the pattern of stresses and pauses in a poem.

#The pattern of stresses and pauses in a poem. free

In free verse (poetry without any specific meter or rhyme scheme), line length is determined by the poet's desire to create a particular rhythm, or to place more emphasis on certain words by inserting more space around them. So, a poem written in iambic pentameter (five iambs per line) will have a line break every ten syllables, as in the following example: In formal verse (poetry with a strict meter and rhyme scheme) as well as in blank verse (unrhymed poetry with a strict meter), the poem's meter determines the length of each line by requiring that each line contain a particular number of syllables. For example, iambic pentameter is a type of meter commonly used in poetry that contains five iambs per line (thus the prefix “penta,” which means five). Poetic meters are defined by both the type and number of feet they contain.

For instance, an iamb is a foot with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (de- fine), while a trochee has the opposite: a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable ( Po-et). Meter: A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates the rhythm of lines of poetry.We provide more details about meter on its own page, but offer a quick primer here. For that reason, it's helpful to have a strong grasp of what meter is in order to understand how it informed the use of line breaks. Up until quite recently-beginning in the 19th century-the only accepted way to break a line was according to a poem's meter. The sections that follow cover the basic characteristics and conventions that govern the way line breaks are used in poetry. Because of that, the line could be considered the fundamental unit of poetry, and the line break the marker of these units. For this reason, line breaks conventionally occur where natural pauses in language also occur-such as after punctuation, at the end of a thought, or between distinct images.Įven more than the content of a poem, it is often the line breaks that make a text recognizable to people as poetry-that is to say, recognizable as being distinct from prose, which doesn't use line breaks in the same way. Line breaks serve an important function in setting the rhythm of a poem, since they insert a pause between the final word of one line and the first word of the next line.The location of a line break is often dictated by the number of syllables in the line, but just as often it is freely chosen by the poet.Line breaks divide poems into lines, and the length of lines determines the appearance of the poem on the page: long and skinny, short and wide, or a shape entirely its own.Some additional key details about line breaks: What is a line break? Here’s a quick and simple definition:Ī line break is the termination of one line of poetry, and the beginning of a new line.

The pattern of stresses and pauses in a poem.