Rhythm in poetry and song has been used since ancient times to convey meaning and aid memory. Different cultures use rhythm to give their words a musicality, and formal poetry often enforces a particular rhythm. Rhythm also helps with memory and organization of information. Overall, rhythm in poetry increases enjoyment and creates unconscious expectations that can lead to unexpected joy.
Since the dawn of human speech, people have used rhythmic arrangements of words to convey special meanings. The use of rhythm is something poetry and song have in common. In both cases, rhythm contributes to the way meaning is organized and delivered. Rhythm, or meter, helped oral poets remember the next line as they recited, and for both ancient audiences and modern readers, rhythm in poetry contributes to the overall enjoyment of poetry.
As with songs, poets from many cultures writing in a wide variety of traditions use rhythm, or meter, to give their words a musicality. Sometimes, this is evident in a refrain that is rhythmically identical every time it occurs, even though some words may be different. Furthermore, the particular arrangement of short or long syllabic accents can give rhythm in poetry a non-verbal subtext; for example, a line that contains long plodding syllables will sound like a dirge, while one that plays triplets stressing the first sound will sound boisterous and playful.
Many types of formal poetry enforce a particular rhythm within the lines of a poem. For example, a sonnet, by definition, is a 16-line poem composed in iambic pentameter. Pentameter refers to a line of poetry that contains five feet, or beats. Iambs stress every other syllable; a famous example is found in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, which begins, “Shall I compare you to a summer day?” To write a successful poem whose form requires rhythmic coherence is a mark of a poet’s brilliance.
For the ancient Greeks, however, rhythm in poetry served a very practical purpose. Most of their poems were very long narratives recounting events that had happened to many characters over very many years, which meant it could be very difficult to remember the finer points. Certain rhythms helped speakers to group events and ideas together mentally, thus contributing to their ability to remember what came next in the poems. Griots, West African poets who come from both ancient and modern tradition, recount genealogies extending many generations into the past. Information for a multitude of families is stored mentally easier by organizing it rhythmically.
As any child knows, rhythm in poetry increases joy. Just as children love to bounce, dance, and clap along to a favorite poem, adults too find greater pleasure in the poem’s reliable beats and its occasional rhythmic surprises. Patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables create unconscious expectations in a listener or reader. When these expectations are met, it produces a sense of security; when those expectations are turned upside down by an unexpected beat that breaks the beat, it results in unexpected joy.
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