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Mètre

French
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The systematic rhythmic pattern of a verse, determined by the count and arrangement of syllables, stresses, or feet. The metrical system is the foundation of classical French versification.

Explore this topic in depth (5)

Metre and Rhythm — Metre gives poetry an underlying pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables; rhythm is the living sound that results when a person reads it. Learn to hear the beat before naming it, and to notice how poets use regularity and variation to make language move.

How to Read a Poem — Poetry is not a puzzle with one hidden answer that only experts can decode. Begin by noticing what a poem actually does: read it, hear it, question it, and return to it.

Metaphysical Poetry — Metaphysical poetry brings love, faith, science, death and the body into unusually close contact. Its poets—especially John Donne, George Herbert and Andrew Marvell—make poems that think aloud, argue fiercely and discover emotional force in surprising comparisons.

Romanticism — Romanticism was not simply a love of nature or strong feeling. It was a varied poetic response to revolution, industrial change, scientific thought and new questions about the individual mind, freedom and humanity’s place in the world.

Sonnet — The sonnet is one of poetry's most enduring forms: compact enough to concentrate thought, yet flexible enough for love, politics, faith, nature and grief. This guide explores its history, structures and variations, with particular attention to the volta—the turn that gives many sonnets their dramatic movement.

Detailed Definition
The mètre is the foundational principle of classical French versification, determining the identity of a verse through its syllable count and the placement of its accents and caesura. Unlike English prosody, which counts stresses, French meter is primarily syllabic, based on the number of syllables in a line. The principal French meters are the alexandrin of twelve syllables, the décasyllabe of ten, and the octosyllabe of eight. The discipline of French metrics, the study of how these meters work in practice, is essential for reading and writing classical French poetry. Modern vers libres liberate poetry from strict metrical counting while often maintaining rhythmic awareness.
Example
Example in poetry:
The French syllabic meter distinguishes it fundamentally from English accentual-syllabic meter: where an English iambic pentameter counts five stresses, a French décasyllabe counts ten syllables, making syllabic count rather than stress pattern the organizing principle of the verse; A student learning French metrics should begin by practicing syllabic counting, including the complex rules about the mute e, diérèse, and synérèse, before attempting to analyze the more subtle rhythmic effects created by accent placement within the syllabic framework; The major French meters form a hierarchy: the twelve-syllable alexandrin dominates tragic, epic, and elevated lyric poetry; the ten-syllable décasyllabe served narrative and some lyric poetry; and the eight-syllable octosyllabe is the meter of lighter narrative and certain lyric forms; Verlaine's prescription of impair (odd-numbered) meters in his Art poétique recommends meters like the nine-syllable or seven-syllable line as alternatives to the even-numbered dominance, seeking rhythmic instability and musical flow over the confident regularity of even syllable counts; The reform of French meter by the Symbolists did not abandon syllabic counting entirely but loosened the strict rules about caesura, hiatus, and the mute e that classical versification had imposed, creating a more flexible syllabic practice that preserved the unit of the line while freeing its internal organization; Modern free verse in French retains an awareness of meter as a reference system even when departing from it: the ghost of the alexandrin haunts even the most liberated contemporary French poetry, giving its departures from regularity their expressive resonance.
Additional Notes
Mètre in French poetry is governed primarily by syllable count rather than stress pattern, making it structurally different from English accentual-syllabic systems. Students should avoid importing English scansion habits uncritically. Understanding metre requires familiarity with pronunciation conventions, diérèse, synérèse, and historical norms. Compare alexandrin, décasyllabe, and octosyllabe. Metre shapes expectation, pacing, and tonal character, serving as an organising framework even when later poets deliberately challenge regularity.
Also Known As
Verse measure Metre Meter Prosody
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