STRESS

1. STRESS The Foundation of Meter in Poetry

2. Stress is the emphasis that falls on certain syllables and not others; the arrangement of stresses within a poem is the foundation of poetic rhythm.

3. The process of working out which syllables in a poem are stressed is known as scansion; once a metrical poem has been scanned, it should be possible to see the meter.

4. The word "produce" can be pronounced with the stress on either syllable - a farmer may proDUCE carrots…

5. …which a greengrocer will sell as PRODuce

6. A number of factors influence how a word is stressed in a line of poetry. um-BREL-la One of these is the normal stress of the word

7. Another is the placement of the word in the line, according to the metrical pattern.

8. For example: / / / / The time has come for all to shout. We expect four beats on this iambic tetrameter line, so even words like “all” receive a stress. In the next example, the word will not be stressed…..

9. / / / / All men have ceased to raise their guns. Here, “all” does not receive as much emphasis as men, and falls into the pattern’s unstressed position.

10. Try it! Go back to your poem and add scansion marks over the words that should receive a stress.