Stress and Syllables
Do you know a syllable when you hear one? Say the word “Poetry”, slowly. How many syllables do you hear? If you said “three” then you probably understand what a syllable is. You don’t need a technical definition. It’s enough that you’re able to hear syllables.
Now say the word “Poetry” again. Which syllable do you put the most force on, say the loudest? If you answered “the first”, then you probably understand stress. You understand that the first syllable receives more emphasis than the second and third syllable. So, meaning these last two syllables are unstressed.
Listening for syllables and stress
Say the following words aloud, slowly. How many syllables does each word have? Which syllable in each word is stressed? Which syllable or syllables are unstressed? The stressed syllables are marked with the symbol (‘), the unstressed, with the symbol (ᵕ).
building
forget
book
relentlessly
objective
handy
exam
silently
Note: Try to look up on the dictionary to recognize the stress and syllable of a word. Then, you can easily find the answer to your question. Actually, you've marked the feet correctly in those four lines. The only you can do now is put an stress and syllable right? Here...
1. The first line thus will look like this:
˘ ˊ | ˘ ˊ | ˘ ˊ | ˘ ˊ
But could youth last, and love still breed,
Meter
A foot with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one is called an iamb. A line with five feet in it is called pentameter. So, by putting the name for the foot and the name for the line together, you get iambic pentameter.
Iambic pentameter is not the only metrical combination in English. If you wrote poetry with six iambs in each line, you would have iambic hexameter; with four iambs, iambic tetrameter. What’s more, the iamb isn’t the only foot you could use. Here are some other feet:
│ ʹ ᵕ │
Trochee (hopeful): a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable
│ᵕ ᵕ ʹ │
Anapest (in the woods): two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable
│ ʹ ᵕ ᵕ │
Dactyl (promising): a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables
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