What is common metre?
Hello, dearheart,
Have you heard of iambic pentameter?
Iambic pentameter is a phrase most know has something to do with fancy writing and possibly Shakespeare? but which schools seem to be reluctant to bother actually telling you the meaning of.
An Iamb is a set of two syllables, the first of which is short and the second is long, or 'stressed'. The word 'To-day" is an iamb; Some people describe it as sounding like a footstep, if that helps you at all. (It's worth mentioning I have no idea who these people are, and its entirely possible they haven't seen the outside world in quite a while if they have time to be thinking about it so much.)
Pentameter just means theres five of them.
So! Iambic pentameter is 10 syllables, split into 5 pairs of unstressed-stressed unstressed-stressed, and it all comes together to make a very satisfying sounding rhythmic flow of words. Or it all comes together to leave the writer pulling their hair out trying to figure out how on earth to make anything fit together with more than two syllables, whilst also getting any sort of point across at all.
Common metre does not use iambic pentameter, but! It does flip between iambic tetrameter (4 iambs, or 8 syllables) and trimeter (3 iambs, or 6 syllables). In my opinion, this is even more satisfying to read, especially if you do so aloud.
I became fascinated with Common metre after reading an excerpt from 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' by Oscar Wilde, which I highly recommend (its about being sad in prison and a guy getting hanged, its a brilliant read), and then I read the wiki article about it and found out 'House of the rising sun', 'Amazing Grace', and 'the Pokemon theme' are all written in common metre, and can therefore all be sung to the tune of each other. Which I also recommend. 10/10, very fun.
It turns out its bloody difficult to write in common metre, especially if you haven't read very much of it (like me), but I gave it a go anyway and ended up with the poem in my first (ingeniously named) blog post "a poem in common metre".
I have no idea if I actually succeeded in writing in common metre, or if I conveyed my ideas well, however! I plan to read more, both common metre and poetry in general, and perhaps come back. Whether to analyse my first poem, write another common metre poem, compare my progress, or all of them, I have yet to decide.
For now however, please feel free to criticise it to your hearts content, should the verses all be in a different order? Do I say anything at all worth saying? Do you have better ideas for poetic iambs? I do hope so, and I do hope you will share them with me, as cutting and vitriolic or as kind and compassionate as you like!
All my love,