate the fighting spirit of workers and unite people. Form a thunderous force. This step enhances the persuasiveness and appeal of the poem. It is just right to say a poem with strong rationality to promote and suppress cases.
5. Spontaneous foot (spondee), consisting of two continuous syllables, expresses heavy, slow and difficult movements or emotions; It is also used to express sudden changes in feelings or to emphasize tone. This step is also mainly used with other steps, and there are few poems mainly yangko. For example, there are two lines in "Three People", and the Red Cross's haste makes waste. Alexander Popper's "criticism" can well explain the performance of continuous syllable reading: when a-jaxstreves-some rock's-vastwaight-to throw. -This line is also-laborious-these words-moving slowly. -When Ajax struggled to lift the ill-fated boulder and hit it, the poem became heavy and full of slow words. Pope's criticism is a neoclassical work of rhyming literary theory. Ajax refers to Ajax in Greek mythology. He is a brave soldier, burly and powerful, and a hero in the Trojan War. Different content needs different rhythms, which makes it laborious and slow. The "great weight" in the first line shows the weight of this boulder. The yangko in the second line is an example. * * * Eight words and nine syllables. There are six imperial syllables, all of which are notional words, which can better express the majestic style in the sentence. There are two homophonic steps in this line. Such poems can only be read slowly, and they can't be read quickly if they want to, because they can be read quickly only by reading syllables lightly for a long time. The next two lines of the same poem are examples of fast reading, describing the heroine "Scud" Camilla in the epic poem Aeneas by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In order to help me remember the above main steps, I recommend a jingle to readers: Iambics march from short long pulley rope changes from long to short. Slow spondee stems, strong feet, once came up with dactyl three syllables.
How to divide the steps?
First of all, we should have a preliminary understanding of the poem, at least understand the main idea of the poem, and read it aloud or actually or silently according to the understanding. Then we can divide stressed syllables into light syllables and sub-syllables if necessary. Finally, most of the steps can be found out and classified. Generally speaking, notional words (including nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc. ) should be stress and function words (including nouns, articles, prepositions, etc. ) it should be light reading. However, there are also many cases in which real words are ignored and function words are emphasized. Do not follow the fixed frame to remove the hard skin. For example, knowing that sonnets are mostly iambic, when we see sonnets, we divide the steps according to iambic, and even understand poetry and lang according to this stroke, which puts the cart before the horse, because there will be many changes in practical application. For example, in Shakespeare's sonnetNo. 1 16, there are two ups and downs in the first line, and two ups and downs are used to show resistance to the old system and diligence to the world: let me not admit my sincere marriage. One of the purposes of dividing the steps is to see what changes the poet has in a general rhythm. Generally speaking, the place where the rhythm changes is a more important or key place. In this way, when you read this poem again, you will have some new understandings and realize the poet's intention and the wonderful use of change. A poem rarely takes only one step, except for children's songs. Another thing to note is that not all real words are stressed, but all function words are lightly read. Considering the understanding and rhythm of poetry, individual substantive words can be divided into light syllables, and some function words can be divided into stressed syllables, which is not uncommon in daily spoken English. Even if you re-read very slowly, some people read very lightly and quickly. In this way, there is a difference between the so-called "primary stress" and "secondary stress". For example, the sentence I want to go to has two iambic words, want and go are stressed syllables. However, in actual reading, want is weaker than go and becomes a sub-stressed syllable. This sentence should be pronounced like this: I want to go. For another example, Burns's poem My Love is Like a Red Rose should be classified as: My love is like a red red rose. -like, originally a preposition, can be read more heavily here and become a secondary stress, and the second red also becomes a secondary syllable. The main rhythm of this line is iambic. The last iambic verse is Yangyang's song, which plays an important role. The secondary stress adds to the musical beauty of this iambic verse. In short, change in change is the law of all arts, and so is poetry. From the discussion of example poems in other chapters of this book, we can also see the different effects of various speed changes.