Editing Metre (poetry) (section)

==Modern English==
Most English metre is classified according to the same system as Classical metre with an important difference. English is an accentual language, and therefore beats and offbeats (stressed and unstressed syllables) take the place of the long and short syllables of classical systems. In most English verse, the metre can be considered as a sort of back beat, against which natural speech rhythms vary expressively. The most common characteristic feet of English verse are the [[Iamb (foot)|iamb]] in two syllables and the [[anapest]] in three.  (See [[Metrical foot]] for a complete list of the metrical feet and their names.)

===Metrical systems===
The number of metrical systems in English is not agreed upon.<ref>{{Citation|author-link=Robert Wallace (poet)|first=Robert|last=Wallace|year=1993|title=[[Meter in English (essay)]]}} asserts that there is only one metre in English: Accentual-Syllabic.  The essay is reprinted in {{Citation|editor-link=David Baker (poet)| editor-first=David|editor-last=Baker|title=[[Meter in English, A Critical Engagement]]|publisher=University of Arkansas Press|year=1996|isbn=1-55728-444-X}}.</ref> The four major types<ref>{{Citation|author-link=Paul Fussell|first=Paul|last=Fussell|title=[[Poetic metre and Poetic Form]]|publisher=McGraw Hill|orig-year=1965|year=1979|isbn=0-07-553606-4}}.</ref> are: [[accentual verse]], [[accentual-syllabic verse]], [[syllabic verse]] and [[quantitative verse]].{{Sfn|Hollander|1981 |p=5}}  The [[alliterative verse]] found in Old English, Middle English, and some modern English poems can be added to this list, as it operates on somewhat different principles than accentual verse. Alliterative verse pairs two phrases (half-lines) joined by alliteration; while there are usually two stresses per half-line, variations in the number of stresses do occur.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cable |first=Thomas |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.9783/9781512803853 |title=The English Alliterative Tradition |date=1991-12-31 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |doi=10.9783/9781512803853 |isbn=978-1-5128-0385-3}}</ref> Accentual verse focuses on the number of stresses in a line, while ignoring the number of offbeats and syllables; accentual-syllabic verse focuses on regulating both the number of stresses and the total number of syllables in a line; syllabic verse only counts the number of syllables in a line; quantitative verse regulates the patterns of long and short syllables (this sort of verse is often considered alien to English).<ref>{{Citation|author-link=Charles O. Hartman|first=Charles O.|last=Hartman|quote=[quantitative metres] continue to resist importation in English|title=[[Free Verse: An Essay on Prosody]]|year=1996|publisher=Northwestern University Press, 1980|isbn=0-8101-1316-3|page=34}}.</ref> The use of foreign metres in English is all but exceptional.<ref>{{Citation|author-link=Leonardo Malcovati|first=Leonardo|last=Malcovati|title=Prosody in England and Elsewhere: A Comparative Approach|publisher=Gival Press|year=2006|isbn=1-928589-26-X|quote=[very] little of it is native}}.</ref>

===Frequently used metres===
The most frequently encountered metre of English verse is the [[iambic pentameter]], in which the metrical norm is five iambic feet per line, though metrical substitution is common and rhythmic variations are practically inexhaustible. [[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', most [[sonnet]]s, and much else besides in English are written in iambic pentameter. Lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter are commonly known as [[blank verse]].{{Sfn|Hollander|1981 |p=12}}  Blank verse in the English language is most famously represented in the plays of [[William Shakespeare]] and the great works of Milton, though [[Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson|Tennyson]] (''[[Ulysses (poem)|Ulysses]]'', ''[[The Princess (Tennyson poem)|The Princess]]'') and [[William Wordsworth|Wordsworth]] (''[[The Prelude]]'') also make notable use of it.

A rhymed pair of lines of iambic pentameter make a [[heroic couplet]],{{Sfn|Hollander|1981 |p=15}} a [[list of verse forms|verse form]] which was used so often in the 18th century that it is now used mostly for humorous effect (although see ''[[Pale Fire]]'' for a non-trivial case). The most famous writers of heroic couplets are [[John Dryden|Dryden]] and [[Alexander Pope|Pope]].

Another important metre in English is the [[common metre]], also called the "ballad metre", which is a four-line stanza, with two pairs of a line of [[iambic tetrameter]] followed by a line of [[iambic trimeter]]; the [[rhyme]]s usually fall on the lines of trimeter, although in many instances the tetrameter also rhymes.  This is the metre of most of the Border and Scots or English ballads.  In [[hymn]]ody it is called the "common metre", as it is the most common of the named [[meter (hymn)|hymn metres]] used to pair many hymn lyrics with melodies, such as ''[[Amazing Grace]]'':<ref>The [[ballad metre]] commonality among a wide range of song lyrics allow words and music to be interchanged seamlessly between various songs, such as "[[Amazing Grace]]", the "Ballad of [[Gilligan's Island|Gilligan's Isle]]", "[[House of the Rising Sun]]", theme from the ''[[Mickey Mouse Club]]'', and others.</ref>
<blockquote>
:Amazing Grace! how sweet the sound
::That saved a wretch like me;
:I once was lost, but now am found;
::Was blind, but now I see.
</blockquote>
[[Emily Dickinson]] is famous for her frequent use of ballad metre:
<blockquote>
:Great streets of silence led away
:To neighborhoods of pause —
:Here was no notice — no dissent —
:No universe — no laws.
</blockquote>