In the word ‘banana’, for example, the central syllable is longer, or stressed, when you say it naturally: ba-na-na. Try saying it out loud to hear where the natural emphasis falls. In poetry ...

“Poetry is so wonderful and yet so unpopular ... the concept of relative stress (that is, the idea that a stressed syllable isn’t really stressed in an absolute sense, just more or less ...

(A dactyl is a group of three syllables where the first is stressed, and the second two are unstressed. So each of these lines is technically a double dactyl, hence the name of this type of poem.) ...

The poem’s individual words and syllables bob like a string of harbor buoys. Every line is propelled by the cadence of stressed and unstressed syllables. Our ears hear four heavy beats.

Poe based the rhythm and meter of “The Raven” on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem “Lady Geraldine ... with each “foot” a trochee—one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed ...

"Could this explain why humans are so sensitive to the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables that make up spoken poetry, or even oral storytelling?" Oganian is a postdoctoral researcher in ...

In the word ‘banana’, for example, the central syllable is longer, or stressed, when you say it naturally: ba-na-na. Try saying it out loud to hear where the natural emphasis falls. In poetry ...