Meter and Meaning

Thomas Carper is the author of three volumes of metrical poetry including Distant Blue, recipient of the 2003 Richard Wilbur Award, Fiddle Lane and From Nature. He is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Southern Maine. Derek Attridge is Professor of English at the University of York, UK. He is the author of the highly influential texts on beat prosody, The Rhythms of English Poetry and Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction and has also published books on literary theory, sixteenth-century poetry and twentieth-century fiction.

'This is far and away the most accessible, effective and enjoyable introduction to meter I have come across. I have nothing but admiration for what the writers have done.' - Rob Pope, Oxford Brookes University

• Acknowledgments.  Introduction.  1. Basic Rhythms.  Further Practice.  2. Beats: B , b, [B].  Further Practice.  3. Offbeats: o , O , -o- , [o] , ô.  Further Practice.  4. Scan-ning Poems.  Further Practice.  5. Rhythmic Figures.  6. Names and Labels.  7. Meter and Meaning.  8. Identifying Meters and Stanza-forms.  Where to Go from Here.  Scansion Symbols.  Afterword.  Index