Language of poetry

The first substyle is verse. Its first differentiating property is its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactical and semantic peculiarities which also fall into a more or less strict orderly arrangement. Rhythm and rhyme are immediately distinguishable properties of the poetic substyle provided they are wrought into compositional patterns. They can be called the external differentiating features of the substyle, typical only of this one variety of the belles-lettres style. The various compositional forms of rhyme and rhythm are generally studied under the terms versification or prosody.

The external properties or features of the poetic substyle.

a) Compositional Patterns of Rhythmical Arrangement
Metre and Line

In versethe most observable and widely recognized compositional patterns of rhythm making up сlassical verse are based on:

1) alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables,

2) equilinearity, that is, an equal number of syllables in the lines,

3) a natural pause at the end of the line,

4) identity of stanza pattern,

5) established patterns of rhyming.

There are the most recognizable English metrical patterns.

There are five of them:

1. Iambic metre, in which the unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one. It is graphically represented thus:

2. Trochaic metre, where the order is reversed, i.e. a stressed syllable is followed by one unstressed

3. D а с t у l i с m e t r e —one stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed.

4. Amphibrach i с m e t r e —one stressed syllable is framed by two unstressed. The arrangements of qualitatively different syllables are the units of the metre, the repetition of which makes verse. One unit is called a foot. The number of feet in a line varies, but it has its limit; it rarely exceeds eight.

If the line consists of only one foot it is called a monometer; a line consisting of two feet is a dimeter three — trimeter; four — tetrameter; five – pentameter; six – hexameter; seven – septameter; eight – octameter.

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