Meter 

I will explain meter in this post. What is meter?

A meter is the ingredient of poetry, and while making the dish of poetry, one needs to know about a meter.

Metre is an important and basic unit of poetry; it is responsible for creating rhythmic poetry.

Now the question is: what is rhythmic poetry? The musical effect in poetry is called rhythm.

We will see in detail the concept of meter and the words associated with it, along with examples.

A meter is an important unit of poetry.We will look into what a meter is made of. A meter is made up of syllables.

The system, arrangement, or order of those syllables makes a meter. The order of syllables determines the kind of metrical foot.

Let’s put it in the form of a diagram.

The number of syllables used shows the type of meter, whereas the arrangement of syllables shows the type of metrical foot.

Untill now, we have discussed what a meter is and what it is made of.

Now we will see syllables that are the key or only ingredient of the meter. We will also explain the types of meters.

Syllables: A word or part of a word having one vowel sound is called a syllable.

There could be one or more than one syllable in a word.

Examples of syllables

1: Cat. The word cat has one syllable, has a vowel sound, and is a word.

2: Water has two syllables, wa and ter.

Wa is a syllable that is part of a word, not a complete word, so it is shown above that a syllable can be a whole world as a cat or a part of a word as wa.

Syllables can be weak or strong. Before moving on to the types of meters, we will talk about a foot or metrical foot.

The foot is a combination of strong and weak syllables.

Strong syllables are longer in terms of length while weak syllables are short in length; strong syllables are stressed while weak syllables are never stressed; strong syllables are syllables that are not pronounced rapidly, whereas weak syllables are said more quickly in a word.

Now we will see types of foot or metrical foot.

1:Iambic

2:Trochee

3:Anapest

4: Dactyl

5:Spondee

6:Pyrrhic

As mentioned earlier, meter is made of weak and strong syllables, and the types are also mentioned. Now let’s move on to the explanation of these types further.

On what basis are these types defined? These are defined by the pattern of weak and strong or stressed and unstressed syllables used.

Examples

When a weak syllable is followed by a strong syllable, it is called iambic.

Troche is a strong syllable followed by a weak syllable.

Anapest is two weak syllables followed by a strong syllable.

Dactyl has strong syllables followed by two weak syllables.

A Spondee is made up of two strong syllables.

Pyrrhic is made of two weak syllables.

Now we will see feet.

The foot is an individual unit of a line of poetry, and the foot is combined to create a meter.

A foot is made up of syllables, and a meter is made of feet, as shown below.

Syllables→ feet→ meter→ rhythm

Two syllables make one foot, and the length of the meter is measured in feet.

Now we will see types of meter. If there is one foot in a poem, it is called a monometer.

Two feet (4 syllables) is dimeter.

Three feet is trimeter

Four feet is tetrameter

Five feet is pentameter

Six feet is hexameter

Seven feet is heptameter

Eight feet is octameter

Finally, we will construct a sort of diagram for the meter.

Meter creates rhythm in a poem; rhythm is the musical effect in a poem.

Syllables_feet_meter_rhythm.

The number of syllables defines the type of meter, for example, a monometer (2 syllables).

The arrangement or order of syllables defines the type of foot, for example, iambi (a weak syllable followed by a strong syllable).

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