Prosody Definition | What is Prosody? - PoetrySoup
Definition
In verse, many meters use a foot as the basic unit in their description of the underlying rhythm of a poem. Both the quantitative meter of classical poetry and the accentual-syllabic meter of most poetry in English use the foot as the fundamental building block. A foot consists of a certain number of syllables forming part of a line of verse. A foot is described by the character and number of syllables it contains: in English, feet are named for the combination of accented and unaccented syllables; in other languages such as Latin and Greek, the duration of the syllable (long or short) is measured.
When scanning a line of verse, a poet looks at feet as the basic rhythmic unit rather than words. A foot can consist of multiple words and a single word can contain many feet; furthermore, a foot can and often does bridge multiple words, containing, for example, the last two syllables of one word and the first of the next. To scan for feet, one should focus on the stream of sound alone and set aside the actual meaning of the words.
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Definition
[n] the study of poetic meter and the art of versification
[n] the patterns of stress and intonation in a language
[n] a system of versification
Prosody is the study of the meter, rhythm, and intonation of a poem.
Synonyms
inflection, poetic rhythm, rhythmic pattern
See Also...
accent, beat, cadence, caesura, delivery, emphasis, enjambement, enjambment, intonation, manner of speaking, measure, meter, modulation, pitch contour, poem, poetics, rhythm, speech, speech rhythm, sprung rhythm, stress, verse form, versification
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