ENGL 311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Old English Literature, English Poetry, Free Verse

• School: McGill University
• Department: English
• Course: ENGL 311
• Professor: Ashley Girty

Document Summary

Topic for essay 1 posted on mycourses. Interprete the poem using things that we are discussing in class, formal elements of poetry (rhyme, rhythm, metre ) Find poetic examples within (trochee, anapaest rhyme scheme) Accentual-syllabic (most dominant metre in english poetry since chaucer) Alliterative metre: metre of dramatic languages [old english and other germanic languages], unrhymed verse in which each line has four accents can be associated with speaking to a drum. Organizing principle is alliteration (rather than rhyme). In a perfect line of alliterative metre, lines 1, 2, and 3 would all alliterate. Syllabic metre: dominant metre of french and romantic languages, what matters is the number of syllables in a line, no regard for accents. If a poem scans horribly, often means that a different kind of metre is being used (ex. free verse, syllanbic ) Quantitate metre: length of the vowels matter, long vowels. Alliteration helps to nd the accented syllables.