All throughout high school I was always in honors English and later Advanced Placement literature courses. Over time my arsenal of literary technical terms has expanded to the point where I have an acceptable understanding of the most basic and commonly used techniques. Terms like symbolism, irony, foreshadowing and, the like are ideas I understand well enough that I could explain it to another individual.
However rhythmic concepts in poetry have always thrown me for a loop.
Until that groggy morning in the Campus Center not but a week or so ago…
We can all “hear” our language pretty decently. From a linguistics stand point as a native speaker of your language you hear the nuances that those learning English (or whatever language) as a second language do not. You know the sounds of the words because you have been taught as a child how to say a word (though it is different in every region it is still the same idea).
I have always been able to hear the rhythm in a poem but when it came down to dissecting the stanzas I could never place a title comfortably on it. Rhythm I understand, but the sub-characteristics of rhythm (Iambic pentameter, tetrameter etc) I had no idea how to utilize.
This is why I was shocked when in class I totally got it for the first time. Iambic pentameter and putting it in terms of “da DUM” brought on a new understanding of rhythm in poetry for me.
It also at the same time reminded me of the subjectivity of the entire process (seeing as different students place different rhythms in different places in the same poems). A truth that is slightly upsetting to face; although I had acquired a new weapon in poetry it still did not change the fact that it can “kill” it in a variety of arguable ways.
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