William FitzGerald Fall 2006
English 220 - Introduction to Literary Study

Homework for Friday, September 15:

For this class we continue our exploration of meter and rhyme in English poetry. The following poems are examples of variation in meter:

Blank Verse: "Birches," Frost, p. 802

Common Meter; "With Rue My Heart is Laden," Housman, p. 762

Anapest: "The Lover: A Ballad," Montagu, p. 392

Dactyl: "The Voice," Hardy, p. 750

Accentual: "Dream Variations," Hughes, p. 914

Exercise: Scan the first five or six lines of the poems above to convince yourself of its metrical
scheme and to sense meaningful departures from that scheme.



The following poems are examples of variation in rhyme:

"A Song for St. Cecilia's Day," Dryden, p. 310

"On the Sonnet," Keats, p. 579

"Milkweed and Monarch," Muldoon, p. 1226

Exercise: identify the rhyme scheme for the poems above. Review the coverage on rhyme in
the Essay on Versification, p. 1251


QUIZ: a five minute quiz on metrical forms will be given on Friday, 9/15. You will have to identify several lines of poetry by their meter, e.g, dactylic tetrameter.